Why is my SEO so bad?
One of five reasons, most of the time: your site doesn't have pages for what people search, the pages exist but are thin or generic, technical issues are blocking Google, your online reputation signals are weak, or you're fine and measuring the wrong things. Diagnosis starts with Google Search Console.
When a business owner asks this, the cause is almost always one of five things, and the good news is that all five are diagnosable with free tools in an afternoon.
1. Coverage: you don't have pages for what people search. If someone searches 'end of tenancy cleaning Balham' and your site has one generic cleaning page, you're not in that race. This is the most common cause for local service businesses. Check: search Google for your service + each area you serve. If you're absent, count how many of those searches have no dedicated page on your site.
2. Quality: the pages exist but don't deserve to win. Thin copy, no photos, no specifics, nothing a competitor couldn't paste onto their own site. Compare your page against the top three results without flattering yourself: if theirs are more useful, that's the answer.
3. Technical: something is blocking Google. Check Search Console's Indexing report: if important pages show as excluded, noindexed, or blocked by robots.txt, nothing else matters until that's fixed. A surprising number of 'my SEO is bad' cases turn out to be one bad line in robots.txt left over from development.
4. Reputation: weak or inconsistent signals. Few reviews, an incomplete Google Business Profile, business details that differ between your site, Google, and directories. For the local map results, this cluster is often decisive.
5. Measurement: you're judging on the wrong evidence. Searching for yourself (Google personalises results), expecting national rankings for generic terms, or panicking over a normal seasonal dip. Search Console's 90-day comparison view tells you whether things are declining for real.
The diagnostic order matters: check technical first (it's fastest to rule out), then coverage (it's the biggest lever), then quality, then reputation. If you'd rather have it done for you, a proper audit walks all five in one pass, which is what our free visibility check does.
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