Be found: your site and what Google knows of it

A client who needs a business like yours opens Google and types what they need. They look at the first few results and rarely go further. If your site is not among them, it does not matter how good the work behind it is. To that client, you do not exist.

Most small business sites were built once and left alone. This is a guide to what Google knows about yours, what to check, and how to keep it in order without making it a second job.

What Google actually knows

Google keeps its own record of every page it has seen on your site. For each page it knows, roughly:

• Whether it has listed the page at all. A page can exist on your site and still not appear in Google. This is a common surprise.
• What the page is called. The title is the headline of a search result, though Google sometimes rewrites it.
• What the page says about itself. The description is the short text under the title.
• What the page is about. From its heading, its words and the pages that link to it.
• Which searches it appeared for, and how often people clicked.

You can see much of this yourself in a free tool from Google called Search Console. You add your site to it, and it shows which pages are listed, which are not, and the searches that brought people in.

Five things to check on every page

Whether you do it by hand or have help, these are the checks that matter most.

1. Is the page listed? If Google has not listed it, nothing else about the page counts. A page nobody links to, or one that says nothing the other pages do not, is often left out.
2. Does it have a title, and is it short enough? A title that runs too long is cut off in the results. A good rule is to keep it to about 60 characters and say plainly what the page is.
3. Does it have a description? Google may write its own if you do not, and it is usually worse. About 160 characters is what fits. Say what the reader gets.
4. Does it have one clear heading, and enough words? A page with a few lines of text gives Google little to work with.
5. Do its links work? A link to a page that no longer exists is a small signal that the site is not looked after.

Each of these is simple. The problem is the number. A site of thirty pages has thirty titles, thirty descriptions and a few hundred links. Nobody checks them all, so they drift.

Then look at the searches

Once the pages are in order, the more interesting question is what people are searching for.

Search Console shows the searches your pages already appear for. Two kinds are worth your time:

• Pages that almost rank. They appear, but low down, where few people look. A better title or a clearer section can move them up.
• Pages that are shown but not clicked. People see them and pass them by. Often the title or description is the reason.

And then there is a third kind that does not show up in the tool at all: the questions your clients ask that none of your pages answer. If clients keep asking whether you cover a certain area or how long a job takes, and nothing on your site says, that is an article waiting to be written.

Keep it to a few changes a week

The way this goes wrong is the long list. You run a check, you get sixty findings, you fix two and give up.

A better habit is a short plan each week. Up to five things, each with its reason, in a sensible order: first what keeps pages out of Google, then the pages that almost rank, then the articles your clients look for. Make those changes, and look at the numbers a week later: did your clicks and your position move, and which searches do you now appear for?

Google decides when it lists a page. It is often a matter of days and sometimes weeks, so a change made today will not show on Tuesday. That is normal. Read the movement over weeks, not days.

What an agent can do here, and what it cannot

This is work an AI agent suits, because it repeats and nobody wants to do it. Our Google search service does the following:

• It checks your pages in turn, the least recently checked first, every day: the title, the description, the heading, the words and links, and whether Google lists the page.
• It plans the few changes worth making each week and says why.
• It drafts them: a new article, a section rewritten or a better title, in your page's language.
• It sends a weekly brief on how your clicks and position moved.

What it does not do is publish on its own. Each draft waits for you. You can edit it, turn it down or approve it, and only an approved change goes to your site, either as a change your web person merges or as text you copy in yourself. We use it on our own site, in English and Portuguese.

It also cannot promise a ranking. Nobody can: Google decides, and no tool controls the result. What it can do is make sure the basics are never neglected and that you always know what to do next.

To start, your site needs to be in Google Search Console. If it is not there yet, we add it with you on the call.

Next step

Read how it works on the Google search page, or see how we handle our own agents' work in how we run AgentOS on AgentOS. If you would like your site checked, book a call.