Before we get into the “why,” here are two things you can do right now to increase your chances of getting your website listed by Google:
- Add a link to your site on other websites or on social media posts. For example, you could ask a partner or affiliate to add a blog about your service that links back to your site (you would probably have to do the same for them). Or you could post on Facebook or LinkedIn promoting your service and include a link to your site.
- Submit your sitemap to Google through Google Search Console. We prepared a short tutorial on how to do this here. Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results. The search console lets you confirm that Google can find and crawl your site. You can also see a lot of data for your site, including traffic data, indexing problems and showing which sites link to your website, among other things.
These two methods can increase the likelihood of your site being listed, however there is no way to force Google to list your site; it will take time.
You still may be wondering why it doesn’t appear at the top of search results, even when searching for your business name. First of all, this comment from Gary Illyes, a Google webmaster trends analyst, can provide some insight: “There is no hard and fast rule that dictates how long it takes for Google to index a new WordPress site. Yes, it is correct that a search engine will crawl a site that is newly launched. But it is not correct to say that it will index the website immediately after the first crawl. Google may choose to index the site based on its quality and relevance or not. So, it is not a good idea to use this as a measure of site success. After all, it is natural for Google to crawl your newly-launched site and then return a failure error, which is a good thing. The site may take weeks to be indexed by Google. If you would like to ensure the site is indexed quickly, then ensure that your website contains good quality, relevant content. Also, keep checking if your site has been indexed via Google Webmaster Tools”.
Creating a new website does not automatically make it appear in Google searches, and there is no way to obligate Google to list your website. In almost all cases your site will appear in Google search results as time passes, though as the above quote from a Google insider explains, there is no way to be sure how long it will take.