Why Your Tradie Website Isn't Showing Up on Google (And How to Fix It)

Before going through the reasons, it helps to understand how Google decides who shows up for local trade searches. When someone in Queenstown types “plumber near me” or “electrician Frankton”, Google shows two types of results: the map pack (the three local business listings with a map) and the organic results below it. Most trade enquiries come from the map pack. If you are not in it, you are missing the majority of potential leads.

Google weights local results on three factors: relevance (does your business match what they searched?), distance (how close are you?), and prominence (how established and trusted does Google think you are?). Most tradie websites fail on relevance and prominence. Here is how to fix both.

Reason 1: No Google Business Profile (or an Incomplete One)

The map pack does not pull from your website — it pulls from your Google Business Profile (GBP). If you have not created one, you are invisible for every “[trade] near me” search. Full stop. This is the single highest-leverage fix for any NZ trades business and it is completely free.

Even if you have a GBP, an incomplete profile hurts you. Google rewards profiles that are fully filled out. Here is what a complete profile looks like:

• Business name, address or service area, and phone number — exactly matching your website
• Primary category set correctly (e.g. "Plumber", "Electrician", "Builder") — not a vague category like "Contractor"
• Service area set to the suburbs and towns you actually cover
• Opening hours filled in accurately
• At least 5 photos — your van, your team, your work, your logo
• Business description using your trade and location naturally
• Services list populated with specific offerings
• At least 5 Google reviews (more on this below)

How to fix it: Go to business.google.com and either create your profile or claim an existing one for your business. Verify by postcard or phone. Fill out every field — do not skip any section. This takes an afternoon and immediately makes you eligible to appear in the map pack.

Reason 2: Your Pages Have No Location Keywords

A website page that says “We are a plumbing company with 15 years of experience and a commitment to quality service” tells Google absolutely nothing about where you work. Google cannot guess from that copy whether you serve Auckland, Invercargill, or anywhere in between.

A page that says “Auckland plumber serving Hobsonville, Westgate, Massey, and Henderson — available same day for blocked drains and hot water cylinder repairs” tells Google exactly what you want to rank for. Location keywords are not optional. They are the mechanism by which Google connects your site to local searches.

Where location keywords need to appear:

• Page title tag: "Plumber Queenstown | Same-Day Service | Joe's Plumbing"
• H1 heading: "Queenstown Plumber — 15 Years Serving Otago"
• First paragraph of body copy: Mention your suburb or city in the first 100 words
• Meta description: Include location + main service for the click-through
• Image alt text: "plumber fixing hot water cylinder in Queenstown home"
• Footer: Your physical address or service area stated clearly

If you serve multiple areas, consider creating a separate page for each main location. A Queenstown builder who also covers Wanaka and Cromwell should have distinct pages for each — not one generic “areas we serve” paragraph buried at the bottom of the homepage.

Reason 3: Your Website Is Too Slow

Google uses Core Web Vitals — three specific page speed metrics — as a ranking signal. A slow site is algorithmically penalised. Beyond rankings, slow sites lose visitors directly: 53% of mobile users abandon a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. For trades businesses where almost all searches happen on mobile, this is a direct hit to your lead volume.

The three metrics Google measures are:

How to check your speed: Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your URL. Run it on mobile. A score below 50 is a serious problem. Scores of 70+ are competitive. Scores of 90+ are where you want to be.

The most common causes of slow tradie websites are: page builders (Wix, Squarespace, Elementor) that load dozens of scripts on every page; uncompressed images (a 4MB photo from your phone embedded directly on the homepage); and cheap shared hosting that takes 2+ seconds just to respond to the first request.

Quick fixes: Compress all images before uploading (use squoosh.app — free, browser-based). Remove any plugins or apps you installed and never use. If you are on shared hosting, consider moving to a faster platform. If you are on Wix or Squarespace, there is a ceiling to how fast these platforms can go — a custom-built site is the only way to achieve top-tier speeds.

Reason 4: You Have No Reviews, or Not Enough

Google's local ranking algorithm explicitly weights prominence — how well-known and trusted a business is. The clearest signal of prominence that Google can measure is your review count and rating. Businesses with 20+ reviews consistently outrank businesses with 3, even when the latter has a better website.

This is not a slow process. Most trades businesses have a backlog of satisfied clients who would leave a review in five minutes if someone just asked them. The problem is no one asks. Here is a system that works:

1. 1Get your direct GBP review link. In your Google Business Profile dashboard, click "Get more reviews" — it generates a short URL that takes customers straight to the review box.
2. 2Text or email your last 10–15 clients individually. Not a mass message — a personal one. "Hey [name], great working with you on [job]. If you have 2 minutes, a Google review would help us out a lot. Here's the link: [URL]"
3. 3Add the review link to your email signature, your invoice footer, and any follow-up messages you send after a job is complete.
4. 4Make it a habit. Ask every client after every job. Ten reviews a month compounds quickly — within 3 months you are competitive with businesses that have been trading for years.

One important note: never pay for reviews or ask friends to leave fake ones. Google detects and removes them, and it can suspend your entire GBP. Only ask genuine clients who have actually used your service.

Reason 5: Your Site Was Never Submitted to Google

Google does not automatically discover and index new websites immediately. If your site launched without a sitemap being submitted to Google Search Console, it may not be fully indexed — meaning Google has not read all your pages and cannot rank them for anything.

How to check: Go to Google and type site:yourwebsite.co.nz. If Google returns zero results, your site is not indexed. If it returns only some pages, partial indexation is the problem.

How to fix it — step by step:

1. 1Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with your Google account.
2. 2Add your website as a property. Choose "URL prefix" and enter your full domain (e.g. https://joesplumbing.co.nz).
3. 3Verify ownership. The easiest method is to add a DNS TXT record via your domain registrar — Google gives you exact instructions.
4. 4Go to Sitemaps in the left menu. Enter "sitemap.xml" and click Submit. Most modern websites generate this file automatically. If yours does not, contact whoever built it.
5. 5Use the URL Inspection tool to check individual pages. If a page shows as "not indexed", click "Request Indexing" — Google will prioritise crawling it.

Reason 6: Your Website Has No Content Google Can Rank

Many tradie websites are effectively brochures — a homepage, an about page, and a contact form. That is fine for telling people who you are, but it gives Google very little to work with. Google ranks pages, not websites. The more pages you have that target specific searches, the more opportunities you have to appear.

For a trades business, the content opportunities are obvious:

• A dedicated page for each service you offer (not one page listing everything)
• Location pages for each main area you serve
• A FAQ page covering the questions you get asked every week on the phone
• A blog or news section with practical advice relevant to your trade and region
• Before/after project photos with descriptive captions and alt text

A plumber who has a separate page for “hot water cylinder replacement Queenstown” and “blocked drain Queenstown” and “bathroom renovation plumbing Queenstown” has three opportunities to rank where a plumber with one generic services page has one. Each targeted page is an additional entry point from Google.

The Fix: Priority Order

If you are starting from scratch, tackle these in order. Each one builds on the last, and the first three alone will produce a visible improvement within 4–8 weeks.

1. 1

   Create or complete your Google Business Profile

   Free, highest-leverage action. Takes one afternoon. Immediately makes you eligible for the map pack.

2. 2

   Add location keywords to every page

   Your trade + your suburb or city in the title, H1, and first paragraph of every page. Do this today — it costs nothing.

3. 3

   Ask your last 10 clients for a Google review

   Send the direct GBP review link individually. Ten reviews within a month moves you significantly in the local ranking algorithm.

4. 4

   Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console

   Ensures Google has found and indexed all your pages. 15 minutes, free, and the baseline for all other SEO work.

5. 5

   Check your page speed and fix the obvious issues

   Run pagespeed.web.dev on your homepage (mobile). If you score under 50, compress your images at minimum. Under 30 and a rebuild is likely worth considering.

6. 6

   Add service pages and location pages

   One page per service, one per main area you serve. This gives Google more to rank and you more entry points from search.

How Long Before You See Results?

GBP optimisation and review accumulation can show results within 2–4 weeks — Google re-evaluates local rankings frequently. Page indexation (after sitemap submission) typically takes 1–2 weeks for Google to crawl and process new or updated pages. Organic ranking improvements from content additions take 4–12 weeks depending on competition in your area.

The fastest wins are always the GBP and reviews. A tradie with 20 five-star reviews and a fully completed profile will appear in the map pack for local searches within weeks of making those changes — without spending anything on advertising.

If you have done all of the above and are still not ranking after three months, the issue is likely your website's technical foundation — slow load times, thin content, or a platform with SEO ceilings. That is when a rebuild becomes worth evaluating seriously.