Google Business Profile vs. Website: You Need Both

You need both. Your Google Business Profile is what puts you on Google Maps and in the local results when someone nearby searches for what you do, and your website is where they decide to hire you.

The profile is free and quick to set up, but Google controls it. The website takes more work, and it's the only one of the two that's fully yours. Here's what each one does, where each one stops, and how to connect them.

What a Business Profile does

In Google's own words, a Business Profile lets you manage how your business shows up on Maps and Search at no charge (Google Business Profile Help). On it you can:

show your hours, phone number, website and location, which can be a street address, a service area or a place marker depending on your type of business
post photos and videos of your work and your place
collect reviews from customers and reply to them
send people to your website, your social media and your booking links

Google only offers profiles to businesses that meet customers face to face, either at a location people visit or by going out to them. Plumbers, contractors, shops and restaurants all qualify. Online-only businesses don't.

If you haven't claimed and verified your profile yet, do that first. It costs nothing, and it's often the first thing people see when they search your business name.

What the profile can't do

Google decides how it looks

You fill in the fields. Google designs the page, decides what appears on it and around it, and changes the layout when it wants to. Your profile looks like every other profile in your category, because it's built from the same parts.

The description has strict rules

Google's guidelines for representing your business say the business description can't contain links of any type, and shouldn't focus on special promotions, prices or sales. That's reasonable for Google, but it means the description is a short summary, not a place to explain how you work or why you're the right call.

It doesn't collect the job details your way

People can call you, visit your site or get directions from the profile. What it doesn't give you is your own quote form, asking exactly what you need to price a job: the address, the kind of work, the age of the water heater, a photo of the damage.

It can be suspended

The same guidelines page opens with the rules you have to follow "to make sure your Business Profile won't be suspended." Follow them and you may never have a problem. But if your profile is ever suspended or stuck in verification, your website still works and still has your phone number on it.

What your website does that the profile can't

Explain everything. A page for each service, the towns you cover, how a job goes from first call to cleanup, your warranty, your license and insurance, the questions customers always ask.
Take the job details. A quote form, a booking calendar, a full menu with photos, an online store.
Show your work your way. Before and after photos, project galleries, a menu that looks like your restaurant, a link to your Google reviews one tap away.
Stay yours. Your domain, your email address at that domain, your layout, your words.
Give other sites something to link to. Google's page on local ranking says prominence, one of the main factors, is also based on information like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have (Google on local ranking). Your suppliers, your chamber of commerce and the youth team you sponsor can link to your website. A link to your own domain is something you keep.

How the two work together

Think of it as one path. Someone searches "deck builder" on their phone and your profile shows up on the map. They tap through to your website to look at past decks and check that you cover their town. Then they call or fill in the form. Or it goes the other way: they find your site first, then look up your reviews on Google before they call.

For that to work, the two have to agree with each other:

The website field on your profile points to your site. If you have a page for each service, you can point to the page that fits best.
Your site links back to your Google listing, so people can read your reviews and get directions without searching again.
Name, address and phone match, word for word. Google's guidelines ask you to use your real-world business name, as it appears on your storefront, website and stationery.
The category on your profile matches what the site says you do. If the profile says "Roofing contractor" and the site leads with gutters, it reads like two different businesses.
Hours match. When you set holiday hours on the profile, change them on the site too.
Photos on both are of your real work.

If you only have time for one this week

Claim and verify the profile. It's free, it takes less time than a website, and Google says verifying your business makes it more likely to show up in search results. Then fix or build the website, because once people find you, the website is what makes them pick up the phone.

Getting into the map results takes more than a profile, and we cover the rest in how to show up in "near me" searches. If you're wondering where Facebook fits in, that's its own question: do you need a website if you have Facebook.

Check your website's half

Our free website checker looks at the website side of this: whether your site links to Google Maps or your reviews, whether the phone number is a tap-to-call link, whether there's a quote or contact form, and how fast the page loads in Google's own mobile test. It takes under a minute and tells you in plain English what to fix.

If you have a profile but no website, or a website you'd rather not send people to, start with a free preview. After a 15 minute call, we build the first version of your site free in 2 days, with your Google listing linked from day one. You click around it, then decide. Get your free preview.