How to show up on Google and get found by the people looking for your business

When someone needs what you sell, the first thing they do is type it into Google. If your business isn't up there in that search, the one who shows up is your competitor, and the sale is theirs. The question that matters isn't whether it's worth showing up on Google. It's how to get your business found, by the right people.

This article answers that without any "number one in 24 hours" promises, because those don't exist. You'll see what really makes a business climb in search, how long that takes, how to show up in local searches in your area, and at what point it's worth having a team handle it for you.

What makes a business show up on Google?

Showing up on Google depends on three things: being relevant to what the person is searching for, earning trust (a fast, secure, well-built site) and having clear local signals for where you operate. Miss any of the three and you land on the pages nobody opens.

Google tries to show the best answer for every search. "Best answer" means content that actually answers the searcher's question, on a site you can trust that loads fast on any phone. Relevance comes from having pages that speak the way your customer types, not your company's internal jargon. Trust comes from the technical quality of the site and from other credible sites pointing to yours. And local signals tell Google which city or region you serve. None of this is solved in a day, which is exactly why the next section matters.

How long does it take to show up on Google?

Being in Google's index can happen within days. Ranking well for the searches that bring in customers takes months, because it depends on content, earned trust and continuous work, not a switch you flip.

It helps to separate two things people mix up. "Being on Google" (your site existing in the index) is fast and almost automatic. "Showing up on Google" in the sense that matters, being among the first results for a search with real demand, is another story: it's months of work that stacks up well-written pages, a technically sound site and trust that builds over time. Anyone promising the top in a week is selling smoke. It's the same reasoning about timelines I lay out in how long it takes to build a website: quick to be live, slower to be working for you.

How do I show up on Google Maps and in local searches?

For local searches ("near me", "in your city"), what weighs most is a complete, active Google Business Profile: address, hours, phone, photos and real reviews. It's the fastest route for a local business to show up.

If your customer is one neighbourhood over and searches for the service you offer, Google shows the businesses with a complete profile and good reviews first. Creating and maintaining that profile is one of the highest-return steps for anyone serving a specific area, and it's often ignored. Fill everything in, keep your hours accurate, reply to reviews and keep adding real photos. On the site, having pages that naturally mention your city or region reinforces the same signal. It's the opposite of a generic site that could belong anywhere, and it ties into what I cover in website design in Lisbon.

Do I need Google Ads, or can I show up without paying?

You can show up without paying, through organic results (SEO), but it takes time. Ads buy immediate visibility while you pay. The two serve different purposes: ads for now, SEO for the long run.

It isn't one against the other, it's a question of timing. Google Ads put you at the top today, but the moment you stop paying you disappear. Organic results, which come from SEO, take time to build, but then they work for you with no cost per click. The smart play for most businesses is to use ads to get moving and generate leads right away, while the SEO work matures underneath and reduces your dependence on ads over time. One doesn't replace the other.

Does social media help you show up on Google?

It helps indirectly. Social media doesn't push your site up the rankings directly, but it spreads your brand, brings people to the site and builds presence, and all of that reinforces the trust signals Google values.

An active Instagram or LinkedIn profile isn't a direct ranking factor, but it feeds everything else. The more people know your brand, the more of them search for you by name on Google (a strong signal), the more visits reach the site and the greater the chance other sites talk about you. Showing up well online isn't just Google: it's Google, social and your site all pulling in the same direction. That combination is what makes a business look present and credible to someone finding it for the first time.

Should I do this myself or is a team worth it?

You can start on your own (business profile, a few pages, presence on social). A team pays off when you want consistent, measurable results without spending your own time on it, and without guessing what works.

Plenty of business owners start on their own, and that makes sense for the first steps. The problem shows up when day-to-day work eats your time and SEO gets left for "when I can", which never comes. Showing up on Google seriously is continuous work: writing the right content, keeping the site healthy, tracking what rises and falls, and adjusting. At Ankor we handle this as part of the subscription, and on the Growth and Digital Team plans we include a Visibility Guarantee: if your site doesn't rank for at least 5 relevant terms within 90 days, we keep working for free the following month until it does. That's the commitment of a team that owns the result, not just the tool. The three plans (Launch €229, Growth €419, Digital Team €1,149, monthly and contract-free) are on the Ankor plans page.