Why isn't my company showing up on Google?
There are about seven reasons this happens, and most of them take minutes to fix once you know which one applies. Before reading any further, run the two checks below. They take a minute and they narrow it down immediately. No technical knowledge needed.
Check 1 — does Google know your site exists?
Go to Google and type this, using your own address:
site:yourcompany.comNo space after the colon. If Google shows a list of your pages, it has found your site. If it says no results, it has not, and reason 2, 3 or 4 below is yours.
Check 2 — can people find you without knowing your name?
Search for what you sell plus your city. Not your company name — that is the mistake everyone makes.
garment buying house DhakaIf your company appears when you search your own name but never when you search what you actually do, you are indexed but invisible. That is reason 5, and it is the most common situation of all.
1. You don't have a website, only a Facebook page
Common, and worth stating plainly. A Facebook page can appear in Google results, but it competes poorly, you cannot control what it says, and it disappears if the platform decides it should.
How you know: searching your company name shows your Facebook page and nothing else.
What to do: this is the one on the list that needs a real project rather than a fix. What a business website actually involves covers what is required.
2. The site is new and Google hasn't got to it yet
Google finds new websites by following links and reading a file called a sitemap. On a brand-new site with nothing pointing at it, this can take days or a few weeks.
How you know: the site went live recently and Check 1 returned nothing.
What to do: ask your developer to set up Google Search Console and submit the sitemap. It is free, takes ten minutes, and it is the difference between days and weeks. If they do not know what Search Console is, that tells you something.
3. Your site is telling Google to stay away
This one is worth reading carefully, because it is far more common than it should be and it is invisible from the outside.
WordPress has a setting called Discourage search engines from indexing this site. Developers switch it on while building, so the half-finished site does not appear in search. Then they forget to switch it off at launch.
The result is a finished, working, invisible website. I have found this on sites that had been live for over a year while the owner wondered why nothing was happening.
How you know: the site works perfectly for visitors, but Check 1 returns nothing.
What to do: in WordPress, go to Settings → Reading and make sure that box is unticked. Then ask for the sitemap to be submitted in Search Console. If it was ticked, you have just found your answer.
4. Your pages are pictures, not text
Some sites are designed in Photoshop and exported as one large image per page. It looks fine to a human. Google cannot read a word of it, so as far as search is concerned the page is blank.
How you know: open your homepage and try to select the text with your mouse, or long-press it on a phone. If you cannot highlight it, it is a picture.
What to do: the pages need rebuilding as real text. Not a small fix, but until it is done nothing else will help.
5. You are findable, but only if someone already knows your name
This is where most established companies actually sit, and it is the one that costs the most money.
Your site is indexed. Search your company name and there you are, first result. The problem is that almost nobody searches your company name. They search what they need — "packaging supplier Chattogram", "orthopedic doctor Dhanmondi", "leather goods exporter Bangladesh". If those words do not appear anywhere on your site, Google has no reason to show you.
How you know: Check 2 above. Your name works, your category does not.
What to do: the most common cause is that everything you offer sits on one page. If you have six services described in six lines on the homepage, Google sees one page about six things and ranks it for none of them. Six separate pages, each written properly about one service, is usually the entire fix.
Second: use the words your customers use. If buyers say "buying house" and your site says "sourcing solutions provider", you will not be found. Write how they speak, not how a brochure speaks.
6. You are not on Google Maps
When someone searches a business category near them, Google usually shows a map with three businesses above everything else. Those come from Google Business Profile, which is a separate free thing from your website.
How you know: search your category plus your area and look at the map box. If competitors are there and you are not, you have no profile.
What to do: set one up at google.com/business. It takes twenty minutes, costs nothing, and Google posts a card to your address to verify it. For any business with a physical location or a local service area, this is the highest-return twenty minutes available.
7. Your competitors are simply doing more
Sometimes nothing is broken. Your site is fine, indexed, readable. The companies above you have just been at it longer, have more pages, more links from other sites, and keep publishing.
How you know: you appear on page two or three rather than nowhere.
What to do: this is the slow one. More useful pages, answering real questions your customers ask, published steadily. It compounds, and there is no shortcut worth buying.
What to do this week
- Run Check 1. One minute, and it splits the problem in half.
- Look at Settings → Reading in WordPress if you have access. Thirty seconds, and it might be the whole answer.
- Set up Google Business Profile. Twenty minutes, free, and it works whether or not the rest is fixed.
- Ask your developer to set up Search Console and send you access. It shows exactly what people search before they reach you, which is worth having regardless.
- Run Check 2 and write down the words your customers would actually type. That list is the brief for whatever you do next.
Two things that are not the answer
Paying to be "submitted to 500 search engines". There are not 500 search engines that matter, and submission is not how Google works. It is a service sold to people who do not know that.
Anyone guaranteeing you the number one spot. Nobody can guarantee a position on Google, because nobody controls it. A guarantee is a sign to stop the conversation.
Questions people ask
How long should it take once it's fixed?
Getting indexed at all: days to a couple of weeks. Ranking for the words that bring you business: months, and it depends on your competition. Anyone promising results in a fortnight is describing the first thing and charging for the second.
Do I need to pay Google?
No. Normal search results are free and cannot be bought. Google Ads is a separate product that puts you at the top of the page marked "Sponsored" for as long as you keep paying. Both are legitimate; they are not the same thing, and paying for ads does not improve your normal ranking.
My site is in English. Should it be in Bangla to rank here?
Match your customers, not the country. If your buyers search in Bangla, you need Bangla content. If they are corporate purchasers or overseas importers, English is what they type.
Can I check any of this myself, or do I need a developer?
Checks 1 and 2, the WordPress setting, and Google Business Profile are all things you can do yourself in under an hour, and I would rather you did. What needs a developer is fixing what those checks reveal.
Is it worth it for a business that gets clients by referral?
Referrals still Google you before they call. What they find when they do is the question, and an empty result is an answer they will notice.
Not sure which of the seven is yours?
Send me your website address. I'll run the checks and tell you which one it is, in plain language, at no cost. Whether you hire me afterwards is a separate conversation.