You have a website. Maybe you even paid good money for it. But when you Google your own business, you're buried on page two — or worse, nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, your competitor with the uglier website and worse reviews is sitting right there at the top.
What gives?
Most of the time, it comes down to a handful of mistakes that are completely fixable. Here are the five I see most often with New Brunswick businesses.
1. Your Google Business Profile is incomplete
This is the single biggest missed opportunity for local businesses. Your Google Business Profile (the thing that shows up in the map pack when someone searches "near me") is often the first thing a potential customer sees. And if it's half-filled, outdated, or missing key info, Google pushes you down.
Fill out every single field. Business hours, services, categories, description, photos — all of it. Add photos regularly. Respond to every review, good or bad. Google rewards businesses that actively maintain their profiles. It takes 20 minutes to fix this, and it's free.
2. Your website doesn't mention your location
This one drives me crazy because it's so simple. I see websites for Fredericton businesses that never actually say "Fredericton" anywhere on the page. Your site might say "We offer premium landscaping services" but Google has no idea where you are.
Put your city and province on your homepage, your about page, your service pages, and your footer. Not in a spammy way — naturally. "Serving Fredericton and the greater Fredericton area" in your hero section. "Based in Fredericton, NB" in your footer. This tells Google exactly where to rank you.
3. You have no reviews (or you're ignoring them)
Reviews are one of the strongest ranking signals for local search. If you have 3 reviews and your competitor has 47, guess who Google trusts more?
Start asking for reviews. Every happy customer should get a follow-up asking them to leave a Google review. Make it easy — send them a direct link. And when reviews come in, respond to every single one. "Thanks for the kind words, Sarah! Glad we could help with the kitchen reno." Google sees that engagement and rewards it.
4. Your site is slow or not mobile-friendly
Pull out your phone right now and open your website. Does it load in under 3 seconds? Can you read everything without pinching and zooming? Can you tap the phone number to call directly?
If the answer to any of those is no, you have a problem. Over 60% of local searches happen on mobile. Google knows this, and they penalize slow, clunky sites. If your website was built in 2019 and hasn't been touched since, it's probably holding you back.
5. You built it and forgot it
A website isn't a "set it and forget it" thing. Google likes fresh content. A site that hasn't been updated in a year tells Google it might not be relevant anymore.
You don't need to overhaul your site every month. But adding a blog post now and then, updating your services page when things change, swapping in new photos from recent work — these small updates signal to Google that your business is active and your site is current.
The bottom line
None of these are complicated. None of them require a massive budget. But together, they're the difference between showing up on page one when someone searches for what you do — or being invisible.
If you're a business owner in Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John, or anywhere in NB and your Google ranking isn't where you want it, start with these five things. You'll be surprised how much of a difference they make.