Why Is My Trade Business Not Showing Up on Google?

You search for your own trade in your own town and you are nowhere. Meanwhile a firm you know does worse work is sat at the top. It is one of the most frustrating things about running a trade business, and there is almost always a plain reason for it.

Here are the seven most common ones, roughly in the order we would check them.

1. You do not have a Google Business Profile, or it is not verified

The map results at the top of a local search come from Google Business Profiles, not websites. If you have never set one up, you cannot appear there. If you set one up but never finished verifying it, it is not live. Search for your exact business name. If no panel appears on the right of the results, this is your first job. Our setup checklist walks through it.

2. Your profile is in the wrong category

Google leans heavily on your primary category. A heating engineer listed as "Contractor" is competing for the wrong searches. Pick the most specific category that fits your main work, then add the others as secondary categories.

3. Your website does not say what you do, where

Google reads words. If your home page says "quality workmanship and a friendly service" and never says "electrician in Bolton", Google has to guess. Every service you want work for should be named clearly on the site, along with the towns you cover.

4. Everything is crammed onto one page

A single page that lists twelve services will struggle against a competitor with a full page about each one. Someone searching for "flat roof repair" is best matched by a page about flat roof repair. See what pages a trade website should have.

5. You have few reviews, or old ones

Reviews are part of what Google calls prominence. Three reviews from 2021 will not beat forty recent ones. This is the easiest thing on the list to fix yourself, and we cover it in how to get more Google reviews.

6. Your details do not match

If your business name, address and phone number are written differently on your website, your Google profile, Facebook and old directory listings, Google is less sure they are all the same business. Pick one exact version and use it everywhere.

7. Your site is new, or nobody has touched it in years

A brand new site takes time to be trusted. A site that has not changed since it was built slowly loses ground to ones that keep growing. Either way the answer is the same: steady work, month after month. Here is how long that usually takes.

Where to start

Fix them in order. A verified, complete Google profile comes first because it is free and it is what puts you on the map. Then make sure your website names your services and your area clearly. Then reviews. If you would rather someone did all of it for you, that is exactly what FOUND does.