It's the most common thing we hear: "We paid for a nice website and nobody can find it." Usually there's nothing wrong with the site as such. It loads, it looks fine, the contact form works. It just doesn't answer the questions people are typing into Google.
One page can't rank for everything
A homepage that says "we do plumbing, gas fitting, drainage and hot water across the region" is trying to be the answer to a dozen different searches at once. Google would much rather send someone searching for a hot water cylinder replacement to a page that is entirely about hot water cylinder replacement.
The fix is boring and it works: one page per service, written properly, with the words people actually use. "Hot water cylinder" and "hot water heater" are different searches. So are "roofer" and "roof repairs".
Google doesn't know where you work
If your suburbs only appear in a list in the footer, Google has very little to go on. Searches for local services are mostly local, so the sites that win tend to say clearly, in the body of the page, which towns and suburbs they cover and what that looks like on the ground.
The site is slow on a phone
Most people looking for a local business are on their phone, often on patchy reception. A page that takes ages to show anything loses them before they've read a word. Heavy page builders, huge images and a stack of plugins are the usual culprits.
What to fix first
- Give every main service its own page, with a clear heading that matches how people search for it.
- Say where you work, in sentences, not just a list of suburbs.
- Check your site on your own phone, on mobile data, from somewhere with one bar.
- Set up Google Search Console so you can see what people actually searched before they found you.
None of this is magic, and anyone who promises you the top spot on Google is guessing. But a site built around real searches gives Google something to work with, which is more than most small business sites do.
