The site went live three weeks ago and searching your trade and your town shows everyone except you. Nothing is broken. Here is the realistic timeline, so you know the difference between "normal" and "something is actually wrong".
The timeline
- Days 1–14: indexed. Google finds the site and adds it to the index. Searching a distinctive phrase from your homepage in quotes should return your page. If it does not after two weeks, something is wrong — see below.
- Weeks 2–6: your own name. Searching your business name starts returning your site near the top. This is the easiest win and, for a trade relying on word of mouth, quietly one of the most valuable.
- Months 1–3: the long, specific searches. "Emergency boiler repair in Bracknell on a Sunday" — low volume, low competition, high intent. These are the first real enquiries, and they are often better jobs than the obvious searches produce.
- Months 3–6: the searches you actually wanted. "Plumber Reading", "electrician Maidenhead". Competitive, and this is where the work you did on service pages either pays or does not.
- Months 6–12: position. Moving from somewhere on page one to near the top, as reviews accumulate and the site gathers a track record.
A small town compresses all of that. A city with fifty established competitors stretches it. Both are normal.
What genuinely speeds it up
- A Google Business Profile, set up on day one. It operates on a different timescale entirely — enquiries within days rather than months. If you want work before the website is ranking, this is the answer, and it is free.
- A separate page per service. You cannot rank for "bathroom installation" without a page about bathroom installation. A five-page site with three real service pages will outrank a fifteen-page site with none.
- Reviews. They feed the local results directly and they compound.
- Being findable elsewhere. Consistent details on your Google profile, your Facebook page, your trade body listing and anywhere else you appear. Not glamorous; genuinely effective.
What does not speed it up
- Paying for SEO in month one. There is nothing to optimise yet. Spend the money on photographs and on writing the service pages properly.
- Adding more pages. Six good pages beat thirty thin ones, and thin pages actively hurt.
- Repeating your town forty times. That was an SEO trick in 2012. It is now penalised and it reads as desperate to the customers who do see it.
- Anyone promising page one in a fortnight. They are either buying ads, targeting searches nobody makes, or not doing anything at all.
When something is actually wrong
If two weeks have passed and a distinctive phrase from your homepage, searched in quotes, returns nothing, check these in order:
- The "discourage search engines" setting. Switched on during the build and left on. It is the single most common cause and it costs months.
- No sitemap submitted. Set up Google Search Console and submit one. Twenty minutes.
- Text rendered only by JavaScript. If your content is not in the page source, it may not be read — by Google or by an AI assistant.
- No SSL. Fix immediately; it affects both ranking and whether customers stay.
Meanwhile, the useful thing to do in month one is not waiting. Set up the Google Business Profile and start collecting reviews. And if you are not confident the site itself is built to rank at all, we’ll rebuild your homepage free so you can compare.