Whenever I launch a new website, I’m often asked – sometimes immediately, sometimes several weeks later – “why can’t I see my website on Google?” The answer is simple: like all of us, Google is very busy! However, you can make a big difference to your search visibility by being proactive and not expecting Google to do all the work.

Allow up to 4 weeks for initial indexing

Firstly, you need to be patient. It can take search engines like Google and Bing up to four weeks to begin listing a new website. In reality, this is usually much faster, but larger sites and online stores can take months for all content to begin appearing on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

There are three key tasks search engines perform:

• Crawling – robots scan content by following links to find web pages, images, videos and files.
• Indexing – the content is added to a huge database ready to be retrieved when someone conducts a search.
• Ranking – results are ordered by how useful the content is to a particular search term.

There are nearly 2 billion active websites online, so Google has a lot of work to do crawling, indexing and ranking each and every page. If your site is relatively new, it may very well be that Google’s bots haven’t found it yet to add it to the database.

The best way to ensure your site is listed is to follow good SEO practice during construction (see our article What the heck is SEO anyway? for more advice on this). This makes it easy for Google to do its job when it comes to indexing and ranking your site.

Submit a sitemap to google search console

You can also give Google a helping hand by submitting an .xml sitemap to Google’s own tool, Search Console. This acts as a polite request for Google to take a look at your website and index it. A sitemap is basically a detailed list of your site’s main content. It tells Google where to find things and helps it to understand the structure of your site – what is most important, which products are in which categories etc.

Search Console offers a range of tools to help you measure your search traffic and overall performance and to fix any issues that may be stopping Google from crawling certain content. You can go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about to set this up and it’s free for site owners to use.

You can add a new sitemap (usually yourdomain.sitemap.xml) and see when Google last read it. It can be helpful to re-submit your sitemap at regular intervals or whenever you’ve submitted new content to your site to let Google know it’s there and ready to be indexed.

Build good quality backlinks

A backlink, or inbound link, is a link to your content from another website. Google uses these as a way of gauging domain “authority” (how useful your website is to users) and is more likely to show sites with a lot of good quality, relevant links at the top of the SERPs.

You can build links to your site from:

• your social media channels
• national, local or niche online directories
• relevant blogs and news sites
• online forums and discussions

Notice the phrases “good quality” and “relevant” above. These are vital to bear in mind as you begin building links. The websites you choose to target for links should be relevant to the topic of your site. For example, a random link on your friend’s flower arranging blog is unlikely to be relevant if your site offers plumbing services. Google will see this as spam and discount it as a viable link. You may even be penalised by dropping down a few SERP positions.

Backlink building is one of the most difficult elements of SEO and involves a fair amount of hard graft to make good connections, create content and ensure links continue to work. Google wants links to be useful to people, so if your chosen backlink is unhelpful, irrelevant or hidden somewhere on a site, you’re probably going to be penalised for placing it there.

Set up google my business

Google My Business is another free tool that is woefully underused by business owners – particularly those with a local focus. Make sure you have a listing set up, or have claimed an listing automatically appearing on Google.

Make sure that your listing is up to date with your contact information, opening hours and website details. You can now also publish regular posts with special offers, updates and links to products or services. These stay active for two weeks and can be seen by users when your business pops up on their search page.

As the product is owned by Google, it’s a no brainer that the information included on your listing will go some way towards demonstrating that your website is active and worthy of showing to users. My Business also plays a vital role in encouraging and monitoring customer reviews, which in recent years have proved to be a major factor in getting sites to the top search positions.

Search engine optimisation takes time and patience, and there is no quick fix to send your site to the top of the SERPs. You will save yourself a lot of frustration by seeing SEO as a long term, continuous process of experimentation and measurement, not a shortcut to immediate success.