There are two very different problems that feel identical from the inside.
The first is that Google knows your pages and has decided somebody else deserves to be above you. That is a competition problem, and it is solved by writing better pages and building a stronger local presence.
The second is that Google does not have your pages at all. You are not losing a race. You are not in the race. This is far more common than owners expect, and it is often caused by a single setting that somebody left switched on years ago.
The two need completely different responses, so the first job is always to find out which one you have. Here are six checks. Ten minutes. Nothing to buy.
In short: run the site: search first, because it separates the two problems immediately. Then check whether search engines are being blocked, whether your pages link to each other, whether the site works on a phone, whether your Google profile exists, and whether the site is fast enough that people wait for it.
Check one: does Google have your pages at all
Open Google and type this exactly, with no space after the colon:
site:yourwebsite.com
Use your own address, of course.
If a list of your pages appears, Google has them. Count roughly. If it shows a handful and your site has thirty pages, some pages are missing and check two is important.
If nothing appears at all, that is your answer, and it is the most important thing you will learn today. Your site is not in Google's index. No amount of writing, design or marketing will help until this is fixed.
If pages appear that you do not recognise, or old pages you thought were deleted, note them down. That is worth investigating too.
Check two: are search engines being told to stay away
Two settings block search engines, and both are usually left behind by accident.
The website setting. Most platforms have an option, used while a site is being built, that asks search engines not to visit. On WordPress it lives in the reading settings. On other platforms it is usually under a heading like search engine visibility. Go and look at it now. If it is switched on, switch it off, and much of your problem may be solved.
The robots file. Type your address followed by /robots.txt into a browser. You will see a short text file. If you see a line that reads Disallow: / on its own, everything is being blocked. If you see nothing or a small list of specific folders, you are probably fine. Our plain explanation is robots.txt in plain English.
Check three: can anything reach your pages
A page that nothing links to is very hard for Google to find and very easy for it to ignore.
Start at your homepage and try to reach every important page by clicking, without typing an address. Can you get to your service pages? Your area pages? The ones you wrote last spring?
If a page can only be reached by typing its address, it is effectively hidden. Add a link to it from a relevant page, from your main menu, or from your footer. This is unglamorous work and it fixes a surprising number of invisible pages. We wrote about it in internal linking, the free tactic most sites ignore.
Check four: does the site work on a phone
Google evaluates the mobile version of your site as the main version, so a site that breaks on a phone is in genuine trouble regardless of how it looks on your desktop.
Take your phone, turn off wifi so you are on mobile data, and open your own website in a private browsing window.
Is the text readable without pinching? Do buttons work with a thumb? Does anything overlap or run off the side? Is the phone number tappable? Can you get from the homepage to a service page and to a contact form without frustration?
Write down what annoys you. Every one of those is annoying a stranger more, because they have no reason to persist.
Check five: does your Google Business Profile exist and is it yours
If you serve customers in a physical area, search your business name plus your town.
Does a profile appear on the right side or in the map? Is it claimed by you, or does it say something like "own this business"? Are the hours correct? Is the website link correct?
An unclaimed or incorrect profile is one of the most common causes of a locally invisible business, and claiming it is free. If it exists but is not performing, why your profile gets no views covers the usual reasons.
Check six: is the site fast enough that anyone waits
You cannot judge this yourself, because your device has your site stored and your office internet is good.
Use Google's PageSpeed Insights, which is free. Put in your address and look at the mobile result rather than the desktop one, because mobile is what matters.
Do not chase a perfect number. What you are looking for is whether the page takes an obviously long time to show anything, which is usually caused by very large images or too many extra scripts loading first. Our plain explanation is Core Web Vitals explained.
What to do with your results
If check one found nothing, stop everything else and fix that. Look at check two first, because a blocked setting is the most likely cause. Then set up Google Search Console, submit your sitemap, and give it a week or two.
If check one found your pages but few of them, work on checks two and three. Missing pages are usually blocked or unlinked.
If everything is indexed and you still get nothing, congratulations in a small way: you have a competition problem rather than an existence problem. That means the work is writing proper pages for the things you sell, completing your local presence, and collecting reviews. Slower, but far less alarming.
If you would rather have it done for you
All six of these checks, and quite a few more, are what our free visibility check runs automatically. It reports in ordinary language on whether search engines can see your site, which pages are missing, how the site behaves on a phone, and what to fix first.
But do run check one yourself, right now, before you read anything else. It takes fifteen seconds, and for a meaningful number of businesses it explains everything they have been confused about for years.