You paid for a website, you type your business name into Google, and there it is. Then you type "roofer" plus your town and it's nowhere. That's the most common version of this question I get, and the short answer is that showing up for your own name and showing up for your trade are two completely different things.
Why does my business show up for my name but not my trade?
When someone searches your business name, there's only one right answer, so Google finds you even with a weak site. When they search "roofer in" their town, Google is picking between every roofer that covers that town, and it ranks the ones that make it easiest to tell what they do and where they do it.
Most small business sites make that hard. There's one homepage that says something like "quality service you can trust," a contact page and maybe a gallery. Nothing on the site tells Google which jobs you do or which towns you work in, so it doesn't send those searches your way.
How long does a new website take to show up?
If your site is brand new, part of the answer is time. Google has to find the site, read it and decide it's worth showing, and for a site it's never seen before that usually takes a few weeks. Calls from search tend to show up in month two or three, and anybody who promises page one in a week is guessing.
What the sites that show up have in common
The sites that show up for trade searches usually have a page for each service, real photos of their work, the towns they serve written out, and the same name, address and phone number everywhere. They load fast on a phone, and they're connected to a Google profile that's filled out and active.
None of that is fancy. But it all has to be done on purpose, and most sites were built to look nice and never built to be found.
One thing to try this week
Search for your trade, not your name.
- Open Google on your phone and type your trade plus a town you serve.
- Scroll past the map and see whether your website shows up anywhere on the first page.
- Click the top two websites that do and look at how many pages they have about specific jobs compared with yours.
When someone searches your trade in your town, what do they find?
Common questions
- How long does it take for a new website to show up on Google?
- Usually a few weeks for Google to find and start showing a new site, and two to three months before it brings steady calls from search.
- Why does my business show up for my name but not my trade?
- A name search has one right answer, so Google finds you easily. A trade search has dozens of possible answers, and Google picks the sites that clearly show what they do and where.
- Do I need a separate page for each service?
- It helps. A page about one job gives Google a clear match when someone searches for that job.