Your SEO Is Probably Working, You Just Do Not Know It Yet

I talk to a lot of small business owners who are frustrated with their Google rankings. They are putting money into a website, maybe paying for some kind of marketing service, and they still feel invisible online. I get it. It is deflating when you search your own business and feel like you are buried.

But here is the thing I keep running into: a lot of these businesses are actually doing pretty well. They just do not have the right tools or context to see it.

So let me walk you through how I look at this stuff, what actually matters for local search, and what you can do right now to keep improving.

Step One: Check Your Website's Technical SEO

The first thing I do when someone asks me about their Google rankings is run their site through Google Lighthouse. It is a free tool built by Google that audits your website for performance, accessibility, and SEO.

You can access it directly here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Just paste your website URL in and hit analyze. You will get a score from 0 to 100 for several categories. For SEO specifically, you want to be in the 90s or ideally at 100. If your score is low, the tool will actually tell you exactly what is wrong and what to fix, which is genuinely useful.

If your score is already high, that is a good sign. It means the technical foundation of your site is solid and Google can read and index it properly. A perfect SEO score on Lighthouse does not guarantee top rankings on its own, but a bad score will definitely hold you back.

Step Two: Search Like a Customer, Not Like Yourself

This is where a lot of people get confused. When you Google your own business from your own phone, Google is personalizing those results based on your location, your search history, and the fact that you have probably visited your own site before. You are not seeing what a stranger sees.

To get a more accurate picture, try searching from a different device or use an incognito window. Even better, think about where your customers are actually searching from. If you are a contractor based in Midland, MI, someone searching from Saginaw or Bay City is going to see a somewhat different set of results than you do when you search from your own driveway.

The search terms also matter a lot. "Plumber Midland MI" and "plumber near me" and "emergency plumber Midland" are all different queries and you may rank differently for each one. Test a few variations and see where you land.

When you do the search, look at three separate sections of the results page. There are usually sponsored listings at the top, a maps section showing local businesses, and then the regular organic results below that. Your goal is to show up well in all three, but the maps listing and organic results are the ones that build over time and do not cost you anything per click.

Step Three: Understand What Your Marketing Platform Is Actually Doing

A lot of home service businesses are now using all-in-one AI powered platforms to manage their website, reviews, social media, and customer communication. These tools have gotten genuinely good and they bundle a lot of things that used to require separate services.

If you are using one of these platforms, it is worth understanding what it is actually doing for you before you assume it is not working. Many of them are automatically publishing blog posts on a schedule, sending review requests to your customers after jobs, posting to your Google Business Profile weekly, and managing your lead pipeline behind the scenes. That is a lot of activity that you might not even notice day to day but that Google absolutely does.

The automated review requests in particular are something people underestimate. Reviews are one of the biggest factors in your local maps ranking. If your platform is quietly sending review requests every time you close a job and your competitors are not doing that, you are going to pull ahead on reviews over time and that shows up in the rankings.

So before you cancel a service because you are frustrated, take stock of everything it is actually doing. You might be getting more value than you realize.

Step Four: Focus on the Things That Move the Needle Over Time

Once your technical SEO is solid and you have a clear picture of where you actually stand, here are the things worth putting energy into.

Backlinks from local and relevant sources. A backlink is when another website links to yours. Google treats these as votes of confidence. For a local service business, the best backlinks come from places like the Better Business Bureau, Angi, your local chamber of commerce, local news sites, or even partner businesses in your area. If you are an HVAC company in Midland, maybe a plumber or a home inspector in town has a resources page where they could mention you. Each one of those links is telling Google that your business is established and trusted. Getting listed on a few of these directories is completely free and something you can do this week.

Location pages for the towns you actually serve. If your business is based in Midland but you also work in Saginaw, Midland Township, Coleman, and Clare, you probably want a page on your website for each of those areas. Something as simple as a page titled "Plumbing Services in Saginaw, MI" with some content about serving that area can get you showing up in searches from those towns. Right now you might be strong in your home city but invisible to someone twenty minutes away searching for the same service.

Consistent fresh content. Google favors websites that are active. A blog that gets updated regularly, even just once or twice a month, signals that your site is maintained and relevant. If your platform is already handling this automatically, great. If not, even short posts answering common customer questions go a long way. Think about what people search before they even know who to call, and write something that answers that.

Your Google Business Profile. This is the listing that shows up in the maps section. Make sure your hours, service area, photos, and description are accurate and complete. Post to it regularly if you can. Respond to every review, good or bad. Google looks at how active and complete your profile is when deciding where to rank you locally.

The Takeaway

Most small businesses that feel invisible on Google are closer to the front page than they think. The frustration usually comes from not having a clear way to measure where they actually stand or understanding why the numbers look different than expected.

Start with the Lighthouse audit linked above. Then do a real search from an incognito window and look at all three sections of the results. Get listed on a few free directories to build some backlinks. Add location pages if you serve multiple areas. And keep an eye on your review count because that one compounds over time.

None of this requires a massive budget. It requires a little bit of knowledge and some consistent effort. If you want help auditing your site or figuring out where to focus, feel free to reach out.

Colby Hemond is a web and app developer based in Midland, MI working with small businesses to build smarter online presences. You can learn more at colbyhemond.com.