Chris Yes you can also manipulate / edit the website accordingly in your favour. I've read you can also build backlinks to it but this I haven't tested myself yet
McRae ✍️ » Chris What would you use this website for then? I already have a website full of my content. Would you load it up with the same stuff? Dean » Chris In what way can you manipulate it? Sorry, I am just a business owner, not an SEO whizz, photos with geo tag? Keywords, linking back to your main site? Chris » Dean Adding keywords in the relevant fields, hyperlinking keywords back to your website pages, adding driving directions to areas you wish to rank. Someone done a good video on this but I can't remember who it was sorry Use them as a buffer site Dean Ok, sounds easy enough, I have established GMB, would setting up a Google.business.site risk setting off the bugs in the GMB, I know they are very finicky McRae ✍️ » Chris Interesting. I'll have to look into this as it seems very beneficial
Mike Do you mean the free business site that comes with each listing or sites.google.com?
McRae ✍️ » Mike Yes that's correct Mike » McRae So you're referring to both? Either way they make for really good buffer sites for your website and listing. Some use the free business site and others a Google site as the listing's web url. If you silo your posts it can help quite a bit and the same when you silo a Google site but most of us use them as tier-1/buffer properties. Dean I am too interested, does it make sense to have one if you already have a proper, professional website? Stephen Pickles 🎓 » Dean I started with a Google business profile and create the $18…business-site and it went very well. However when the actual business website was created the Google business profile would not link to it as it kept defaulting to the …business-site address. So the solution was to turn off the …business-site address. In my experience, if you have a website there is no need for a …business-site address. So what happens now is that all the leads are directed from the Google business profile to a contact form on the business website or else they use the contact phone number and dial direct to talk to the owner. Dean » Stephen Pickles Yes, I'm a bit reluctant to move people away from the professional website I have created to a free, cheap looking site Stephen Pickles 🎓 » Dean Don't change what you are doing as you are on the right track. Dean » Stephen Pickles Thank you for the reassurance mate, I have just updated my drone and have even better photo quality now also. Haven't got and of jobs I've done yet as this was its maiden flight.
Stephen Pickles 🎓 Are you doing YouTube? Sorry can't remember. Dean » Stephen Pickles Not as yet, some videos with the drone? Stephen Pickles 🎓 » Dean I am not sure that roof replacement is as exciting as unclogging a toilet or removing a culvert clog. But if the drone can hover over a roof replacement job and show the steps, removal of old tiles, fix the sarking, put new tin or tiles blah blah blah and you edit down to 1 minute for GBP or a few minutes for a YouTube session then some people will be interested. Once you have exhausted all your keyword linking and page building then maybe something to think about. Dean » Stephen Pickles Great idea, much appreciated.
Ben Fisher 🎓🎩 It is an auto updating citation, does not help SEO Mike When your caught up with optimizing your GMB, built a shit ton of citations, Web 2.0 properties, ranked your website organically, acquired a constant rate of fresh reviews, developed an ongoing system of continually posting fresh and relevant content, and created a great YouTube channel where you are ranking keywords, when you get all that done. Go ahead and look up Google stacking to see how to make use of a Google site and all Googles other assets and then link them together with everything mentioned above. The use of a Google.site alone is no more helpful than any of these mentioned tools. Used together you begin to see what SEO is all about. 🤯👍🏽2
Dean » Mike Very informative and well explainned, thank you for your comment
Girard IMO it really depends on the scale and age of the business you're working with. In Europe and North America, mid sized business of a certain age usually will have a website of some sort. However we do work with a lot of very small businesses (e.g. one-five employees e.g. in the home improvement/repair and health industries) as well as brand-new businesses that have neither citation/web presence nor the time/budget to build one aside from the occasional Instagram or Facebook account (and even then we often find an old, abandoned Facebook is that there is). In such cases, we do find it useful to set up the Google Website and optimise it best we can even if our clients don't actively use it as their actual website. At worst, it acts as a free citation, and should it turns out to get better organic ranking than the actual website (yes we've seen it happen!), it can be disabled with one click.
Stephen Pickles 🎓 » Girard This is how I would see it as well and for many small businesses they can generate more than enough work from a GBP listing and a GBP-business-site and so they often don't see the need to invest in a proper website. My advice to clients is that having a GBP, a Bing equivalent and a Website means that all the eggs are not in one basket. The reality is that with this strategy they will end up with too many phone calls, that they just have to manage as best they can. But the upside is that they can pick the most profitable jobs and leave the rest or pass them onto others.
