Just opened? Your first 30 days online, in order

Write these down and use them exactly the same way everywhere:

• Your business name, exactly as customers will see it. If it differs from your legal name, register it as an assumed name (a "DBA") first.
• One phone number customers should call.
• Your address, or the towns you serve if customers never come to you.
• Your hours, including the days you're closed.
• What you do, in the words customers use ("furnace repair", not "HVAC solutions").

Why it matters: every listing, website and AI answer gets copied from these facts. A different spelling or phone in one place creates confusion that is hard to undo.

Time: 20 minutes. Cost: free.

This is the first thing most customers see, before any website.

• Create it at business.google.com, signed in with an account you own, not your web designer's or a relative's.
• Use your real business name only. Adding words like "Best Plumber Skokie" to the name is against Google's rules and a common reason new profiles get suspended.
• If customers don't come to you, choose "service area" and hide your address. Don't use a virtual office or a P.O. box as your address.
• Pick the main category that describes you best. You can add a few more.
• Add your phone, hours, website if you have one, and 3–5 real photos.

Verification: Google decides how you verify. Today that is often a short video: be ready to show your sign or vehicle, your tools or workspace, and a document with the business name. Film it in one continuous take.

Time: 30–60 minutes, plus waiting for Google. Cost: free.

• Why can't I find my new business on Google?
• Google verification video: what to film
• My new Google Business Profile got suspended

• Apple Business Connect (iPhone maps and Siri), Bing Places (Bing and Microsoft's AI), Yelp, and Facebook.
• Copy the facts from your list, word for word.
• Skip the paid "list you on 70 directories" offers. The few places above matter most.

Time: about an hour in total. Cost: free.

Honest answer: maybe not in month one. A complete Google listing answers most first questions. You need a website when customers ask things your listing can't answer: prices, services in detail, booking, or proof of your work.

If you build one, the first screen on a phone must show what you do, where, your hours and a phone number people can tap to call.

Cost: from free (a basic builder) to a few hundred dollars for help, plus the domain and hosting you pay to those companies directly.

• Does a new business need a website in month one?

• Ask every real customer, not only the happy ones. Send your review link by text right after the job.
• Never offer a discount or gift for a review. Google doesn't allow it, and it can remove the reviews.
• Reply to every review, calmly, even the unhappy ones.

Five honest reviews do more for a new business than fifty from friends.

• Search your business name on your phone. Is your listing there, with the right hours and phone?
• Search what a customer would type: "[what you do] [your town]".
• Ask ChatGPT "What is [your business] in [your town]?" New businesses are often unknown to AI apps at first. That's normal. Complete, consistent listings are what they learn from over time.
• Tap your phone number everywhere it appears. Does it dial?

• Extra words in the business name on Google → a suspended profile.
• The listing created under someone else's account → you can't change your own hours later.
• Different phone numbers in different places → customers call the wrong one.
• Paying for reviews or "Google verification" → lost reviews and lost money.
• Waiting for a perfect website before doing the free basics.

Once your business is registered, the public record brings calls, emails and official-looking letters. Common ones: "Your Google listing will be removed unless you pay", "verify your listing for a fee", "renew your business certificate" (from companies that aren't the state). Google does not charge for a Business Profile. When in doubt, hang up and log in to your own account yourself.

• Scam calls and letters after you register a business