How Google finds a local business.

First it has to know you exist.

Google has programs that constantly travel the internet, following links from page to page. When they reach your site, they read it and add it to their vast list, the index. Only a page that is in the index can appear in the results. A new site that no link points to can wait a long time to be found. That is why every site I build also carries a list of all its addresses, written for search engines, so they do not have to guess what exists.

Then it has to understand what you do.

The program does not look at photographs the way a person does. It reads text. If the home page says only “Welcome” under a big photograph, Google cannot tell whether you are a hairdresser, a konoba or a tyre shop. If it says “Hair salon in Trogir, cuts and colour”, with an address and opening hours, it can. The page title, the short description shown in the results and the headings within the text speak loudest, so they are thought through before anything else.

Alongside the text for people, a site can carry data written only for machines, called structured data. It is a short record in an agreed format: this is a business, these are its name, address, phone and opening hours, these are common questions and their answers. Visitors do not see it; a search engine reads it without guessing. On the sites I build, that record is put together from the same facts that are written on the page, because hidden data that differs from what the page says does more harm than good.

The map with businesses nearby.

When someone searches for something nearby, a map with a few businesses often appears above the ordinary results. Those businesses do not come from websites but from Google Business Profiles, free listings the owner opens and edits. For a small local business that is often the most important place on the whole of Google. Google's own guidelines name three things it looks at: how well a business matches what is being searched for, how far it is from the person searching and how well known it is.

Distance you cannot change. The rest you can. A profile with the right category, opening hours, photographs, a description of services and reviews that keep arriving tells Google that the business exists, is open and that people visit it. How to set up the profile is in the article on the Google Business Profile, and how to collect reviews honestly is in the article on reviews.

What others say about you.

The third part is links and mentions. A link from the tourist board, a portal for your area, a partner or a local association tells Google that someone else thinks you are worth mentioning. One link from a trusted place is worth more than a pile of links from places nobody reads, and bought links can even do harm.

It also matters that your name, address and phone number read the same everywhere: on the site, on the profile, on Facebook and in directories. If one place shows an old number and another a new address, the search engine cannot be sure it is the same business.

What you can check today.

• Type your business name and town into Google on your phone, and look at what appears and what is written next to your name.
• Open your Google Business Profile and check the opening hours, the phone number, the category and the photographs.
• See whether the home page of your site says in words what you do and in which town.
• Compare your name, address and number on the site, on the profile and on social media. They have to match.

Why nobody honest promises first place.

Some offers guarantee first place on Google. Ask for which search. For the exact name of your business, first place usually comes by itself. For “apartments Split”, nobody can promise it, because neither the person promising nor you decides it; Google does.

Results are not the same for everyone. They depend on where the searcher is, which device they use, what they searched for before and what other businesses in your area are doing. Google keeps changing the way it orders results, and paid ads often sit above everything. Whoever guarantees a position guarantees something they do not control.

What I can guarantee is the technique and the content. The site is fast, reads well on a phone, and has clear titles and descriptions, structured data and a list of addresses for search engines. The copy answers the questions people actually ask. That foundation is part of every website I build. Deeper work on visibility, on Google and in AI search, I do as SEO and AI visibility.

If you want to know where your site stands today, the free website check covers both visibility on Google and what AI says about your business.