Google’s New Free Website for Google My Business

Sample Screenshots using Food Integrity Group’s info

This is what you’ll be greeted withInitial data shown will be captured from your

Google My Business page

Notice that the editing options are very limited

The quality of the page’s appearance will greatly

depend on the quality of your images

Opening / header image will the same as you’ve

chosen on your Google My Business page

ThemesPick your choice of 10 themes

Font and colour options are

pre-selected

Be careful of font selection as some

fonts may not be very clear and may

affect your brand

Theme Choice # 10I chose the last theme as it had a bit of

style but retained an easy to read font

I wish I could have picked the colour too

as FIG’s branding is an organic green

Good news is that making changes is

quick and easy so try them all!

Text EditorYou only get 4 text editing sections

- Headline,

- usually best for your business name

or brand

- Description

- What you offer / do

- Summary Header

- Maximum of 40 characters of bolded

text (does this remind you of a

Google Adword layout?)

- Summary Body

- I did not test the text limit in this

section but I could not figure out

how to set paragraphs

Photos and InfoClicking on Photos and info will

take you back to the Google My

Business page content for you to

add or edit content found in

these respective sections.

There’s no way for you to have

different content here (very

limiting!) but it does keep it easy.

This is where the site really

begins to fall down compared to

a proper website.

Your real website or Google’s? Should be an obvious choice!If you have an up-to-date website, this one’s a no

brainer. Use your own site!

Thankfully, Google’s system does pick up on this if

you’ve already identified your url in the GMB page.

Note that if you choose the Google site, it will only

display ‘business.google.com’ in your GMB page

when found in search on Google Maps. That’s

another lost branding opportunity.

Again… if you have or can afford a proper website,

get one!

Your URLYou get one opportunity to create your new url.

Mess that up and you’re stuck with it. Think

carefully before you publish.

Maybe you could call Google for assistance to

change it ( I haven’t tried that yet) but I wouldn’t

risk it.

Again, this is a real brand killer in my opinion and

only to be used if it’s truly your only option.

Are we done yet?This is the last step in getting your site published

So is this really a website?

Would you rather call it a page?

Remember, that any time you make changes in

your GMB page such updated photos, they will be

linked. That’s nice and does ensure that if you have

a virtual tour that it will show up in the photos

feed but it’s still a far cry from even the most basic

site building tools I’ve seen.

Best yet, call a local web design pro!

...And You’re Done!That’s what it looks like as a final product.

It’s simple, quick and easy to update.

But beyond that, it’s incredibly limited.

Agreed, it’s still better than having no site at all.