How long does a new website take to show up on Google?
Indexed in days, your own name in a week or two, your trade and town in months. How to speed each up.
See the templatesThe short answer: Google usually finds a new site within a few days and shows it for its own name within a week or two. Showing up for "plumber Paisley" takes months, because that is a competition and the other plumbers have a head start.
The three stages
- Indexed. Google has seen the pages. Days, faster if you submit the sitemap in Search Console
- Your name. Searching your business name finds you. One to two weeks
- Your trade and town. Searching what you do finds you. Three to twelve months, depending on competition
Speed it up
- Set up Google Search Console and submit the sitemap. Free, ten minutes
- Set up a Google Business Profile. For local searches this does more than the website
- Make sure the page says what you do and where, in plain words, in the title and the first line
- Get your web address onto your Google profile, your Facebook, your invoices and your van
- Ask happy customers for Google reviews
What does not help
Paying someone to "submit your site to 500 search engines". Buying links. Stuffing the page with the town name forty times. All of these are either useless or harmful.
What we do
Every site we put live has a sitemap, the right title and description, structured data that tells Google what kind of business it is, and we show you how to connect Search Console and your Business Profile.
Want to see yours? Pick a website template and fill it in for free. You only pay when you want it live. Already have a site? Bring it in and we fill a template from it.