In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Google My Business website. In case you’re not familiar, Google My Business is a website builder that allows you to create a free website for your business. There are no charges for hosting and you even get a free example.business.site domain name.
I will assume that you already have a Google My Business account, but if not you can sign up for one here.
How to Make Your Business Website
From you Google My Business dashboard, find and click on the Website option along the left side menu.
By default, Google provides a basic template for displaying your business’s information that includes the following sections:
- Overview
- Updates
- Testimonials
- Summary
- Gallery
- Contact Us
Let’s go through each section.
1. Overview
At the very top, you’ll find an overview of your business which includes the name of your company with a description below and optionally your hours if relevant. All of the fields in this section are customizable in the EDIT menu.
You can choose the action for the Primary Button from the following options:
- Contact Us: Sends customer name, phone number, email, and message to your email and all other listing owners and managers
- Get Quote: Sends customer name, phone number, email, and message to your email and all other listing owners and managers
- Make Appointment: Directs customer to the web address of your choice
Below the Primary Button is a header photo. If you do not like the header photo that was chosen for you, then you can upload a new one.
2. Updates
In the updates section, you will see the latest posts that you have made for your business listing. In case you are not familiar with making posts for your business, you can learn more about posts here.
3. Testimonials
The testimonials section pulls in Google reviews for your business and displays a handful of your most recent reviews. The individual reviews include a rating out of 5 stars, how long ago the rating was made, a textual review, and the user’s name who left the review.
In addition to the reviews, there are also links to write a review and read more reviews.
4. Summary
The summary section is the most customizable section of the entire website. Here, you can create a summary header and body. You have the ability to add links and lists in the body as well as mark up your text with bold, italics, and underlines.
According to Google, the purpose of the summary body is as follows:
Tell customers about the products and services that sets you apart
Here is an example of the summary for the Google My Business website that I manage.
5. Gallery
The gallery section by default pulls in images that you have already associated with your business listing, but you also have the option to upload new photos here.
6. Contact Us
The last section of the website is the Contact us section. Here, you can add a phone number and/or business hours. If you choose to add neither of these, this section will not appear on your website.
Customizing Your Google My Business Website
The amount of customization for your Google My Business website is limited. Aside from what has already been discussed, the only other customization options that you have can be found in the THEMES menu.
As of this writing, there are a total of 10 themes including:
- Azure
- Lagos
- Conservatory
- Nouveau
- Noble
- Emerald
- Plum Harvest
- Tinto
- Luxe
- Cream Soda
Choosing a Domain Name
By default, you can pick a domain name or a site address for your website that ends in .business.site. You can access this by navigating to More > Update Site Name.
If you would like you own custom domain name, you have three options.
- Domain name forwarding
- Transfer domain name to Google Domains
- Buy a domain name from Google Domains
For a detailed tutorial for each of these domain name options, check out the video below.
If you find that a Google My Business website is not sufficient for you, then I recommend you check out these other free website hosting options.
