Not always, and not always yet. If your work comes almost entirely from referrals or a waiting list, a complete Google Business Profile may be enough for now. A website earns its place when new customers need to find you, compare you and trust you before they get in touch, or when you want a presence you own and control more fully, and can take with you if you change providers. A Business Profile, a social page and your own website do different jobs, and most growing businesses end up using them together.
When a Google Business Profile or a social page is enough for now
A website isn’t a requirement for being found. Google describes a Business Profile as a way to maintain an online presence even if you don’t have a website, and it costs nothing (Google Ads Help: benefits of a Business Profile; Google: get started).
For now may be enough if:
- You’re fully booked from referrals or repeat customers, and new work isn’t the problem.
- Your service is simple to explain and people choose you on location, availability and reviews.
- You’re testing an idea and want to see demand before investing in a site.
- Your customers already find you and message you on one social platform, and that’s working.
If that’s you, make the profile complete: correct name, phone number, hours, service area, services and photos. If you take bookings or orders, add the link; Google allows up to 10 booking or ordering links per category (Google: booking and ordering links).
“Enough for now” isn’t “enough forever.” The signs that it’s time are below.
Website vs Google Business Profile: what each does
They aren’t interchangeable. Here’s what each does well and where it stops:
A Google Business Profile
- Shows your business in Google Search and Maps, with your hours, phone number, directions, photos and reviews.
- Is free, and is meant for businesses that have a location customers can visit or that travel to their customers (Google: guidelines).
- Follows Google’s format and rules. Information can also come from users and other sources, and anyone can suggest an edit (Google: where profile information comes from).
- Continues as a service. What Google ended in 2024 was the simple websites it used to generate from profiles. The profiles themselves carried on (see the platform section below).
A social media page
- Is good for showing recent work and keeping in touch with people who already follow you.
- Has its reach, features and layout set by the platform, and those can change.
Your own website
- Lets you decide what it says and how it’s organized, including a page for each service or area you cover.
- Can answer the questions people have before they call: what’s included, how you work, what to expect.
- Sits at an address you hold (your domain), and can move to another host if you ever need it to.
- Is the place your profile, ads, business cards and social pages can all point to.
What a profile or a Facebook page can’t do for you
- Explain your business on your terms. A profile has fixed fields; a social page is a feed, and older posts are hard to find.
- Give each service its own page. Someone searching for one specific service finds a page about exactly that.
- Appear beyond the map. A profile shows in Google’s local results and Maps; a website’s pages can also appear in regular search results.
- Belong to you. Your domain and your content stay yours when a platform changes. Our guide to owning your website explains what to hold in your own name.
- Reach people who don’t use that platform. Not every customer is on Facebook or Instagram.
The risk of building only on someone else’s platform
Platforms are useful, and you should use them. But they set the rules:
- Features change. In 2024 Google shut down the websites it had generated from Business Profiles (Search Engine Roundtable).
- Accounts can be suspended. Google reserves the right to suspend Business Profiles that break its guidelines (Google: guidelines). Meta’s terms let it remove content and suspend or disable accounts that violate its rules (Meta: Terms of Service).
- Others can shape what’s shown. Users can suggest edits to a Business Profile, and Google combines what you provide with other sources.
None of this means avoiding platforms, or building a website before you need one. It means keeping something in your own name: register your domain and keep it under your control when it makes sense, and build a site at that address when you need one. A website still depends on providers, such as your host and your domain registrar, but you choose them, and you can move.
Signs it’s time for a website
- People ask the same questions before they book, and your profile can’t answer them.
- You offer several services or serve several areas, and they don’t fit in a profile description.
- You want bigger or business customers, who tend to look you up properly before they get in touch.
- You’re losing work to competitors who let customers request a quote or book online.
- Most of your new customers come through one platform, and a change there would hurt.
- You’re spending on ads, print or vehicle signage and need somewhere to send people.
What to do first
- Claim and complete your Business Profile. Check the name, phone number, hours and service area.
- Register a domain in your business’s name, even before you build anything. It gives you an address and email that stay yours.
- Write down what customers ask before they buy. Those questions are the start of your site’s content.
- When you’re ready, start with what matters: your services, where you work, real photos and reviews, and an easy way to get in touch. A clear, small site is better than a large, unfinished one.
- Before you hire anyone, read our guide to the questions to ask before hiring a web designer.
How this works with Lux
When a website is the right next step, we design and build it around your business: a clear place for each service, contact paths that work as well on a phone as on a desktop, and technical SEO foundations from the start. The design, code and content we create transfer to you under your agreement, and your domain and business accounts stay under your control. We also set up and improve Google Business Profiles as part of our marketing work.