When a business owner tells us ‘we’re not on Google’, it is almost never a mystery. We open the site, check the same five things, and one or two of them are always broken. None of them require a big budget. They do require someone to actually look.
Fix one and two: tell Google what you do and where
Open your homepage and read the title in the browser tab. If it says ‘Home’ or just your business name, that is problem one. Google leans heavily on that title and your main heading to understand what the page is about. ‘Smith & Sons’ tells it nothing. ‘Smith & Sons | Roofing and Gutters in Waukesha, WI’ tells it everything. Do the same for every service page: one page per service, one clear title each, the city name included where it is honest to do so.
Problem two is location. If your address, phone number and hours are only in an image or a PDF, Google cannot read them. Put them in plain text in the footer of every page, make sure they match your Google Business Profile exactly (same spelling, same suite number, same phone format), and add a short paragraph on the homepage that says which towns you actually serve. Consistency is the whole game here. Small mismatches quietly cost you trust with the algorithm.
Fix three and four: speed and mobile
Run your site through Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool on the mobile tab. If the score is red, Google is already ranking you lower than a faster competitor with worse content. The usual culprits are huge uncompressed photos, a slider on the homepage, and a pile of plugins nobody remembers installing. Then pick up your phone and try to book or call from your own site. If it takes more than two taps, or you have to pinch and zoom, that is fix four. Most of your visitors are on a phone, and Google measures your site as a phone user.
Compress every image and delete the homepage slider
Phone number and booking reachable in two taps
Aim for a green mobile score in PageSpeed Insights
Fix five: claim and finish your Google Business Profile
For local searches, the map listing often matters more than the website. Claim your profile, pick the most specific primary category (not ‘Contractor’ but ‘Roofing contractor’), fill in every service, add real photos every month, and answer every review, including the bad ones. Then link the profile to the right page on your site, not just the homepage.
Do these five things and give it sixty to ninety days. That is roughly how long Google takes to notice and re-rank a small site. If you want a second set of eyes, we run this exact check for free. Send us your address and we will tell you what we find, whether or not you hire us.
Related: our SEO and performance service. Want us to look at your site? Get a free audit and we will tell you exactly what we would change, whether or not you hire us.
