What are some reasons for my website to not show up in Google?
I am a real estate agent in Maine and I created my website a couple weeks ago but when I search for it in Google I do not come up. Am I missing something?
Jimmy’s Answer
Why am I not showing up in Google? This is a very common question. Many people are under the misconceptions that 1) a site will immediately appear in the Google rankings after it is placed online and 2) Simply having a page online is all that is needed to rank high for your desired search terms.
I could write a thousand pages on search engine optimization and how to climb to the top of the rankings. The following should answer your question “Why am I not showing up in Google?” but I also encourage you to continue your research and read everything you can on how search engines work and what you can do to climb the rankings.
The first thing you must consider is what words Google sees on and in your pages. It is common for people to wonder why a certain search term does not bring up their site in Google while that search term actually doesn’t even appear on the pages of the site. Google is an amazing tool that allows a user to search billions of pages in seconds. However, Google is not magic. Google can not rank your site for search terms if you do not have those words on your pages and in your code. If the search term you are targeting is “Maine Real Estate agent” you should be sure to have “Maine Real Estate Agent” throughout your site. Some important places to have these words are 1) in your title tag, 2) description tag, 3) body of your website 4) h1 and h2 tags.
Placing targeted keywords and phrases in your pages and making your site search engine friendly is known as on page search engine optimization. Once your site is search engine optimized Google will need to find out your site exists. You may ask yourself again, Why I am I not showing up in Google?
Google is constantly crawling the internet reading pages, storing a cache of them for their search tool and following links to other pages. When a person does a search in Google, the site does not search every page across the internet and then spit back results. Instead, the search engine looks in its database of cached pages. If Google has not crawled and cached your site, it will not appear in the search results.
The best way to get your site crawled is to get other websites to link to your pages. The next time Google crawls the pages that link to your site it will crawl onto your site and cache your pages.
If you have your targeted keywords throughout your pages and Google has a cache of your site you will then start appearing in Google search results. However, this does not necessarily mean you will be on the first page of search results.
Once Google knows your pages exist your search engine optimization mission has just begun. To appear above your competition you will need to build more links to your site from other websites and continue ongoing search engine optimization strategy. When searching for “Maine Real Estate Agent” in Google the search results produce 456,000 + pages. To appear top 10 you will need to have better on and off page search engine optimization than the rest of the pages. Best of Luck!
