The short answer: work through eight checks in order, because each one hides the next. Is Google indexing the site at all (search
site:yourdomain.co.nz)? Is something blocking it? Is your Google Business Profile verified? Do your name, number and hours match everywhere? Does the page say what you do and where, in text? Have you got reviews, and replied to them? Then the honest one: are you expecting to show for a search you’re not relevant or close enough for? Google itself says there’s no way to pay for a better local ranking. There’s only doing these properly.
Check 1: which search are you not showing up for?
Two very different problems get the same panicked description. Searching your own business name and finding nothing is an indexing or profile problem: fixable, usually quick. Searching “plumber Timaru” and not being on page one is a competition problem: slower, and never guaranteed by anyone honest. Be clear which one you have before touching anything. The first is checks 2 to 5. The second is checks 5 to 8, and no amount of checking gets you a promise; here’s what SEO honestly can and can’t do at this size.
Check 2: is the website in Google at all?
Type this into Google, with no spaces: site:yourdomain.co.nz. If pages appear, you’re indexed and can skip to check 4. If nothing appears, Google doesn’t have your site yet. For a new site that’s normal: Google’s own help says indexing can take “anywhere from a day or two to a few weeks”, and to allow at least a week after submitting a sitemap or an indexing request before assuming a problem.
If it’s been longer than that, something is probably stopping it.
Check 3: is something blocking Google?
Google lists the usual suspects: a robots.txt file telling crawlers to stay out, a noindex tag on the page, password protection, a removal request someone once filed, a manual action or a security problem on the site, and broken redirects after a move between domains or from http to https. Website builders commonly ship with a “hide from search engines” setting ticked during setup; check that first. It’s the single most common cause we see.
A free Google Search Console account, yours and tied to your own Google login, has a URL Inspection tool that says exactly why a page isn’t indexed and lets you request indexing. It’s a diagnostic rather than a growth lever, but for this specific problem it’s the right tool.
Check 4: is your Google Business Profile verified?
For “near me” searches and Maps, the profile matters more than the site. Google’s help is unambiguous: “When you verify your business on Google, you gain ownership of your Business Profile and can make sure your business info is accurate.” Verification methods are chosen by Google and can’t be changed by you (phone or SMS, email, a live video call, or a postcard that can take up to 14 days to arrive), and review of a verification can take up to five business days. Until it’s verified, your edits may not show and you may not show at all. Our profile guide walks through the whole setup.
Check 5: do your details match everywhere?
Google’s local-ranking guidance lists complete and accurate information, a full address and accurate hours among the things that affect visibility. If your website says one phone number, your profile another, and an old directory listing a third, the machines don’t know which business is real. Fix it with one master record: the same name, number, address and hours on the site, the profile and every listing.
Check 6: does the page actually say what you do and where?
Google’s three local factors are relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is the one you control completely: does the page state “electrician” and “Gore” in text a machine can read? A hero image with your logo and a tagline says nothing. A first line reading “Registered electrician based in Gore, serving Eastern Southland” says everything. The same text is what AI assistants quote, and BrightLocal’s 2026 survey found 45% of consumers had used one for local recommendations in the past year; the AI-search guide covers why. Structured data helps the machines too: our builds label a business by its exact type in schema.org markup, itemised here.
Check 7: reviews, replies and photos
Prominence, in Google’s words, is “how well-known a business is”, and review count and score feed it. Two of Google’s own listed tips are to respond to reviews and to add photos. Neither costs money; both are things most competitors skip. How to get more reviews without buying them.
Check 8: the honest one, distance
Google weighs “how far each business is from the customer who’s searching”. If you’re in Mosgiel and expecting to show for searches made in central Dunedin, you’re competing with businesses that are physically closer. The fix is to name your service area on the site and on the profile so relevance compensates for distance, not to buy anything. Google: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”
Still nothing?
Run the checks again, in order; the most common misses are a builder’s “hide from search engines” toggle and an unverified profile. And if the underlying site is the problem (facts in images, no address, hours nowhere), a rebuild that gets the basics right costs less than it used to. Our LaunchPad plan is $1 a day, $365 + GST a year ($419.75 incl. GST), with the build free during launch and the Google + AI-search setup included. No rankings are promised, because nobody can honestly promise them; the setup is the part you can check.