Why isn't my trade website showing up on Google? (and how to fix it)

You paid for a website. You type your trade and your town into Google, scroll, scroll again, and you're nowhere. It's a horrible feeling, and it makes you wonder if the whole thing was a waste of money. The good news: a website not showing on Google is almost always fixable, and usually it comes down to one of about ten plain causes. This is a straight-talking checklist you can work through yourself, no jargon, to find out exactly why your site is hiding and what to do about it.

Before you panic: not showing up and not being on Google are two different problems. One means Google can't find you at all. The other means it has found you but isn't putting you near the top yet. Let's work out which one you've got.

First: are you actually indexed?

Everything starts here. "Indexed" just means Google has your site in its big list of pages. If you're not indexed, nothing else matters, because you can't rank for anything.

How to check: go to Google and type site:yourdomain.co.uk (your real domain, no spaces after the colon). If a list of your pages comes back, you're indexed, so skip ahead to the ranking sections below. If you get nothing, Google doesn't have you yet.

How to fix: set up a free Google Search Console account, verify your site, and submit your sitemap (usually yourdomain.co.uk/sitemap.xml). Then use the URL Inspection tool to "Request indexing" on your main pages. This is the single most useful free tool for any trade website, and most people never set it up.

Is the site simply too new?

If your website went live last week, take a breath. Google needs time to find, crawl and trust a new site. Indexing can take a few days to a few weeks. Actually ranking for competitive searches takes longer, often three to six months.

How to check: when did the site go live? If it's under a month old and the site: search above shows your pages, you're probably fine and just need patience.

How to fix: there's no shortcut, but you can speed things along. Submit it in Search Console, get a few links pointing at it (your Google Business Profile, social pages, supplier directories), and keep adding content. Newness fixes itself; the work you do now decides how fast.

Is something blocking Google by accident?

This one catches people out constantly. While a site is being built, developers add a "noindex" tag or a robots.txt rule that tells Google to stay away. If that's never removed at launch, your site is invisible no matter how good it is.

How to check: in Search Console, look at the Pages (or Coverage) report for anything marked "Excluded by noindex tag" or "Blocked by robots.txt". Or, on your homepage, right-click, "View page source", and search for the word noindex. You can also open yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt in your browser and look for a line saying Disallow: /, which blocks the whole site.

How to fix: remove the noindex tag and any blanket Disallow rule, then request indexing again. If you didn't build the site yourself, this is a five-minute job for whoever did, so ask them to check it.

Have you got a Google Business Profile?

For a local trade, your Google Business Profile is often more important than the website for getting found. It's the free listing that puts you on the map at the top of local searches. No profile means you're missing the most visible spot on the page entirely.

How to check: search your business name plus your town. Is there a listing with your details, a map pin and reviews? If not, you either haven't claimed it or it doesn't exist yet.

How to fix: go to Google Business Profile, claim or create your listing, and get it verified. Set the right category, add your service area, your phone number and some real photos. This alone can put you on page one for "near me" searches within weeks.

Is your content thin, weak or duplicated?

Google ranks pages, not businesses. If your site is one short homepage that says "Welcome, we do plumbing, call us", there's almost nothing for Google to match a search against. Worse, if your site was spun up from a template with the same generic paragraphs as a hundred other trade sites, Google sees duplicate content and ignores it.

How to check: read your own pages honestly. Do they actually describe your services, your areas and answer the questions customers ask? Or are they thin and vague? Paste a sentence into Google in quote marks; if dozens of other sites have the exact same line, it's duplicate boilerplate.

How to fix: write real, specific pages. One per main service, written in your own words, mentioning the towns you cover. This is the same thinking behind getting more leads from your website: pages that answer real questions both rank better and convert better.

Are you missing local signals?

For trades, Google wants proof you're a genuine local business. Reviews, a consistent name, address and phone number across the web, and listings on the directories your trade uses. Without those local signals, you'll struggle to rank for anything tied to a place.

How to check: search your business name on a few sites (Checkatrade, Yell, Facebook). Is your name, address and phone written identically everywhere? Do you have recent reviews? Patchy or missing means weak signals.

How to fix: get your details identical across every listing, ask every happy customer for a Google review the day you finish the job, and list on the directories that matter for your trade. There's a full breakdown in our local SEO guide for tradespeople.

Is your site slow or broken on mobile?

Most of your customers search on a phone, often in a hurry. Google knows this and ranks the mobile version of your site first. If it's slow to load, or text and buttons are a mess on a small screen, Google holds you back and visitors leave before they call.

How to check: open your own site on your phone. Does it load fast? Can you read everything and tap the call button without pinching and zooming? Run your homepage through Google's PageSpeed Insights for a hard number.

How to fix: a fast, mobile-first build isn't optional any more, it's the foundation. Heavy images, bloated page builders and cheap hosting are the usual culprits. If yours is sluggish, that's worth fixing before anything else, because speed feeds both rankings and bookings.

Have you got any links pointing to you?

Backlinks, other websites linking to yours, are still one of the ways Google decides who to trust. A brand new site with zero links has nothing telling Google it's credible. You don't need hundreds; for a local trade a handful of relevant ones goes a long way.

How to check: think about who already mentions you online. Suppliers, trade bodies, your Google profile, local directories, that customer who runs a blog. If the answer is "nobody", that's the gap.

How to fix: get listed on the obvious directories, link from your social profiles, ask suppliers or manufacturers whose products you fit if they have an installer page. Steady, genuine links beat any quick scheme that promises hundreds overnight.

Are you targeting terms that are simply too broad?

Here's a hard truth. If you're a one-van electrician hoping to rank for "electrician" with no town attached, you're competing with the whole country, and you won't win. Broad terms are brutally competitive and often not even what your customers type.

How to check: what are you actually searching to test yourself? If it's a single broad word with no location, that's your problem. Real customers search "emergency electrician Bolton" or "fuse box replacement near me", not just "electrician".

How to fix: target the specific, local searches you can realistically win. Service plus town beats one broad word every time, and the people searching them are far closer to picking up the phone.

Branded versus generic: which are you really testing?

This trips up a lot of people who think they're invisible when they're not. There are two kinds of search, and they behave completely differently.

Search type	Example	What it tells you
Branded	"Smith & Sons Plumbing Derby"	If this shows you, you're indexed and fine. Almost nobody competes for your name.
Generic	"plumber Derby"	Far more competitive. Not ranking here yet is about strength, not being missing.

If your business name brings you up but your services don't, that's actually good news: you're on Google, and the job now is climbing the competitive searches with reviews, real service pages and local signals. That's a very different problem from not being indexed at all, and a far more hopeful one.

Still stuck? It might be the website itself

If you've worked through all of the above and you're still nowhere, the website itself may be the issue: built on a slow platform, never set up for search, or thrown together as a digital business card with no real pages to rank. A proper website beats a Facebook page precisely because it can be found, but only if it's built to be. At Tez Earth we build fast, mobile-first sites for UK tradespeople with the indexing, service pages and local signals search actually needs, and we take one client per trade, per area, so we're never trying to rank you and a competitor for the same searches. If you'd rather work through it yourself, the checklist above is genuinely most of what you need. Start at the top.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check if my website is on Google at all?

Type site:yourdomain.co.uk into Google using your real domain. If pages from your site come back, you're indexed and the problem is ranking, not indexing. If nothing comes back, Google hasn't added your site yet, so set up Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and request indexing.

How long before a new trade website shows up on Google?

Indexing can take a few days to a few weeks. Actually ranking for the searches you care about usually takes three to six months, sometimes longer in competitive towns. A brand new site that isn't showing yet is often just too new rather than broken.

Why does my site show for my business name but not my services?

That's normal and it means you are indexed. Ranking for a generic, competitive search like "plumber Leeds" is far harder than ranking for your own brand name, which almost nobody competes for. You need stronger local signals, dedicated service pages and reviews to climb on the competitive terms.

Could my website be blocking Google by accident?

Yes, and it's common. A leftover noindex tag or a robots.txt rule from when the site was being built can keep Google out completely. Check coverage in Google Search Console, or view your page source for a noindex meta tag, and remove anything blocking the pages you want found.

Do I need to pay Google to appear in search results?

No. The normal blue links and the map results are free. You only pay for the ads at the very top, which are clearly labelled "Sponsored". If your site isn't showing in the free results, the fix is technical and content based, not paying Google.