Do You Need a Website If You Have a Google Business Profile?
Last updated: October 27, 2026 Reading time: 6 minutes
TL;DR
You do not need a website to have a Google Business Profile. Plenty of businesses run on a profile alone, and Google's own help pages treat the website field as optional.
But the two do different jobs. A profile helps people who are already searching on Google find you, see your hours and call or visit. A website is where you explain what you do in your own words and your own structure, on an address you control, for every customer, wherever they found you.
If any of the questions in the self-check below gets a "yes", a website is probably worth it.
What a Business Profile does well
A Business Profile is how your business appears on Google Search and Google Maps. Through it, you can show:
- your name, address or service area, phone and opening hours;
- photos, updates and links to your social profiles;
- reviews from customers;
- a link to your website and, for some categories, links for orders, reservations or appointments (Google Business Profile Help: edit your Business Profile).
For a customer who searches "bakery near me", decides in ten seconds and walks over, that is often everything they need, as long as it is right. A profile can change without you, through public suggested edits and Google's own updates, so it needs checking; see how to update your Google Business Profile and keep it accurate.
What a profile cannot do
The profile is Google's page about you, built to Google's layout. That limits it in a few ways:
- Depth. There is no room for a full explanation of services, a detailed menu with notes, your story, or answers to the questions customers ask every week.
- Structure. You cannot add pages, change the order of information, or design how it looks.
- Language. Customers see the information you entered. If many of them read another language, you cannot give them a proper version in their language.
- Ownership of the address. Your profile lives on Google's address. If you print a link, it is Google's link, and Google decides how that page works. In 2024 Google turned off the simple websites it used to host for Business Profiles; anything printed with those addresses stopped working (details here).
- Customers who never touch Google Maps. People who find you through a friend's message, a social post, a flyer or another search engine need somewhere to land too.
A five-question self-check
Answer honestly. One "yes" is usually enough to justify a simple website.
- Do customers ask the same questions again and again? Prices, parking, what is included, how to prepare for an appointment. A website answers them once.
- Do you offer more than a few services, or services that need explaining? A list in a profile is not the same as a page per service.
- Do your customers speak more than one language? A website can have a proper version for each, on its own address.
- Do you get customers from places other than Google Maps? Social media, word of mouth, print, other directories.
- Would you like an address you control, one that stays the same if you change tools or platforms?
If every answer is "no", a well-kept Business Profile may be enough for now. Spend the time making sure its hours, photos and details are complete and current.
Does a website help my Google ranking?
Google says local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. Prominence is about how well known a business is, and Google says it draws on information such as how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have (Google Business Profile Help: tips to improve your local ranking).
So a website is not a switch that moves you up the map. It does give other websites something to link to, and it gives customers and Google more complete information about what you do. Be sceptical of anyone who promises a ranking result.
If you decide you need one
Keep it simple. A single page with what you do, your hours, location, contact details and a few honest photos already does more than most owners expect. Build it from the facts in your Business Profile, so the two match.
Your options, in short:
- Google Sites: Google's own builder; you lay out the page yourself.
- A general website builder such as Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy: more design control and add-ons.
- A builder that starts from your listing: for example, Croisa's Google Business Profile website generator finds your public Google listing, fills in your name, address, phone, category and hours, and drafts a site you edit by chat, in the languages your customers use. Once you link your profile, you edit your hours, address and phone in one place for both the site and Google, Croisa flags anything that changes on Google, and your Google reviews appear on your site automatically.
- A social page: quick, but on someone else's platform and address.
Our step-by-step guide to turning your Google Business Profile into a website covers each step, and Google Sites vs a website builder vs a Facebook Page compares the options side by side.
Once your site is live, add its address to the Website field of your profile so the two point at each other.
Related reading
- How to turn your Google Business Profile into a website
- What happened to Google Business Profile websites, and what to do now
- How to update your Google Business Profile and keep it accurate
- Google Sites vs a website builder vs a Facebook Page
Croisa makes the Google Business Profile website generator mentioned above. We are not affiliated with Google, Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy or Meta.