5 Reasons Your Website Isn't Ranking (And How to Fix Each One)
You paid good money for a website. It looks nice. But when you search for your services on Google, you're nowhere to be found. What gives?
Here are the five most common reasons local business websites don't rank — and what to do about each one.
1. Your Site Is Too Slow
Google has been using page speed as a ranking factor for years, and it's only gotten more important. If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load on a mobile phone, you're losing both rankings and customers.
How to check: Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your URL.
How to fix it: Compress your images, remove unnecessary plugins, and consider upgrading your hosting. If your site is on a cheap shared hosting plan, that alone could be the problem.
2. You're Not Targeting the Right Keywords
Having a page that says "Our Services" isn't enough. Search engines need specific, location-based content to understand what you do and where you do it.
The fix: Create individual pages for each service you offer, and include your city and service area. Instead of one "Services" page, have pages like "Emergency Plumbing in Austin, TX" and "Water Heater Installation in Round Rock, TX."
3. Your Content Is Thin (or Nonexistent)
If your entire website is five pages with two paragraphs each, search engines don't have enough to work with. They can't determine if you're an expert, and they can't match you to the hundreds of different ways people search for your services.
The fix: Start publishing helpful content regularly. Blog posts that answer common customer questions are gold. "How much does a roof replacement cost in [your city]?" is the kind of content that attracts customers who are ready to buy.
4. Your Technical Foundation Is Broken
There's a whole layer of your website that visitors never see but search engines absolutely do. Things like:
- Missing or duplicate title tags and meta descriptions
- Broken links (404 errors)
- Missing SSL certificate (your URL should start with https://)
- No sitemap submitted to Google
- Slow server response times
The fix: Run a free technical SEO audit (we offer one as part of our Visibility Scorecard). These issues are usually straightforward to fix once you know they exist.
5. You Have No Backlink Authority
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They're like votes of confidence in Google's eyes. If no other website is linking to you, Google has no external signal that your site is trustworthy.
The fix: Get listed in local directories (Yelp, BBB, your local chamber of commerce). Partner with complementary local businesses for cross-promotion. Create content worth linking to — guides, tools, and resources that others in your community would find valuable.
The Common Thread
Notice a pattern? Most of these problems boil down to one thing: your website exists, but it's not working for you. It's a digital brochure instead of a customer acquisition machine.
Fixing these issues takes consistent effort over time. It's not a one-and-done project — it's an ongoing system. That's exactly what we build for our clients at Slingshot Local.