You’ve Googled yourself, haven’t you.
Go on. Admit it. We all do it.
And if the experience left you quietly muttering something unrepeatable at your screen, you’re in very good company. Because one of the most common things we hear from business owners is some version of this:
“I know we’re good at what we do. So why can’t anyone find us?”
Here’s the thing. The answer is almost never what people expect.
It’s not that Google doesn’t like you. It’s not that you need to spend thousands on ads. And it’s almost certainly not that your competitors are doing something magical that you’re not.
It’s usually something much more fixable than that.
The most common reason? Nothing is joined up.
Think about your online presence for a second. You’ve probably got a website. Maybe a Google Business Profile. Definitely some social media- Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, whatever feels right for your business. Perhaps a newsletter. Maybe a YouTube channel or a podcast if you’re feeling brave.
Now here’s the question. Do all of those things point back to each other? Does your social media drive people to your website? Does your website reflect what you’re posting about? Is your Google Business Profile complete, accurate and regularly updated?
Because Google isn’t just looking at your website in isolation. It’s looking at your entire online ecosystem. Every platform, every link, every signal, and trying to work out whether your business is the real deal.
When nothing is joined up, Google gets confused. And a confused Google doesn’t rank you. It just… ignores you.
The second reason is closer to home than you’d think.
Your website is probably not saying what you think it’s saying.
We see this all the time when we run our Online Visibility Audits. A business owner has invested real time and money into their website. It looks lovely. The copy feels right to them. And yet it’s completely invisible in search results.
Why? Because the website was written for the business owner, not for the person searching for them.
Here’s a simple example. If you’re a florist in Southampton, your homepage probably says something like “Welcome to Blooms by Sarah — beautiful flowers for every occasion.” Which is lovely. But nobody is typing “beautiful flowers for every occasion” into Google. They’re typing “florist Southampton” or “wedding flowers Hampshire” or “same day flower delivery Southampton.”
Google can only connect the dots between what someone searches and what you do if your website uses the same language your customers use. Not the language that sounds good to you.
The third reason nobody talks about: your digital history is working against you.
This one surprises people every time.
Have you ever changed your website URL? Moved from one platform to another? Deleted a page? Changed your domain name? Had your website rebuilt?
Every time any of those things happens without the right technical setup, you lose Google authority. Years of hard-earned trust, vanished. Not because Google is being cruel. But because as far as Google is concerned, the page that used to exist is now a dead end. A 404 error. A broken journey.
We ran an audit recently for a client who couldn’t understand why their online traffic had completely fallen off a cliff. They’d done everything right, invested in a brand new website, worked with an external developer, the whole thing. It looked brilliant.
The problem? Nobody had set up the redirects. Over 2,000 broken links on a product-based website. Every single one a dead end as far as Google was concerned. And nobody had reindexed the new site with Google Search Console after launch, so Google was still trying to crawl a version of the site that no longer existed.
The result? They were losing almost 7,000 visits to their site every single month. Seven thousand potential customers, quietly disappearing.
The new website hadn’t broken their business. The lack of technical setup after launch had.
The good news? It’s fixable. But you have to know it’s happening first.
So what do you actually do about it?
Start by getting honest about where you actually are. Not where you think you are but where you actually are.
That means looking at your website through a stranger’s eyes. Does it clearly explain what you do, who you do it for, and why someone should choose you over everyone else? In plain English, without jargon?
It means checking your Google Business Profile. Is it complete? Does it have recent photos? Are your opening hours correct? Have you responded to your reviews?
It means checking your links. Click around your own website like a customer would. Do all the links work? Do they go where they’re supposed to go?
And it means looking at whether your social media, your website, your email marketing and your Google presence are all telling the same story, or whether they’re off doing their own thing in four different directions.
The honest truth about Google visibility
Here’s what years of growing our own businesses online, and helping hundreds of others do the same, has taught us.
The businesses that show up on Google aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the flashiest websites. They’re the ones with the most coherent, joined-up online presence. The ones where every platform reinforces every other platform. The ones where the website says what the customer is searching for, not what the business owner wants to say.
It’s not magic. It’s not mysterious. It’s strategy. Consistent, joined-up, deliberately human strategy.
And it’s exactly what we help businesses build.
Not sure where your biggest gaps are?
That’s exactly what our Online Visibility Audit is for.
We go into your entire online ecosystem- your website, your Google presence, your content, your links, your social media, and we tell you the truth. Plainly, clearly, and without the jargon. You get a clear, prioritised action plan delivered to your inbox within 3-5 working days.
No calls. No scheduling faff. Just clarity.
Book your visibility audit — £195 →
Or if you’d like a chat first — book a free virtual cuppa and let’s talk about where your biggest opportunities are.
Have fun always. 💛 Emily & Alan, Yellow Tuxedo
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