Why doesn’t our website show up on Google for what we sell?

You describe what you sell in your own words, and your customers search in theirs. Google calls words that match a search its most basic sign (opens in a new tab) that a page is relevant. So the fix is to find your customers’ words and build each page around one of their searches.

Where the words go wrong

Pages written from inside your business miss customers’ searches in four ways. Trade terms name the service the way your industry does, not the way customers ask for it. Your own product names mean nothing to people who haven’t heard of you. Slogans fill the headings where the service should be named. And a single page lists every service, so no search has a page of its own.

A facilities firm might head its cleaning page “Soft services” while its customers type “office cleaning company”. As Google’s own starter guide (opens in a new tab) points out, people who know a topic well may search in different words from people new to it. Google matches close words, like “change” and “adjust”, but it can’t be relied on to read “soft services” as office cleaning.

Check Google has the page

First, rule out a bigger problem. In Google Search Console, paste the page’s address into the inspection bar (opens in a new tab) at the top. The result says whether the page is on Google and, if not, why. Typing “site:” and your address into Google won’t settle it, as that search doesn’t always list every page (opens in a new tab) Google has. If the page is missing, fix that first. The rest of this note is about pages Google already has.

Find your customers’ words

Look in four places, in this order.

1. Your sales inbox. Enquiries, quote requests and notes from calls show their words, before they’ve learnt yours.
2. Google’s suggestions. Type those words into Google and see how it finishes the search. The suggestions reflect real searches (opens in a new tab).
3. “People also ask”. The questions Google lists under that heading show how else people ask for the same thing.
4. Search Console, last. Its Performance report (opens in a new tab) covers only searches where your site already appeared, so it can’t show the ones you’re missing.

One search, one page

Give each main search a page of its own. That’s a rule of thumb, not one of Google’s, but one page can’t be the best answer to ten different searches. If two searches bring up several of the same results on Google, one page can serve both.

Then use the page’s search in three places: the page title (the name on the browser tab), the main heading and the first sentence. Google builds the link it shows for your page partly from the title and the page’s headings, its starter guide says. Once in each place is enough. The guide also calls repeating the same words over and over tiring for readers.

Your customers have already told you what to call it. It’s in your inbox, not on your website.