5 Things Every Small Business Website Needs to Get Found on Google

Having a website isn't enough — it needs to actually show up when people search for what you do. If someone in Barrie searches "plumber near me" or "best bakery in Ontario" and your site doesn't appear, you're losing business to whoever does show up.

The good news: you don't need to become an SEO expert. You just need to get five basic things right.

1. Mobile-Friendly Design

Most people searching for local businesses are doing it on their phones. They're standing in a parking lot, sitting on the couch, or killing time between appointments. If your website is hard to read or navigate on a phone, they'll hit the back button and pick someone else.

Google knows this too. They look at the mobile version of your site first when deciding where to rank you. This is called "mobile-first indexing," but all you really need to know is: if your site doesn't work well on a phone, Google treats it like it barely exists.

A mobile-friendly site means text is readable without zooming, buttons are easy to tap, and nothing is broken on a small screen. Pull it up on your phone right now and try to use it like a customer would.

2. Fast Loading Speed

If your website takes more than three seconds to load, roughly half of visitors will leave before they see anything. They won't wait. They'll just go to the next result.

The biggest culprits are oversized images, bloated templates, and unnecessary animations. A lot of website builders load dozens of features you'll never use, and each one slows things down.

Simple sites are fast sites. A clean design with properly sized images will load quickly without any extra work. You don't need a flashy template with parallax scrolling and stock photo carousels. You need a site that loads before your customer loses patience.

3. Your Name, Address, and Phone Number

This sounds obvious, but it trips up a lot of businesses. Google pays close attention to your Name, Address, and Phone number — often shortened to NAP. It uses this information to verify that your business is real and to connect your website with your other online listings.

The key is consistency. Your business name, address, and phone number need to be exactly the same everywhere — on your website, on Google, on Facebook, in online directories. If your website says "123 Main St" but your Google listing says "123 Main Street," that small difference can confuse search engines.

Put your NAP in the footer of every page on your site. That way it's always visible, always consistent, and Google can find it on every page it looks at.

4. A Google Business Profile Connected to Your Site

If you haven't set up a Google Business Profile yet, stop reading and go do that first. It's free, and it's the most important thing you can do for local search visibility.

Your Google Business Profile is what shows up in the map results when someone searches for a business like yours nearby. It shows your hours, reviews, photos, and a link to your website. Without it, you're invisible in those map results.

Once your profile is set up, make sure your website URL is linked in it. This tells Google that your website and your business listing belong together. It also sends people directly from search results to your site — which is the whole point.

5. Clear Page Titles and Descriptions

Every page on your website has a title and a short description that show up in Google's search results. The blue link and the two lines of text underneath it — those are your meta title and meta description.

If you don't set them yourself, Google will just pull random text from your page, and it usually doesn't look great. Writing your own gives you control over what people see before they click.

Keep your titles short and specific. Instead of "Home" or "Services," try "Affordable Plumbing in Barrie, Ontario" or "Custom Birthday Cakes | Jane's Bakery." Tell people exactly what the page is about and where you're located.

It also helps to have separate pages for each service you offer. A single "Services" page with everything crammed together makes it harder for Google to figure out what you actually do. If you're a landscaper who does lawn care, snow removal, and garden design, give each one its own page with its own title. Google will have a much easier time matching your pages to what people are searching for.

None of this is complicated. It's just a matter of getting the basics in place. Most small business websites don't need fancy SEO strategies. They just need to stop making the simple mistakes that keep them from showing up.