Claim your free Google Business Profile, fill in every field - category, services, hours, service area, photos - and complete the verification Google asks for. That puts you on the map. Then give the profile a website to link to, because a searcher who taps Website and finds nothing moves on to the next name. Titan builds that site from the profile you just filled in, free to see, in 10-15 minutes.
When somebody searches your trade and your town, the map and the list of businesses under it come from Google Business Profile. It is free. You claim it by searching for your own business name on Google, or by going to the Business Profile page and adding the business if nobody has. If a listing already exists that you did not make - and one often does, built from public records - claim it rather than creating a second one, because two listings for one business hurt both.
This is the single most important thing a local business can do online, and it costs nothing but an hour. Do it before you spend a dollar on anything else.
Most profiles are half empty, and a half-empty profile is what Google shows the searcher. Pick the most specific primary category for your trade - not "contractor" if "roofing contractor" exists. Add the secondary categories that fit. List every service you offer in the Services section, in the words a homeowner uses. Set your hours honestly, including whether you answer at night. Set the service area as the towns you actually drive to, not the whole state.
Then photos. A profile with real photos of your truck, your crew and your finished work gets tapped; one with a logo and nothing else does not. Upload a dozen, name them for what they show, and add a few more every month. Answer the questions people leave on the profile, because a question left hanging is answered by a stranger.
Google will ask you to prove the business is real and that you are the one running it. The method varies - a code by phone or text, a video of your workplace and tools, a postcard to the address, or something else - and Google decides which it offers you. Do whatever it asks promptly and exactly, because an unverified profile does not show up the way a verified one does, and a profile stuck in verification is the most common reason an owner thinks Google is ignoring them.
If you work from home and do not want your street address shown, that is allowed: set the profile as a service-area business and hide the address. You still verify; you just do not publish where you live.
The star rating and the number of reviews are what a searcher looks at first, before your name. The way to get them is to ask, at the end of a job that went well, and to make it easy - Google gives you a short link to your review page that you can text to the customer. Ask every customer, not just the happy ones you are sure of, because the number matters as much as the average.
Do not buy reviews, trade for them, or write them yourself. Google removes them when it catches it and the profile can be suspended for it, which is far worse than a few missing stars. Reply to the reviews you get, including the bad ones, in a calm sentence or two. The next customer reads the reply.
A finished profile puts you on the map. It does not close the job. When a searcher wants to know more than a star rating - what exactly you do, whether you cover their street, what your work looks like, how to reach you without a call - they tap Website. If that button is missing, or leads to a Facebook page that has not been updated since last spring, they go back and tap the next business.
The profile also cannot hold much. Services are a list of names; there is no room to say that your termite inspections come with the report a closing needs, or that your tree crew answers storm calls at night. Those are the sentences that turn a searcher into a caller, and they need a page of their own.
A site with your services on separate pages, your towns written out and your number on every screen gives Google a second place to match a search to you, and gives the searcher somewhere to land. The trade pages here show the shape of it for specific work: pest control website design, tree service website design, plumber website design and lawn care website design each open a live demo you can judge on your phone. The whole list is on the websites for contractors page.
If you are still deciding whether you need one at all, the honest version of that answer is on the do I need a website for my small business guide, including when the profile alone is enough.
Titan builds your site from your Google listing. Type your business name and it reads your name, your town, your hours and your services from the profile, puts them into a template built for your trade, and shows you the finished site in 10-15 minutes. It is free to see, no card. If you want it, $97 today (first week of hosting free), $97/month starts one week later, 30-day guarantee. Then go back to the profile, paste the site address into the Website field, and the two point at each other.
The better your profile, the better the site it builds - which is one more reason to do the profile properly first.
Titan fits the owner who has just finished the profile and wants the Website button to go somewhere real without starting a project. Because the site is built from the profile, the work you did on Google is the work that builds it, and it is free to see before you decide.
Titan does not manage your Google Business Profile, get you reviews or promise a map position - nobody honest can. It also does not fit a business that needs an online shop or a booking calendar behind the Website button. If the profile alone is bringing all the work you want, keep it up to date and skip the site.
A verified profile can appear within days, sometimes the same day, though where it appears in the list depends on how complete it is, your reviews and how close the searcher is. Nobody can promise you a position, and anyone who does is selling something. A new website takes longer to be found on its own; a Titan site ships with a sitemap Google can read, and the rest is Google's clock.
No. Claiming, verifying and keeping the profile is free and always has been. You will get calls and emails from people offering to manage it or guarantee a ranking for a monthly fee; you do not need them to do anything on this page. If you want to spend money, Google Ads is the paid product, and it is separate from the profile.
Yes. The profile alone puts you on the map and takes calls, and for some businesses that is enough. What a website adds is a place to land, room to explain what you do, and a second way to be matched to a search. If you are unsure, finish the profile first, then type your name into Titan and see what a site would look like before deciding. Looking is free.
Type your business name and see your own site, free, before you decide anything.
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