Google’s Free Website: What Is It & Do You Need One?
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Business owners: have you been confused recently by an email from Google asking you to publish your website? This may seem like an offer that’s too good to be true. That’s because it is. Google offering a free website is not what you think, nor does it necessarily mean anything good for your business.
What is it?
If you have a Google My Business, you’ve most likely received a lot of notifications from Google telling you to publish your website. You may be asking yourself: Why do you need to publish a website with Google if you already have a professional, fully-functional site for your business? Great question, we’ll explain why you don’t need it.
Google My Business Website
This offer from Google is an integration with Google My Business that is ideal for business owners who don’t currently have a website. Google gives companies the opportunity to build a free website without worrying about a domain name or using up server space. All you need to do is use the tools Google gives you in your GMB dashboard.
If your business already has a website, this option will not work.
The free website that Google offers and your business’s website are two separate entities. You may have worked with Sleight Advertising to build your company’s website. Therefore, you may be confused why you’re getting emails from Google telling you to publish your site. We strongly recommend not to go down that road for a couple of reasons.
The Downside to Two Websites
First and foremost, having two websites will cause massive confusion for your customers. We want to make it as easy as possible for them to find you and not have to wonder which website to choose between the two of them. If you were to opt into Google’s free website, it would create a duplicate and cause a poor experience for your customers.
Another downside to Google’s free website is that it only works with Google. When your customers use different search engines, such as Bing or Yahoo, they won’t be able to easily find your business information. Sleight Advertising creates websites that are optimized for any search engine, even though we are a Google Premier Partner. We do this because your customers should always be able to find you, regardless of how they search. By using this Google-centric website, you may miss out on valuable new business that could come from other sources.
Lastly, it may seem appealing that Google’s website claims to only take 10 minutes to create, but 10 minutes is not enough to create a beautiful, functional, SEO-friendly website. The free website is limited in what it can do, who it can reach, and how it looks.
Trust the Website Development Experts
Sleight Advertising has been building websites for every type of business for many years. We know how to build successful websites that dominate the competition across all devices. Pay no attention to Google’s reminders about publishing your website. We’ve already got you covered.