5 reasons your website isn't ranking on Google

1. Your website is too slow

This is the most common problem we see. A site that takes five or six seconds to load on mobile is dead in the water. Google has been using page speed as a ranking factor for years, and it matters more now than ever.

The usual culprits:

• Massive images — a 4MB hero image that hasn't been compressed or converted to WebP
• Too many plugins — WordPress sites with 30+ plugins, each adding its own JavaScript and CSS files
• Cheap hosting — shared hosting with servers in the US when your customers are in Manchester
• Bloated page builders — Elementor, Divi, and similar tools add enormous amounts of code to do simple things

Test your site at pagespeed.web.dev. If your mobile score is under 50, speed is hurting your rankings. A well-built site should score 90+.

2. Your pages don't target specific search terms

This is the big one. Most business websites have a homepage, an about page, a services page, and a contact page. The services page lists everything the business does in one long page. That's a problem.

Google ranks individual pages, not websites. If you're a plumber in Salford who does boiler repairs, bathroom installations, and emergency callouts, you need a separate page for each service. Each page should target a specific search term:

• "Boiler repair Salford" — dedicated boiler repair page
• "Bathroom installation Salford" — dedicated bathroom page
• "Emergency plumber Salford" — dedicated emergency page

One "Services" page trying to rank for all three will rank for none. This applies to solicitors, accountants, restaurants, retailers — every type of business. Specific pages for specific services.

3. Google can't properly crawl your site

Your site might be invisible to Google without you knowing it. Common technical issues:

• No sitemap submitted — Google Search Console lets you submit a sitemap so Google knows about all your pages. If you haven't done this, do it today.
• Noindex tags — some WordPress themes or staging setups add a "noindex" tag that tells Google not to index your pages. Check your page source for <meta name="robots" content="noindex">.
• Broken internal links — if pages link to URLs that don't exist, Google gets confused about your site structure.
• No SSL certificate — if your site loads as http:// instead of https://, Google penalises it. SSL should be free with any hosting.

Sign up for Google Search Console (it's free) and check the "Pages" report. It'll tell you exactly what Google can and can't see.

4. You have no backlinks or local citations

Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They're one of Google's strongest ranking signals. If no other site on the internet links to yours, Google has no reason to trust you.

You don't need hundreds of backlinks. For a local business, a handful of quality ones makes a real difference:

• Google Business Profile — set this up and link it to your website. This is the single most important thing for local ranking.
• Local directories — Yell, Thomson Local, Bing Places, Apple Maps. Make sure your name, address, and phone number are consistent everywhere.
• Industry directories — Law Society for solicitors, ICAEW for accountants, your local Chamber of Commerce.
• Suppliers and partners — if a supplier has a "our partners" page, ask them to link to your site.

Don't buy backlinks. Don't use link farms. Google is very good at spotting this and it'll do more harm than good.

5. Your content is too thin

Google wants to rank pages that genuinely help the searcher. A service page with two sentences and a stock photo isn't helpful. It's a placeholder.

Each important page on your site should have at least 300-500 words of real, useful content. Not waffle. Not keyword stuffing. Actual information that helps someone decide whether to use your service.

For a solicitor's conveyancing page, that means explaining the process, typical timescales, what's included, and what to expect. For a restaurant, it means the full menu, dietary options, and what makes your food worth a visit. For an accountant, it means the types of businesses you work with and what your service actually covers.

Write for humans first. If it's useful to a real person, it'll rank. If it's written for Google, it won't — because Google is now smart enough to tell the difference.

How to check all five at once

You can audit most of this yourself in about thirty minutes:

• Speed: pagespeed.web.dev — check your mobile score
• Crawling: Google Search Console — check the Pages report
• Search terms: Search your business type + location on Google. Are you there? Which pages rank?
• Backlinks: Search "site:yourdomain.co.uk" and see how many pages are indexed
• Content: Visit your own site on your phone. Would you stay? Does each page tell you something useful?

If you find problems in two or more of these areas, your ranking issues aren't a mystery. They're a to-do list.