Is my new website actually findable on Google?

The moment after launch

Launching a website is a strange feeling. There's the relief — the months (or years) of putting it off are finally over. Then the quiet second thought: okay, but can anyone find it? You refresh Google. You search your business name. Maybe it shows up, maybe it doesn't. You search what you actually do and you're nowhere. That gap between "it's live" and "it's working" is where most small business owners get stuck.

Looking good and being findable are not the same thing

This is the bit almost nobody explains up front. A site can be beautiful, fast on your laptop, and have every page you asked for — and still be invisible to Google. Design and findability are two different jobs. A designer's job ends when it looks right. Google's job is to decide whether to show it to anyone, and Google doesn't care how it looks — it cares about things like whether the pages can be crawled, whether the titles describe what you actually do, whether the site is mobile-friendly, and whether anything on the page tells it where you're based.

None of that is visible from the front. You can't tell by looking. You have to check.

What the results actually mean

Don't panic if a few things come back amber or red. Almost every new site has something. Here's roughly how to read it:

• Missing title or description — easy fix. These are the two lines Google shows in the search result. If they're generic or missing, Google makes something up, usually badly.
• No H1 or a vague one — the main heading on the page. If it says "Home" or "Welcome", Google has no idea what the page is actually about.
• No HTTPS or no viewport tag — more serious. Google actively downranks sites that aren't secure or aren't mobile-friendly. These usually need someone with access to the site to fix.

A few small warnings on a new site is normal. A wall of red usually means whoever built it didn't do the SEO basics — which is fixable, but you'll want a proper look rather than guessing.

If the check flags things you don't understand

That's what my SEO Audit is for. It's not an automated PDF from a template — I run through the site myself, look at what's actually going on, and write it up in language you can hand to whoever built the site (or act on yourself). Two options:

Either way, I run it personally. No automated templated PDF, no reseller white-label. If the audit doesn't turn up anything worth acting on, I'll tell you that too.