9 Reasons Your Business Isn't Showing Up on Google
Usually it isn't the algorithm. It's something on your profile you haven't looked at in a year.
By Lance Wagner · Published · Last Updated
Why isn't my business showing up on Google?
Most local businesses don't show up because of three things: an unclaimed or wrongly categorized Google Business Profile, not enough recent reviews, or no page on their site for the service being searched. Fix those before you look at anything else.
Local search rewards businesses that look active, relevant and close by. Miss one of those and you disappear.
Nine reasons, starting with the ones you can fix this week.
1Your profile isn't claimed or verified
An unclaimed profile means Google is filling in the blanks with whatever it can find, and nobody is correcting it.
Claim it, verify it, and check every field.
2Your primary category is wrong
This is the single most powerful field on the profile, and most businesses picked it once and never revisited it.
Your primary category should describe the thing you most want to be found for, not the broadest bucket you fit into.
3You don't have enough recent reviews
Volume matters. Recency matters more than people expect. A business with 40 reviews from this year usually beats one with 200 from 2019.
Ask every happy customer, the same way, every time. That's the whole strategy.
4You never reply to reviews
Replies signal an active business, and they're the only chance you get to respond to a bad review in public without sounding defensive.
Short, human, no templates.
5You're outside the search radius
Map results are heavily influenced by where the searcher is standing. If your storefront sits on the edge of the metro, you won't show up downtown.
That's not fixable by fiddling with settings. It's fixable with service pages, local content and paid search covering the areas the map won't give you.
6You have no page for that service
If somebody searches for a specific service and your site only lists it in a bullet point, you gave the algorithm nothing to rank.
One page per service. Real detail, not filler.
7Your details don't match across the web
Old addresses and dead phone numbers on directories create doubt. Doubt costs rankings.
Pick the exact format of your name, address and phone, then make everything match.
8Your site is slow on a phone
Almost all local search happens on a phone. A site that takes six seconds to load loses people before it loses rankings.
Compress the images. That's usually 80 percent of the fix.
9The profile looks abandoned
No new photos, no posts, unanswered questions, hours that were right two years ago.
Google is trying to send people somewhere that's open and real. Give it evidence.
The short version
- Primary category and recent reviews do most of the heavy lifting.
- Build a page for every service you sell.
- Proximity limits what the map can do for you. Plan around it.
- An active profile beats a perfect one that never changes.
Questions people ask
- How long does it take to show up in local search?
- Profile fixes like category and hours can move things in days. Review volume and service pages take a few months of consistency.
- Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?
- Yes. The profile decides whether you appear. The website decides whether they pick you and what else you can rank for.
Keep reading
Looking for industry and city specific advice? That lives in Two Cents.