Is Your Website Invisible to Search Engines? Here’s How to Check

You’ve built a solid business. You know your stuff. People love working with you. But when someone searches for what you do on Google, your name doesn’t show up. And that feels like a waste, doesn’t it? Like you spent all this time and energy on a website that’s basically invisible to the people who are actually looking for you.

You’re not alone in this. A lot of business owners I talk to feel the same way. They’ll say something like, “My website gets barely any traffic from Google,” or “I don’t know if anyone can even find me on search.” And there’s this quiet frustration underneath those words, because you didn’t build this business to hide it. You built it to help people.

Here’s the thing: you don’t have to accept invisible. And you don’t need to understand all the technical mumbo-jumbo about search engine optimization to get started. What you need is a way to actually see whether Google can find your website, and then a simple path forward from there.

Let me show you how.

Why This Matters (And Why You’re Not Crazy for Wondering)

Before we talk about how to check if Google sees you, let’s talk about why this actually matters to your business.

Search engines are people looking for answers. Someone types “marketing coach for women over 50 in Portland” or “virtual bookkeeper for creative entrepreneurs,” and Google tries to match them with the best answer it can find. If your website is well-built and Google understands what you do, you might be one of those answers. If your website is invisible to Google, you won’t be.

This isn’t about vanity or ranking obsession. This is about being findable when someone needs exactly what you sell.

I’ve worked with women who had beautiful websites that Google couldn’t read. Not because they were bad websites, but because they were built in a way that made sense visually but didn’t make sense to search engines. Maybe the website was built on a platform that didn’t allow Google to crawl properly. Maybe there were no words on the homepage that described the actual business. Maybe the site structure was so confusing that Google gave up trying to understand it.

The opportunity here is this: once you know whether Google can actually find you, you can make intentional decisions about what to do next. You might decide that Google traffic isn’t a priority for your business right now, and that’s completely valid. But at least you’ll be choosing that, instead of wondering why it’s not happening.

The First Check: Can Google Even See Your Website?

This is the most basic question, and it’s the one I want you to answer first.

Go to Google. In the search box, type this exactly:

site:yourdomainname.com

For example, if your website is at www.bethriegger.com, you’d search for site:bethriegger.com

Hit enter. Look at the results. Google will tell you how many pages from your website it has found and indexed (fancy word for “added to its memory”).

If you see results that include your homepage and other pages, Google can find you. Congratulations. You’re visible.

If you see nothing, or only a couple of unexpected pages, that’s important information. It doesn’t mean something is broken. It means there’s an opportunity to improve how Google understands your website.

This simple check takes 30 seconds and tells you a lot.

Why Google Might Not Be Finding You

Let me walk through the most common reasons I see this happen with women’s websites.

Your website doesn’t use real words.

This is the biggest one. I see a lot of websites that are gorgeous, with beautiful imagery and minimal text. The homepage says something like “Transforming Lives” with a background photo and a button, but there are no actual words describing what the business does. Google reads text. If there’s no text, Google doesn’t know what you do. It’s like trying to understand someone’s career by looking at their picture.

Your website platform doesn’t play well with Google.

Some website builders make it harder for Google to read and understand your content. It’s not impossible, but you might need to actively tell Google about your website and ask it to look harder.

Your pages don’t actually exist yet.

I know this sounds obvious, but I talk to women who have a website shell, a few landing pages, but not much real content. Google finds less to index because there’s less there. Not a failure. An opportunity to add more.

You haven’t explicitly told Google about your website.

Google finds most websites naturally by following links from other sites. But you can also directly submit your website to Google and say, “Hey, look at me.” A lot of solopreneurs skip this step because they don’t realize it exists.

Your website has technical issues that confuse search engines.

This could be things like broken links, pages that take forever to load, or code that’s so tangled that Google gets lost trying to read it. Again, not a failure. Just an opportunity to clean things up.

The good news: all of these are fixable. And you don’t need to fix them all at once.

The Second Check: Use Google Search Console

Once you know that Google can (or can’t) see your website, the next step is to get more detailed information. This is where Google Search Console comes in.

Google Search Console is free. It’s basically Google telling you directly: “Here’s what I found on your website. Here’s whether people are clicking on your site in search results. Here’s what might need attention.”

To use it, you go to Google Search Console and add your website. You’ll need to verify that you actually own the website (Google makes sure you’re not spying on someone else’s site), and then you get access to information about how your site appears in search.

Once you’re in there, look for the “Coverage” section. This shows you which pages Google has found, and which pages might have issues. It’s like an X-ray of your website’s visibility.

You’ll also see the “Performance” section, which shows you: are people actually clicking on your site when they see it in search results? Which search phrases bring the most traffic? This tells you whether people are finding you and whether they think your website is worth clicking on.

This information is gold. And it’s completely free.

The Third Check: Think Like Your Customer

Here’s a check that doesn’t require any tools, just your brain.

Think about how your ideal customer would search for what you do. Let’s say you’re a career coach for women transitioning into consulting. Your customer might search for:

• “career coach for consultants”
• “how to transition to consulting”
• “business coach for women over 50”
• “freelance consulting help”

Now go to your website and ask: do these words actually appear on my pages? Not buried in a testimonial somewhere, but actually there, in headings, in the first paragraph, in the description of what you do?

If the answer is no, that’s an opportunity. Google needs to see these words to understand what you do.

This is part of what I call marketing first, beauty second. Your website needs to be beautiful, sure. But it also needs to actually tell Google (and your real visitors) what you do and who you help.

What To Do If You’re Currently Invisible

Let’s say you did that first Google search and found nothing. Don’t panic. This is fixable, and it’s not complicated.

Step One: Make sure Google can actually access your website.

This sounds obvious, but sometimes a website is hidden behind a password, or it’s set to “private” mode, or there’s something in the settings that’s blocking Google. Check with whoever built your website or hosts it. There should be a simple setting to allow Google to access it.

Step Two: Add real words to your website that describe what you do.

If your homepage is gorgeous but empty, you don’t need to rebuild it. You just need to add text. A paragraph that explains what you do, who you help, and what problems you solve. Use the words your customers actually use when they search.

Step Three: Submit your website to Google Search Console.

You don’t have to wait for Google to find you. You can invite it to look. Once you’re in Search Console, you can even request that Google crawl (read) your pages again if you’ve made changes.

Step Four: Give it some time.

Google doesn’t instantly index everything. It might take a few days or a few weeks to fully understand your website. That’s normal.

If your website is newer or not well-connected to other sites, it might take longer. But if you’re actively working on those three steps above, Google will find you.

The Real Opportunity Here

Being invisible to Google isn’t a character flaw. It’s not because your business isn’t good enough. It’s usually because your website was built without thinking about how search engines read it, or it hasn’t been actively checked in years.

Which means there’s a real opportunity in front of you. Once you know whether Google can find you, you get to decide what to do about it. Maybe you decide that you’d rather build your business through referrals and don’t care about Google traffic. That’s fine. At least you’re choosing it.

Or maybe you realize there are simple fixes that could help you be found by the people actively searching for your work. That’s an opportunity that costs you nothing to explore.

Either way, you’re not invisible because you’re not good enough. You’re potentially invisible because your website wasn’t built with Google in mind. And that’s completely fixable.

I make it easy to understand what’s actually happening with your website visibility, and more importantly, what matters for your business. If you’re wondering whether Google can find you, let’s talk about it. I can run those checks and show you exactly what’s happening, and then you get to decide what matters next.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my website need to rank #1 on Google to be successful?

Absolutely not. Ranking #1 is nice, but what matters is whether the people looking for you can find you at all. Many solopreneurs do just fine with steady, consistent visibility on page 2 or even page 3. Focus first on being findable, then on ranking higher.

How long does it take for Google to find my website?

It depends. A brand new website might take a few weeks to a few months. An existing website that’s been invisible might get noticed faster once you submit it to Google Search Console and start adding content. There’s no magic timeline, but consistent activity helps.

Do I need to pay for Google visibility?

No. Google’s free search results (called organic search) don’t cost anything. You can pay for Google ads if you want to show up at the very top of search results with a “sponsored” label, but that’s a different thing and not necessary for most solopreneurs.

What’s the difference between SEO and Google Search Console?

SEO (search engine optimization) is the whole practice of building a website that search engines can read and rank. Google Search Console is one tool that helps you see how that’s going. Think of SEO as the work, and Search Console as your report card.

If your website no longer feels like you, let’s talk about it – Book a Free Website Clarity Call with Beth →