Google Can't Find You? Your Customers Can't Either

Your phone isn't ringing like it should be.

Maybe you've got a decent website. Maybe it looks professional. Maybe it's even won an award for design. But here's the problem – it's essentially invisible. Somewhere out there, right now, potential customers are searching for exactly what you offer. They're typing things into Google like "plumber near me" or "accountant in Manchester" or "decorator Bristol." And your business isn't showing up for them.

Someone else's business is though. Someone offering the same service, maybe not even as good as yours, but they're the one getting the enquiry. They're the one getting the phone call. They're the one taking your customer.

This is happening to thousands of small business owners across the UK right now.

You didn't build your website to be invisible. You did it because you thought it would help your business. But here's what nobody tells you: a website that can't be found on Google is about as useful as a shop with its doors locked and the lights off. Your customers can't see it. They can't find it. So they'll find your competitor instead.

The brutal reality is this: if Google can't find you, your customers can't find you either.

And that's costing you real money. Every single day.

I was talking to a business owner just last week – runs a flooring company in Liverpool – and he told me something that stuck with me. He said, "I've had this website for five years. I've paid for it, I've maintained it, I've even updated it a few times. But I'm still getting most of my work from word-of-mouth and asking old customers for referrals. My website just sits there doing nothing."

When I asked him if anyone had ever optimised it for search engines, he just laughed. "Optimised it? I don't even know what that means."

He's not alone. Most small business owners don't know what SEO is or why it matters. They think a website is just something you build and then it magically brings in customers. That's not how it works. A website without proper search engine optimisation is like having a brilliant product that nobody knows exists.

The good news? This is completely fixable. And it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive.

Why This Matters More Than You Might Think

Before I go further, let me paint you a picture of what's happening right now in 2025.

Your potential customer needs a service you provide. Let's say you're a plumber in Manchester. They've got a burst pipe – it's not a life-or-death situation, but it's definitely urgent. They're not going to ask their nan for recommendations or flip through the Yellow Pages (does that even exist anymore?). They're going to open Google on their phone and type "emergency plumber near me" or "plumber in Manchester" or something similar.

Now, here's where the magic should happen. Your business should show up on that search results page. But if your website hasn't been properly optimised for search engines – if nobody's done the work to make sure Google understands what your business does – then you won't appear. That customer will scroll past you and find the plumber three spots below you who actually bothered to do this work.

And they'll call that plumber. Not you.

This happens thousands of times a day across the UK. Small business owners are losing customers they don't even know existed, simply because they haven't invested in something called SEO – Search Engine Optimisation.

I've seen it happen to friends of mine in retail, in services, in trades, everywhere. One mate who runs a carpet cleaning business in Birmingham told me he hired someone to "do his SEO" and paid £800 a month for it. After six months, nothing had changed. He was furious. He just ended up wasting money because he didn't understand what he was paying for, and whoever he hired clearly didn't know what they were doing either.

The frustrating part? Good SEO doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to cost you thousands of pounds. And it absolutely shouldn't be done by someone who can't explain it to you in plain English.

What Exactly Is SEO Anyway?

Right, let me break this down in a way that actually makes sense.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. What it basically means is: making your website in such a way that Google (and other search engines, but let's be honest, it's mostly Google) understands what your business does and shows your website to people who are actively looking for the services you offer.

Think of it like this. Imagine Google is a massive librarian, right? A librarian with billions and billions of documents to organise. That librarian's job is to look at all these documents (websites) and figure out what they're about, so that when someone walks in asking for information about, say, "wedding photographers in Leeds," the librarian can hand them the most relevant and useful documents first.

If your website doesn't have the right clues – if it's poorly written, if there's no clear information about what you do, if the technical side of things is a mess – then that librarian (Google) won't know how to categorise it properly. It'll just file it away somewhere obscure, and nobody will ever find it.

Good SEO is essentially about sending the right signals to Google so it understands your business, trusts your website, and shows it to the right people at the right time.

There are roughly three main pillars to SEO:

Technical SEO is about making sure your website is built in a way that search engines can actually read and understand it. Things like site speed, mobile responsiveness, proper coding structure – that sort of stuff. It's the boring, behind-the-scenes work that most people never think about but absolutely matters.

On-page SEO is about the content on your website. It's using the right words and phrases that your customers are actually searching for. It's making sure your pages are clearly structured. It's writing content that's genuinely useful and answers the questions people are asking.

Off-page SEO is mostly about other websites linking to yours – building your reputation and authority across the web. When other reputable websites link to you, it sends a signal to Google that you're legit and trustworthy.

Now, you might be thinking, "This all sounds incredibly complicated." It can be, sure. But the basics? The basics that will actually move the needle for a small business? That's pretty straightforward.

A Real Example (And Why It Actually Worked)

About two years ago, I met this woman called Sarah who runs a small accounting practice in Bristol. Lovely person. Been in business for about eight years. She had a website that her son had helped her build around 2015. It looked okay – nothing fancy, but it worked. Problem was, she wasn't getting any enquiries through it. None. Zero. She was getting all her business from word-of-mouth referrals, which is great, don't get me wrong, but it meant her growth was completely capped.

She was spending something like £2,500 a month on Google Ads – basically paying to have her website appear at the top of search results. It was working in the sense that she was getting enquiries, but it was also absolutely killing her profit margins on smaller jobs.

One day she mentioned this to me, and I asked if anyone had ever looked at her website from an SEO perspective. She looked at me like I'd asked if she'd ever considered moving to Mars. Clearly not.

So she decided to invest a few hundred quid into getting someone to actually optimise her website properly. Not anything fancy. Just the basics: making sure the site was technically sound, updating her content to include the keywords that people were actually searching for in Bristol, that sort of thing.

It took about three months to start seeing real movement. But then something amazing happened. Her website started showing up organically – that means naturally, without paying for ads – for searches like "accountant Bristol," "tax adviser near me," "bookkeeping services Bristol." The enquiries started trickling in.

Within six months, she'd cut her Google Ads spending by half because she didn't need to rely on it as much anymore. She was getting real, organic traffic. Real people, searching for the services she offered, finding her website without her having to pay for every single click.

Last time I spoke to her, she was honestly shocked at how much better her business had become. She said to me, "Why doesn't everyone do this?" And you know what? That's the exact question I've been asking myself.

The Cost Factor – And Why Cheap Doesn't Always Mean Good (But Expensive Doesn't Either)

Here's where a lot of small business owners get stuck. They hear about SEO, they realise they probably need it, and then they either:

Option A: Do nothing because it sounds expensive and complicated.

Option B: Spend thousands of pounds on some fancy digital marketing agency that promises the world and delivers... well, usually not much of anything.

Option C: Hire someone incredibly cheap off the internet and watch their business get tanked by dodgy practices.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Good SEO doesn't have to cost you a fortune, but it does need to be done properly.

I've seen quotes ranging from £50 a month from some dodgy outfit on Fiverr to £5,000 a month from a London agency. The Fiverr option? Complete waste of money. They're probably using automated tools and spamming backlinks – tactics that Google absolutely hates and could actually get your website penalised. The £5,000 option? Probably overkill for a small local business.

For most small businesses – especially if you're local and you're trying to get found by customers in your area – you're looking at somewhere in the region of £300-£1,000 as an initial investment to get your website properly sorted from an SEO perspective. Then maybe £200-£500 a month if you want ongoing optimisation and content creation.

But here's the thing: if that investment brings you even just three or four extra customers a month who wouldn't have found you otherwise, it's paid for itself many times over.

Let me give you an example. Say you run a kitchen fitter business and you fit about 20 kitchens a year at an average profit of £3,000 per kitchen. That's £60,000 in annual profit. If a proper SEO setup costs you £1,000 upfront and then £400 a month, and it brings you just one extra kitchen job every three months because customers are finding you on Google instead of your competitor... well, that's an extra £4,000 in profit against £5,800 in costs. You're still coming out ahead, and that's being quite conservative.

Most businesses see better results than that.

What Actually Happens When You Get SEO Right

When you get your SEO sorted, a few things start to happen:

Your website gets faster and works better on mobile phones. This might not sound glamorous, but it absolutely matters because most people are searching on their phones nowadays.

Your website content becomes clear and actually useful. Instead of being full of vague corporate waffle, it answers the specific questions your customers are asking. When someone lands on your site, they immediately think, "Yes, these people can help me," rather than clicking the back button within three seconds.

Google starts to understand what your business does and who it's for. So when someone types in a search term that matches your services, your website shows up. Revolutionary, I know.

You stop burning money on ads. Don't get me wrong – paid advertising has its place. But if your website is showing up organically for relevant searches, you don't need to pay for every single click.

You build trust. When you show up on the first page of Google, people assume you're legitimate and established. There's a psychology to it – if you're there, you must be good, right?

And here's the thing nobody tells you: it compounds. The longer your website is properly optimised and gets traffic, the more authority it builds, the better it ranks, the more traffic it gets. It's not like paid advertising where you stop paying and everything disappears. It's an investment that keeps on giving.

The DIY Approach (And Whether You Should Bother)

Now, you might be thinking, "Can't I just do this myself?"

The answer is: maybe. It depends on how much time you've got and how technical you are.

If you've got a few hours a week to spare and you're comfortable learning things from YouTube and blogs, you can absolutely do some basic SEO work on your own website. Updating your content, making sure your website is technically sound, creating useful pages – you can do all this.

But here's my honest take: if you're running a business, your time is worth money. Probably more money than you'd be spending on someone else doing this work for you. You should be out there running your business, looking after customers, bringing in money. Not faffing around trying to work out what a robots.txt file does.

Plus – and this is important – there's a lot of wrong information out there. Tactics that used to work five years ago will actually harm your website now. It's easy to accidentally do things that Google penalises you for. I knew someone who hired a cheap SEO company that used a tactic called "keyword stuffing" – basically just repeating the same word over and over again on the page. Google saw that as spam, and their ranking actually went down.

I'm not saying you need to hire someone. I'm just saying be realistic about what's actually worth your time and what would be better handled by someone who knows what they're doing.

Common Mistakes Small Businesses Make (And How to Avoid Them)

In my experience, small business owners tend to make the same SEO mistakes over and over again:

Mistake 1: Trying to rank for massive keywords. You're a small plumbing firm in Coventry, but you're trying to rank for "plumber UK." That's not going to happen. You need to focus on "plumber Coventry" or even more specific searches like "emergency plumber Coventry" or "boiler repair Coventry." The smaller, more specific searches are easier to rank for and often have more qualified customers anyway.

Mistake 2: Not having enough content on the website. A five-page website is never going to rank as well as a twenty-page website (assuming the content is good). You need pages that answer common questions, explain your services, give advice relevant to your industry. This gives Google lots of different reasons to show your website for different searches.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Google My Business. This is huge for local businesses and most people don't bother with it. If you set up and properly optimise your Google My Business listing, you can show up in Google Maps, you can get customer reviews, you can share photos of your work. It's genuinely one of the most powerful things you can do for local SEO.

Mistake 4: Building a website that looks nice but is technically terrible. I've seen websites that are absolutely gorgeous but take 10 seconds to load. That's a nightmare from an SEO perspective, and also your customers will literally click away before the page even loads.

Mistake 5: Changing things constantly and not giving anything time to work. SEO is not immediate. It takes time – usually a few months – to see real results. A lot of people get impatient and keep changing things around. This just means nothing ever has time to properly take effect.

FAQ: Your Most Common Questions Answered

How long does SEO actually take to work?

This is the question I get asked most often. Honestly, it depends. If you're starting from scratch, you're probably looking at 2-3 months before you see any real movement. Some results can come faster (like Google My Business optimization), some take longer (building domain authority). The key is to be patient and give it time. Anyone promising you top rankings in two weeks is lying to you.

Will SEO work for my specific business?

Probably yes, but it depends what you do. If you're a local service business – plumber, decorator, accountant, hairdresser – SEO is absolute gold for you. If you're selling physical products online, SEO is still important but might need to be combined with other tactics. If you're doing something incredibly niche and nobody's searching for it, well, SEO might not help much. But most small businesses? Yes, SEO will absolutely help you.

Is it better to hire someone or use software?

There are loads of SEO software tools out there – some good, some terrible. Tools can definitely help with things like finding keywords and monitoring your rankings. But actual SEO work – strategy, content creation, technical problem-solving – usually needs a human. I'd say use tools as a helper, not a replacement.

What's the difference between organic search results and paid ads?

Organic results are the listings that appear naturally based on how well Google thinks your website matches the search. You don't pay per click. Paid ads (Google Ads) are listings you've paid to appear in. They're faster to set up and appear instantly, but you pay for every single click. Both have their place, but organic is usually more cost-effective in the long run.

How often should I update my website for SEO?

At least monthly is good. This can be new blog posts, updated content, new pages. Search engines like websites that are regularly updated with fresh content. It signals that the business is active.

Do I need to update my website content constantly, or is once enough?

Good SEO is ongoing. The web is constantly changing, search trends change, your competitors are constantly improving their websites. If you just optimise your website once and then leave it, you'll gradually fall behind. That said, you don't need to be making changes every single day. Monthly updates or quarterly refreshes are totally fine for most small businesses.

What's the deal with backlinks?

Backlinks are when other websites link to yours. It's like a vote of confidence. If lots of reputable websites link to you, Google sees that as a sign that you're trustworthy and authoritative. This affects your ranking. Getting good backlinks is part of off-page SEO, and it's harder than just optimizing your own website, but it matters.

Will SEO guarantee I'll get customers?

Nothing's guaranteed in business, but good SEO significantly improves the odds that qualified people will find your website. Whether they actually buy from you depends on other factors – your website design, your pricing, the quality of your service, etc. SEO gets them in the door; the rest is up to you.

Is my industry too competitive for SEO to work?

Probably not. Even in competitive industries, there's room for local businesses to do well. A plumber in Stoke-on-Trent doesn't compete with a plumber in Brighton. Focus on your local area and your specific niche, and you can do really well even in competitive industries.

What happens if I stop doing SEO?

Your rankings won't disappear overnight, but they'll gradually slide. Website SEO is a bit like maintaining a garden – if you stop tending to it, the weeds come back and things get messy. That said, if you do proper SEO and build a strong foundation, your website will keep working for you for longer than if you do nothing. It's not like paid ads where everything stops the moment you stop paying.

Why You Shouldn't Wait Any Longer

Look, I'll be straight with you. If you've been thinking about getting your SEO sorted and you haven't done it yet, there's probably a reason. Maybe it sounds too technical. Maybe it sounds too expensive. Maybe you've been meaning to get round to it but never have.

Here's the thing though: your competitors probably aren't waiting. While you're sitting on the fence, someone else is getting those enquiries you should be getting. Someone else is showing up when your customers search for your services.

I get it – there's a lot of noise out there about SEO, and a lot of dodgy operators promising the world. It's easy to be sceptical. But the fact remains: if Google can't find you, your customers can't either. And that's costing you real money every single day.

The good news is, it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. You don't need some fancy London agency charging you thousands a month. What you need is someone who actually understands SEO, who can explain it to you clearly, and who will do the work properly without any of the dodgy tactics.

Someone who'll look at your website and your business, understand what you're trying to achieve, and build a proper SEO strategy that actually works.

Let's Get Your Business Found

Right, so if you're reading this and thinking, "Yeah, actually, I do need to get my SEO sorted," here's what I'd suggest.

The first step is simple. Have a chat with someone who actually knows what they're doing. Not a hard sell, not someone trying to lock you into a two-year contract. Just a conversation about your business, where you're losing customers, and what could actually help.

At 99 Quid Websites we do exactly that. We help small business owners get their websites visible on Google. We're not some massive London agency with fancy offices and huge overheads. We're straightforward, we explain things in plain English, and we actually know what we're doing when it comes to SEO.

We've helped local businesses across the UK – plumbers, accountants, decorators, electricians, service providers of all kinds – actually get found when their customers are searching for them. We've seen businesses go from zero enquiries through their website to multiple qualified leads every single month.

And the best part? It's not even that expensive. We've called it 99 Quid Website Company for a reason. We believe good SEO should be accessible to every small business owner, not just the ones who can afford to spend thousands.

If you want to have a no-obligation chat about your website, your business, and what might actually help you get found on Google, get in touch. We'll have a look at what you're doing now, give you some honest feedback, and tell you what we think might help.

No sales pitch. No jargon. Just real talk about how to get your business visible to the customers who are actually looking for you.

You can reach us at 07816 528421 or visit our website. Tell us a bit about your business, and we'll get back to you within 24 hours.

Because honestly? Your customers are out there right now, searching for exactly what you offer. They just need to be able to find you.

The Bottom Line: If Google can't find you, your customers can't either. It's that simple. And it's fixable. Don't keep losing business to competitors who bothered to do this work. Get in touch, let's chat about your website, and let's get you found.

Your phone's probably about to ring more than it has in months.