Why Is My Business Not Showing Up On Google?

Google My Business is a great tool for businesses, especially in terms of small business SEO. In fact, if your business is on Google My Business, a simple Google search should return your business profile. But if searching for the relevant keywords does not return your business in SERPs (Search Engine Results Page), it’s a problem! So, if you’re wondering, ‘why is my business not showing up on google?’, don’t worry because we know what might be wrong.

Reasons Your Business Is Not Showing In Google Search

So, if your business is not appearing in google search, there could be several explanations. However, we’re going to discuss the most likely reasons so that you can actually progress to a solution. 

#1 Your Google My Business Listing Is Not Verified

If you don’t know if your Google My Business listing is verified, don’t worry. The easiest way is to simply search for your business name and city and it should appear on the right side in google search. If there’s also an option of ‘own this business?’, it means your listing is not verified. And this matters because non-verified listings have very bleak chances of appearing in search results if at all- and that really can’t be good for small business SEO. Simply put, non-verified listings are not eligible to appear in search results and even more so in hyper-competitive markets. But all is good because verifying your Google My Business listing is a piece of cake! All you need to do is request a postcard to be sent to your business address, and once you receive it, enter the verification code in your Google My Business listing- and voila! Your listing is now verified.

#2 No Location Authority

When it comes to small business SEO, you will need to do a lot more than just verifying your Google My Business listing- and that includes building location authority for your brand. You see, the secret to ranking on Google maps is location authority. With sufficient location authority, you can increase your business’s service radius, which really just means that your business can be found even 10 miles away from your physical address. 

So, how do you build location authority?

Well, it depends on accuracy and consistency. Hence, your Google My Business listing must match your business citations across the web. But what is a google maps citation, you ask? It is the information that you distribute about your business on the web, and it includes business name, address, city, zip code, phone number, and URL. Also, when building citations, you need to focus on sites that matter- ones that are relevant to your industry as well as your location.

#3 Google My Business Suspended

A small business’s worst nightmare is abruptly disappearing from google search overnight. Yet, it is actually more common than you think. For a business that was previously ranking in google search but is now nowhere to be found, its Google My Business listing is most likely 'suspended.' Why, you ask? Well, unfortunately, Google will not tell you why, and thus, you must try to figure it out on your own.

However, these are some of the most probable reasons for a Google My Business listing suspension:

• You updated business information but forgot to verify it.
• You keyword stuffed your listing title.
• Google is suspicious of your physical location.
• You don’t have a physical location but didn’t hide your street number from Google maps.
• You are operating via a virtual office like a USP Store # or a PO box.
• You included a forwarding URL as the reference URL in your listing.

Now, if you find yourself facing suspension, you should call Google Local Help through your Google My Business dashboard. Find Google AdWords support and select the option of Google My Business to resolve the issue.

#4 Relocated Business

If you relocated your business and updated your listing to match- that's great! However, some companies don't update their address, to begin with. Thus, when they suddenly add a new address that doesn't match pre-existing citations, it will likely result in listing suspension. Therefore, the simple solution is to keep your listing updated at all times. And if you happen to edit any information later, as in the case of a relocation, make sure to reverify your Google My Business to avoid any problems.

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#5 Localized Service & Product Pages

The last point, which is arguably the most important for markets where Google My Business results don’t populate is localized service and product pages. An example of this page could be for a local plumbing service, we’ll call them Prince Plumbing. Prince Plumbing is based out of Arlington Heights, Illinois. 

On Prince Plumbing’s website, the main page has all the right information for SEO rankings (a good title name for the home page, good descriptions of the page, some keywords included, fast page speeds and good mobile responsiveness - all things that are important to SEO in 2021). 

Unfortunately, however, Prince Plumbing isn’t ranking when users search “Arlington Heights Plumbing Service”. A great option here would be to make a site page titled “Arlington Heights Plumbing Service” which talks about Prince Plumbing’s service, the Arlington Heights area, and why Prince’s business is the best around! 

Google heavily ranks pages that match specific intent, especially if the rest of the site fits that content as well as has frequent blog posts about the topic at hand (plumbing). 

An example of this was a client we had, BonoFires. They deliver firewood to local markets around Chicago, and if you look up “River Forest Firewood Delivery” they come up third! This is without a Google My Business listing and just a homepage. Localized Service and Product pages can be a key differentiating factor for your business, and not one to easily forget!

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The Bottomline

If you know a thing or two about small business SEO, you’ll know that Google My Business is a big deal in helping your business reach a wider audience as well as having localized product and service pages. But what if your business just randomly disappears from google search results? Well, then you need to determine the reason and work out an appropriate solution. So, just follow the above guide and you should be good to go!

We hope you enjoyed this blog post. If you have any questions about SEO, Google My Business or how to get more traffic and sales online - we’re your guys. Hit up our contact form or schedule a chat here, we’d love to hear from you. 

Until next time!

- The Wivisor Team