Why is my website not showing in google search?
Here is a fairly common complaint from people who have just put up a real estate investor website:
“I typed my website address/domain name into Google and my site didn’t come up. Why not?”
Why does this happen?
First off, it doesn’t mean there is a problem. That is completely normal and is what you should expect.
Search sites like Google only show pages that they know about. When a new website is put up, they generally don’t know about it right away. They may find it in time, but you’ll probably want to do some things to speed up the process. Basically what you want to do is say, “Hey Google, here is a new website you don’t know about.”
How does Google find out about new websites? One of the best ways is by putting a link to your site on a website that Google already knows about. We’ll discuss that more in just a moment. The other way is to manually tell Google about your website.
Option 1: Share your website on social media
Basically, this means posting the link to your website on your social media account. This can serve a couple of purposes. First, since Google already knows about the social media site (like Facebook, for example), they will pay attention to links that are shared on these social media sites. Typically, when Google finds a link to a website it didn’t know about, it will add it to its index. If you share a link to your website on social media, chances are Google will see it, and the next time they update their index, your site should be included. There is no way to say how long this may take because it’s completely up to Google. But it should happen sooner or later.
A second benefit to this approach is that your friends on social media might be interested in how you can help them. Someone may click the link and visit your website. So you don’t want to just post a link to your website, but also include a note about what you do.
A third benefit of posting your link on social media is that if people “Like” the post where you linked to your website, that also sends Google a signal that your website is something people like, which can potentially help it to rank better.
Option 2: Manually submit your website to Google
There are a couple of ways to do this. The quickest and easiest way is to go to this page and put in your website address and submit it.
A second way to do this, which is more involved, is to set up a Google Webmaster account and submit a sitemap. We won’t go into details about how to do this here since it’s beyond the scope of this article. If you’re a Done Deal Website customer with our Pro plan, we include an SEO tool that automatically generates a sitemap you can submit to Google. Or if you have your own hosting and you’re using WordPress, you can install the Yoast SEO plugin and it can generate a sitemap for you.
Which option should I choose?
Why not both? There’s no harm in manually submitting your site and putting a link on social media. The more ways to notify Google about your site, the better.
How long does it take for my site to show up in Google?
There’s really no way to know. It’s in Google’s control. But just be patient and check back another time. Generally, I’d give it at least a day or two before checking again.