Most small business SEO problems are not competitive, they are mechanical. The page is set to noindex after a redesign. There is no title. The sitemap was never submitted. Nobody linked to the page from anywhere else on the site. None of that is about how good your content is, and all of it stops the content being found.
This check covers the fourteen fundamentals that have to be right before anything else matters. It will not tell you whether you can outrank a national competitor, but it will tell you whether your page is even eligible to try.
Check my SEO- Title and meta description, with length
- H1 and heading structure
- Indexability, canonical, robots.txt and sitemap
- Structured data and social tags
- Image alt text, content depth and internal links
Why is my website not showing up on Google?
In order of how often we see it: the page is set to noindex, usually left over from a staging site. There is no sitemap and the site was never submitted to Search Console. The page is too thin for anything competitive. Nothing internally links to it, so it looks unimportant. Or, most commonly of all, it is indexed perfectly well but ranking on page four for a term you have never actually checked. This tool catches the first four.
How long should a title tag and meta description be?
Titles are best between roughly 30 and 60 characters. Beyond that Google truncates them or rewrites them entirely. Meta descriptions should sit around 70 to 160 characters. The description is not a ranking factor, but it is your advertisement in the results page, and a specific one earns clicks that a generic one does not. Every page should have its own. Duplicated titles across a site are one of the most common findings in any audit.
Does structured data help me rank?
Not directly, and anyone claiming otherwise is overselling it. What it does is make you eligible for rich results, and increasingly it is how AI assistants understand who you are and what you sell. Organization or LocalBusiness plus FAQPage covers most small businesses. It is a one-off addition that keeps paying, and it costs a developer an hour or two.
How many internal links should a page have?
There is no magic number, but a page with two internal links pointing into it is telling Google it does not matter much. Internal linking is how ranking strength moves around your site, and it is the most underused lever in small business SEO because it is entirely within your control. No outreach, no budget, just linking to your own relevant pages from your own content.
What can an automated SEO check not tell you?
The important half. It cannot judge whether your content genuinely answers what someone searched for, it cannot see your backlinks, and it cannot assess your competition. Passing every check here means the mechanics are right, which is the prerequisite rather than the strategy. If everything passes and you still are not ranking, the problem is content and authority, not configuration.
The on-page numbers worth knowing
Guidelines rather than hard rules, but useful for spotting outliers.
| Element | Target | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Title tag | 30 to 60 characters | Longer gets truncated or rewritten |
| Meta description | 70 to 160 characters | Your advert in the results page |
| H1 headings | Exactly one per page | More than one dilutes the signal |
| Content depth | 500+ words for commercial pages | Thin pages rarely rank competitively |
| Internal links in | 3+ from relevant pages | How ranking strength reaches the page |
| Image alt text | On every meaningful image | Image search plus accessibility |
How to fix a page that is not ranking
-
1
Confirm it can be indexed
Check for noindex, a wrong canonical, or a robots.txt rule blocking the page. Nothing else matters until this is clear.
-
2
Submit a sitemap in Search Console
Free, takes ten minutes, and it is how Google finds everything reliably.
-
3
Write a specific title and description
One per page, matching what the visitor actually searched for.
-
4
Make the page genuinely answer the question
Depth beats keyword density. Answer the follow-up questions too.
-
5
Link to it from your own site
From related pages, using descriptive link text rather than "click here".
-
6
Add structured data
Organization or LocalBusiness plus FAQPage, as JSON-LD.
Fair questions.
Is this the same as an SEO audit?
No. This is the technical on-page layer, which is the part a machine can check reliably. A full audit also covers keyword strategy, competitor analysis, backlinks, content quality and site architecture, which need a person.
Why does it only check one page?
Because findings are page-specific. Run it on your homepage, your main service page and a blog post. Patterns across those three tell you whether the problem is site-wide or local.
My meta description is missing. How bad is that?
Not fatal. Google will write a snippet from your page content, and sometimes does anyway even when you provide one. But you are handing over control of your own advertisement, and a written one usually earns more clicks.
Does page speed affect SEO?
Yes, as a tiebreaker rather than a primary factor, and it affects conversion more than ranking. Our speed test covers that side properly.
How long until changes show up in Google?
Technical fixes such as removing a noindex can take effect within days. Content and authority improvements typically take weeks to months. Anyone promising a fixed timeline is guessing.
Do I need to submit my site to Google?
Not strictly, it will find you eventually through links. But verifying in Search Console and submitting a sitemap is free, takes ten minutes and gives you the only reliable view of how Google actually sees your site.
Is keyword density still a thing?
No. It has not meaningfully mattered for over a decade. Write for the person searching, cover the topic properly, and use the words your customers use rather than counting them.
What is the difference between this and the AI Visibility Checker?
This checks classic search fundamentals: titles, indexability, sitemaps, internal links. The AI checker looks at whether assistants such as ChatGPT can reach and quote you. They overlap on structured data, and increasingly you want both.
Get found on Google for the searches that matter, with the technical foundations and on-page work done properly.