7+ Best Google Business Sites Alternatives in 2024

Are you looking for an alternative to Google Business sites?

Google announced that they will be getting rid of all mini-sites created by Google Business Profiles(formally Google My Business).

This creates a problem for businesses that use these free Google websites to get their local leads.

The good news is that there are plenty of alternatives you can choose.

In this article, we have listed the 7+ best GBP site alternatives for 2024. We go a step further and identify both paid and free platforms you can use to ensure you make a decision within your budget.

1. Bluehost-Paid

Bluehost is the best hosting solution in 2024 because it is affordable and has plenty of features to help you build your own website. It comes with different packages that allow you to select a plan within your budget and right for your business. This makes it a great Google Business Profile site alternative.

Even though you need to pay to use Bluehost, it comes with a free domain with every plan. This reduces your budget, allowing you to channel those funds to other areas of your business.

Now, Bluehost comes with a drag and drop builder that you can use to create landing pages, contact us pages, and more. As a result, you can buy a cheap hosting plan and have a site ready in minutes.

Bluehost also understands that not every business owner has the experience to carry out local SEO by themselves. That is why you can hire their SEO Team, to help you with local SEO.

This service allows Bluehost to help you with both onpage and off-page local SEO such as adding your site to directories and populating it with secure high authority links.

But as you can imagine, this can be expensive since it is a custom service.

Instead, a cheaper and highly effective solution is All in One SEO.

AIOSEO is, without a doubt, the best local SEO plugin. It comes packed with Local SEO features guaranteed to improve your listing. You do not need expert assistance setting it up or using it, ensuring you save on cost and have better control over your site’s SEO.

To add to this, AIOSEO Lite is a forever-free version of the plugin. This allows you to test it out first, before investing in the tool.

This SEO plugin allows you to optimize your content with local keywords right in your WordPress post or page editor. It gives a score from 1-100 to your content and you can see this number change in real time as you write or edit your content.

It comes with a headline analyzer that also gives you a score from 1-100. With this feature, you can optimize your page or post title by adding local elements. This will allow your post to get more clicks in search results and also communicate to Google where to place your site in local searches.

In addition to this, AIOSEO allows you to add opening times, closing times, maps, and other business information using separate blocks on your page.

This means you can customize how your business information is displayed on your site however you want. All you have to do is drag and drop the blocks in the exact position on the page you want, and that’s it.

If you want to learn more about this local SEO plugin, check out our complete All in One SEO review here.

Get started with Bluehost here.

Check out our Bluehost review here.

2. SeedProd-Free and Paid

SeedProd is the best website builder because it comes with over 200 beautiful and professionally designed templates you can start building from. You can style your site by changing the fonts, colors, borders and so much more.

It is important to note that SeedProd is a website builder, so you will need to first purchase hosting and a domain name.

But, what makes SeedProd the perfect Google Business site alternative is its ability to create both complex and simple sites. With its drag and drop builder, you can recreate a similar site to the one on your Google Business Profile or design a larger site with more pages.

Plus, with SeedProd’s front-end text editor, you can add the existing content from your GBP site by simply copy-pasting.

You can also add beautiful and high-converting lead capture forms, something that you cannot do on Google Business sites. This can allow you to grow your mailing list and build relationships with your customers in a better way. To make your lead generation process better, SeedProd also offers you features like popups and countdowns which you can place anywhere on your pages.

Now, when you build a website with SeedProd, you need to add local elements to it so that you can rank for local searches. SeedProd comes with plenty of customizable blocks that you can use to help you with this.

For example, SeedProd comes with blocks for Google Maps, Business Reviews, Star Ratings, business hours, team members, and more.

If you want to add social proof to your site, SeedProd offers blocks like Facebook comments, Twitter(now X) embeds, a Facebook page, a gallery, and more.

But, even though SeedProd allows you to add your local business information in a simple way, you may need to add something extra that its blocks don’t offer.

Luckily SeedProd easily integrated with All in One SEO.

As discussed, AIOSEO can help you insert local SEO elements in a beautiful and easy way. So, this connection allows you to add AIOSEO blocks already populated with your business information using SeedProd’s drag and drop builder.

This can help you style your pages better and, at the same time, make the whole process easier.

Get started with SeedProd here.

Check out our complete SeedProd review here.

3. Thrive Suite-Paid

Thrive Suite stands out as a GBP site alternative because it is a set of different plugins and tools all designed to help you create the perfect website for your business.

It has many ready-to-use themes that allow you to create simple or complex websites for local businesses. For example, it comes with templates for restaurants, service businesses, finance, construction, electricians, and more.

To add to this, Thrive Suite comes with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that allows you to customize the templates for your specific business.

Now, Thrive Suite is made with marketers in mind, ensuring everything it does is geared toward conversion even when it comes to local SEO.

For starters, it can help you improve your local SEO through easy integrations with top SEO plugins like RankMath, Yoast, and All In One SEO. These plugins can help you optimize your site for location keywords while also helping you create easy-to-read content for your visitors.

It goes further by supporting a 1-click AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) setup so that you can easily improve mobile optimization through faster load time. The better the mobile experience the more likely you will get more clicks in local search results.

But, as mentioned, when it comes to local SEO you should fill out your business information accurately and consistently everywhere.

To help with this, Thrive Suite comes with an easy way to add “Global Fields” throughout your site.

With this feature, you can add all your business information, and update brand colors and fonts universally from one place. So, once you make these changes in the Global Fields they are added consistently throughout your site.

On top of that, you can automate customer testimonials through Thrive Ovation.

This gives you the perfect opportunity to showcase what your past customers thought about your products while also offering social proof. Good testimonials can help you increase conversions in a similar way to Google reviews and increase engagement.

To add to this, Thrive Suite comes with Thrive Leads which can help you grow your email list. It uses high conversion marketing tools like slide-ins, 2-step optin forms, inline forms, sticky ribbons and more to help you capture leads the right way.

As a result, it can help you nurture leads, turn them into customers, and help grow your brand in the local community.

At the same time, you can also integrate WooCommerce with Thrive Suite to help turn your site into an online store for the local community. This allows you to showcase your products in a similar way to your physical store, making it more convenient for your customers.

Get started with Thrive Suite here.

4. Wix-Free and Paid

Wix is one of the most popular website builders because it offers a complete solution from hosting to site design. It comes with a simple drag and drop builder that allows you to place each page element exactly as you would like it to appear.

To add to this, it makes it super easy to start your website-building process because of AI integration. All you have to do is tell Wix what type of website you want to build, such as an online store, portfolio, blog, and more.

Then, its AI will ask you a few questions about the site, such as your goals, your target audience, and so on. After this, Wix will use this information to create a website profile for you.

This site builder will help you find the right templates, generate appropriate AI content, and design the site for you. It will also help you design a mobile responsive version of your site to give users on smaller devices a good experience. This can help you improve your local SEO because a lot of these queries are made on mobile devices.

To help make it easier for beginners, Wix comes with an easy-to-use dashboard.

Here, you will find analytics tools that allow you to check advanced metrics like site speed, uptime, and security.

To add to this, it also comes with marketing features that you can activate and customize straight from its dashboard. These tools can help you find clients through social media, regular SEO, email marketing, and more.

Now what makes Wix the perfect Google Business site alternative is its SEO features.

For start, from the information you feed its AI in the initial setup, Wix will create a personalized SEO checklist for you to use for site optimization. Once it creates your checklist, you can view errors and recommendations on how you can improve your SEO. As you make these changes, you can keep track of all of them in your completed SEO tasks section.

Now, Wix makes it easy to add local SEO elements to your site, such as maps, meta information, and robot.txt files, straight from the dashboard as well, making it easy for beginners.

You can also add the location and the keywords of your business using the SEO checklist. This gives you the perfect opportunity to add local keywords to kickstart your local SEO process.

The interesting thing about using Wix is that you can create a beautiful website and get these SEO features on the free plan. This means, just like with your Google Business website, you will not need to pay for anything.

To add to this, you get plenty of ways to optimize your site, unlike with a GBP website.

Get started with Wix here.

Check out our complete Wix review here.

5. Squarespace-Paid

Squarespace is one of the best Google Business Profile website alternatives because it is an all-in-one service. First, it offers you premium hosting and domain registration solutions. At the same time, it comes with amazing site-building features to help you build a professional website quickly and easily.

Squarespace is known for its professional and beautiful websites. To help you with this, it comes with plenty of sharply designed templates that you can further customize with its drag and drop builder.

Squarespace creates Schemas automatically for different types of content on your site. This allows your content to be displayed in a more visual way in local search results.

On top of this, this GBP site alternative comes with an SEO panel.

The SEO panel gives you more control over individual page SEO elements. For example, you can localize the page URL, meta title and description, and more. This allows you to display your business information to Google in a quick and easy way. You can also add keywords to the SEO Panel so that Squarespace can help you optimize for them quickly without hiring an expert.

Most importantly, Squarespace comes with an SEO checklist as well. It will list down everything you need to do and give you recommendations to fix them. This step-by-step process allows you to improve your local SEO without forgetting anything.

Get started with Squarespace here.

6. Shopify-Paid

Shopify is the best eCommerce solution that can help you sell your products both physically and online. It is not just an online shop builder, it is a business management system. This makes it an awesome Google Business site alternative.

Shopify’s multichannel selling enables you to reach customers across physical and online spaces. This balance and exchange of information can improve local SEO, ensuring you take advantage of both situations.

To add to this, Shopify integrates with various sales channels, including physical retail stores, online marketplaces, and social media. This allows you to expand your reach and optimize your online presence.

To add to that, Shopify’s POS system supports in-person sales and integrates easily with online stores to ensure consistency. By taking advantage of multichannel selling, Shopify can boost visibility, customer engagement, and overall sales, making it a valuable tool for local businesses.

Shopify POS can also help you manage your inventory, track payments, and get real-time business insights to streamline your company for the local market further.

Such flexibility can make your company more dependable, helping you build trust with the local community.

Get started with Shopify here.

Check out our complete Shopify review here.

7. Google Sites-Free

Google Sites are a great Google Business profile website alternative because they are free and easy to use. To add to this, you can connect it to a custom domain so that you have more control over the customization of your site.

But, the merit of connecting a custom domain to your Google Site is you do not need to buy hosting, it comes free. This makes it more affordable while also ensuring you do not need to increase your marketing budget.

The biggest advantage Google Sites have over other entries on this list is it is also a Google product.

This means that they are quickly indexed and can rank in no time for local SERPs. To add to this, they can also integrate with other Google products like Google Docs and Google Forms easily. This ensures you enjoy the Google Apps ecosystem even on your free site.

Since Google Maps is also part of the Google ecosystem, you can easily add it to your site. This allows you to show your users your location, and tell Google where your business physical location is.

Now, Google Sites come with a simple builder that allows you to use a drag and drop interface to customize your design. It also comes with a couple of templates that you can customize by changing basic page elements like fonts and colors.

But even if it has limited theme customization features, Google Sites allows you to create and save a custom theme. This can help you style and personalize your site further, making it unique.

It is important to point out that when you add too much content to a site, it can end up loading slower. It can also make your site look spammy reducing the quality of the user experience.

But Google Sites have a solution for this.

They allow you to create collapsable text groups within a page. With this feature, you can add plenty of text and hide it on the page. Your users can access it only by clicking on the dropdown arrows.

This can be very advantageous for local SEO as it allows you to add plenty of content on a page without it being saturated or overwhelming. To add to this, all this content is indexable, meaning Google can see it even if it is not visible on the page.

Get started with Google Sites here.

Other Google Business Site Alternatives

• Weebly: Weebly is a free website builder, making it a good alternative to Google Business Profile sites. Its drag and drop site builder allows you to create websites without technical expertise, making it a great option for beginners. To add to this, Weebly allows you to easily add your business information, helping you grow your local online presence. It also comes with various templates, which you can use to start building your site. Being a free platform, it provides a cost-effective solution for small businesses that are ready to invest in a website.
• WordPress.com: WordPress.com is a free platform that offers a great solution to create a unique website. Even though it is a free platform, you can use plugins like Yoast SEO, to ensure your site is optimized for local search. To add to that, it comes with many other themes and plugins that also allow you to scale your local business affordably.
• Durable: Durable is a website builder that has grown in popularity because of its simplicity and ease of use. This makes it the perfect alternative to Google Business Profile sites for businesses looking for a straightforward and easy way to get their presence online.
• Strikingly: Strikingly is another website builder that offers a user-friendly experience, making it a good alternative to Google Business Profile websites. It is designed to help businesses create a basic yet effective website for their business. While not as feature-rich as some other platforms, Strikingly comes with an animated site builder which makes the process fun. It also has great support ensuring all your issues are dealt with quickly.

Why is Google Business Profile Shutting Down?

As it stands, Google has not given much detail as to why they are shutting down GBP sites. 

But, as SEO experts, we have always expected another drastic change since the move to Google My Business back in 2022. To many, this was a signal of major changes to come as far as this Google product is concerned.

They followed this up by also discontinuing the Google My Business app and encouraging small companies to use Google Maps for single-location businesses. On the other hand, Google stated that the GMB web portal was primarily going to be used to serve large and multi-location businesses.

Now, with GBP sites completely closing, here are our speculations as to why this is happening. 

Expensive to Maintain the Free Google Sites

Since Google Business profiles are essentially one-page sites, they need a server and hosting. As you can imagine, hosting over 20 million websites is no small fit as it can be very expensive. 

Google may have decided to end the product because providing the free hosting services just became too expensive for them. 

But if this is the reason, it is curious to know why Google did not consider introducing a monthly maintenance cost or an annual flat fee to help offset Google Business Profile’s hosting and server costs.

Poor Return on Investment 

Sometimes, companies use a free or cheap product that leads to losses to attract customers to their main products. This is called the loss leader pricing strategy.

The idea behind this strategy is to draw customers in with free or cheap products to build brand loyalty so that they can purchase your other products. But for a while, most Google products have been marketed separately, making it harder to use the loss leader strategy. 

Shift of Strategy

Over the past year, new technology has affected Google. For example, more and more people are using AI applications like ChatGPT instead of using Google to search for queries. 

Even though Google is still at the forefront of AI technology, the fear is they can easily be left behind if they do not adapt soon. 

As a result, they could be opting to reduce the number of products they have and divert those funds to what they consider the future of the company, i.e., AI.

Remember, before you make this shift, it is important to choose a platform that offers the following advantages.

• SEO Friendly
• Easy to use
• Easy to migrate
• Offers many functionalities
• Offers integrations
• Allows you to scale
• Great customer support
• Security

We hope you enjoyed learning about the best Google Business site alternatives. If you have any more questions check out our FAQs below.

FAQs: Best Google Business Sites Alternatives