How to get a new business online in its first 30 days
In short: week 1, secure your name — domain, email and social handles. Week 2, create your Google Business Profile. Week 3, put up a real website on your own domain. Week 4, add your business to the other listings, ask your first customers for reviews, and connect Google Search Console. Most of it costs little or nothing — the website is the one step worth handing off.
Why the order matters
Each step feeds the next. Your Google profile wants a website to link to; your website wants a domain; your listings should all show the same name, phone and web address, which only works once those exist. Doing things out of order is how new businesses end up with three slightly different names across the internet and a Google profile pointing at a Facebook page.
The plan assumes you have registered the business and know roughly what you sell and where. It doesn't assume a logo, photos or a marketing budget.
Week 1 — Secure your name
Buy your domain
Search for yourbusinessname.com at any domain registrar. If the exact .com is taken, try a short, sayable variant (adding your town or your trade often works: smithroofingct.com) before settling for an unusual extension. Register it in your own name and your own account — not your web designer's, not your nephew's. Whoever holds the account controls the domain.
Set up email on your domain
you@yourbusiness.com looks established in a way a free webmail address doesn't, and it keeps working whatever email provider you use later. Most domain registrars and email providers can set this up in an afternoon.
Reserve your social handles
Even if you won't post for months, claim the same handle on the two or three platforms your customers actually use. Matching names make you easier to find and harder to impersonate.
Write your one-sentence description
What you do, for whom, where: "Kitchen and bath remodeling for homeowners in Hartford County." You'll paste this sentence into every profile and listing for the next three weeks, so get it right once.
Week 2 — Create your Google Business Profile
For most businesses that serve a local market, the Google Business Profile — the panel on Google Maps and on the right of the search results — brings more first contacts than anything else. It is free. Create it with your exact business name, the most specific category that fits, and either your address (if customers visit you) or the towns you serve (if you go to them).
Google will ask you to verify that the business is real, which can take from minutes to a couple of weeks — another reason to start in week 2 rather than week 4. Our step-by-step Google Business Profile guide walks through every screen.
Week 3 — Put up a real website
A website is the one place online that you own and control. It is where your Google profile, your social pages, your invoices and your business cards all point. For a new business, five pages cover almost everything:
- Home — what you do, where, and a clear way to contact you, in the first screen.
- Services — each service named in the words customers search for.
- About — who is behind the business, and why someone should trust you.
- Work or gallery — photos, a menu, projects, examples: proof.
- Contact — phone, email, form, hours, area served.
This is the step worth handing off. In your first month your hours belong to customers, suppliers and paperwork — not to fonts, layouts and page speed. A website built for you by people who do it every day looks like an established business from the first visit, reads well on a phone, and goes live on your own domain in days instead of weekends. That is what we do: a working draft within 48 hours, then $390 one-time.
Whoever builds it, insist on three things:
- Your domain — the site lives on yourbusiness.com, registered in your name.
- Fast on a phone — that's where most visitors will see it, so check every page on yours.
- You own it — the domain, the content and the logins stay yours, whatever happens to the provider.
Week 4 — Listings, reviews and measurement
Add the other listings
Beyond Google, create or claim your business on Bing Places, Apple Business Connect (which feeds Apple Maps), and the one or two directories that matter in your trade. Use exactly the same business name, phone number and website address everywhere; consistency is what tells search engines all these entries are the same business.
Ask your first customers for reviews
Reviews are the strongest signal a new business can earn, and the first five are the hardest. Ask every happy customer, in person or by text, with a direct link to your Google review form. Reply to every review, good or bad, briefly and politely. Never buy reviews or write your own — platforms remove them and may penalize the profile.
Connect Google Search Console
Search Console is Google's free tool that shows which searches your site appears for, and flags problems. Verify your site, submit your sitemap, and check it once a month. In the first weeks you'll see little — that's normal; new sites take time to show up.
What it costs, honestly
A domain is a small yearly fee. Email on your domain is free to a few dollars a month per mailbox, depending on the provider. The Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and Search Console are free. The website is the one real cost — and the one worth paying for: a fixed price like ours ($390 one-time) instead of an open-ended agency quote. Paid ads can wait until the basics are in place — they work much better when they point to a real website and a profile with reviews.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Letting someone else own your domain or profile. Always keep the logins in your name.
- Using a virtual office address on Google when customers can't actually visit you there — it can get the profile suspended.
- Different names in different places. "Smith Roofing", "Smith Roofing LLC" and "Smith's Roofing & Gutters" look like three businesses to a search engine.
- Buying an "SEO package" in month one. The basics on this page do more for a new business than any package.
- A site that only works on a computer. Check every page on your phone before you share the link.
FAQ
- Do I need a website if I have a Facebook or Instagram page?
Yes. Social media you rent — a website you own. A site shows up properly on Google, you control it fully, and it doesn't depend on a platform's rules or reach.
- How long does it take to show up on Google?
A Google Business Profile can appear within days of verification. A new website usually takes weeks to start appearing in search results; connecting Search Console and submitting a sitemap helps Google find it.
- Which parts should I hand off?
The profiles and listings take an afternoon. The website is what owners hand off — to us, for example: a working draft within 48 hours, $390 one-time.
See your draft first — pay only if you want it live
Tell us what your business does. Within 48 hours you get a working draft of your website; you pay only when you want it live — $390 one-time. We reply the same day.