Small business website not getting traffic? Check these first

A website with no visitors is usually not “bad at SEO”. Most of the time something simple stops Google from showing it, or the pages do not answer what people actually search for. Work through these in order: each step is cheaper than the next.

1. Can Google see your pages at all?

1. Search Google for site:yourdomain.com. If few or none of your pages appear, fix this before anything else.
2. Set up Google Search Console (free) and verify your domain. Then open Pages to see which pages are indexed and why others are not.
3. Look for “Discovered – currently not indexed” or “Excluded by noindex”. A forgotten “discourage search engines” setting in WordPress, a leftover noindex from the developer’s test site, or a blocking robots.txt are common and quick to fix.
4. Submit your sitemap (often /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml) in Search Console.

Bing Webmaster Tools can import your Search Console setup in a minute, and Bing results also feed some AI assistants.

2. Is each page about one clear thing?

Google shows pages that match a search. A home page that says “Welcome to our website” matches nothing.

• Give every important page one topic and a title that says it: “Emergency plumber in Leeds, open 7 days” beats “Home”.
• Write a meta description that tells people what they get. It does not change your ranking much, but it changes whether people click.
• Create one page per service, not one page listing everything. People search for the service, not your company name.
• Answer real questions customers ask you by email or phone. Those questions are exactly what they type into Google.

3. Is the site fast and usable on a phone?

Google uses Core Web Vitals in ranking, but its own guidance says good scores do not guarantee top positions and chasing a perfect score is not a good use of time. Aim for “good”, not 100:

Measure	Good	What it means
LCP	2.5 s or less	The main content appears quickly
INP	200 ms or less	The page reacts quickly when tapped
CLS	0.1 or less	Nothing jumps around while loading

Check them in Search Console under Core Web Vitals, or on pagespeed.web.dev. The usual fixes on small sites: smaller images, fewer plugins and tracking scripts, and better hosting.

4. Do other places point to you?

• Claim and complete your Google Business Profile if you serve customers locally. For local searches it often matters more than the website.
• Get listed where your customers look: industry directories, your suppliers’ “where to buy” pages, local associations.
• Link your website from your social profiles and email signature.

5. Give it time, and measure

New pages often take weeks to settle in results. Check Search Console once a month: which searches show your site, which pages get clicks, and which pages get seen but not clicked (improve those titles first).

Where I can help

I can run through this list on your site and send you a written report: what blocks indexing, which pages to fix first, and what to leave alone. Fixes that need a developer get a fixed quote. Describe your site and what you sell.