If you used to send customers to a website that lived at yourbusinessname.business.site — that was Google Business Profile's free website builder. Google sunset that product in 2024. Anyone who relied on it now has a dead URL where their site used to be, and most of them did not get the news.
If you are a Tampa contractor who got the email and is now searching "replacement for google business website" — this post is for you.
Here is the honest answer, with no upsell baked in.
What actually happened
In early 2024 Google announced it was shutting down the free websites that came bundled with Google Business Profile (GBP). Existing free sites were given a sunset date. After that date, the URLs started 301-redirecting to the user's GBP listing, which is not the same thing as a website. It is a Google-controlled placeholder that shows your hours and reviews and not much else.
For a contractor doing $300k to $1.5M in revenue, this matters more than it seems. The free GBP site, while basic, was indexed by Google. It ranked. It had a contact form. It showed up in search results for "[your service] [your city]." For a lot of small operators, it was the only website they had ever owned, and it was carrying real lead flow.
Now it is gone. You either build a replacement, or you stay invisible.
Why most contractors have not replaced it yet
Three reasons keep coming up in conversation:
- They did not realize it had been turned off. Google sent a notification email. A lot of contractors do not read every Google email. The site went dark, leads stopped, and they assumed the market got slow.
- They are afraid of the cost. Quotes from Tampa agencies for a "real" website cluster around $2,500 to $15,000 one-time, plus hosting, plus updates. For a contractor whose lead flow is already shaky, that is a lot of money at risk.
- They are not sure what kind of site to build. A brochure site? A booking-engine site? A blog? They have heard a thousand opinions and trust none of them.
I get it. Let me lay out the four real options without hype.
The four real options
Option 1: Do nothing and lean on GBP alone
Cost: $0. Risk: high.
You skip building a website and let your GBP listing be your "website." This works if your GBP is fully built out — every service listed, hours accurate, 30+ reviews, weekly posts, photos updated monthly. Then your GBP can rank in the Google Map Pack for "[service] [city]" searches.
The catch: GBP alone does not let you tell your story. No services page deep enough to convert a researcher. No about page. No portfolio gallery. No quote form that captures email + phone. You will get some leads. You will lose the comparison-shopper who wants to see your work before they reach out.
Verdict: only a good answer if you are a one-truck operator with zero growth ambition.
Option 2: DIY on Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify
Cost: $16 to $52/month per Squarespace's published plan pricing. Time cost: 20 to 60 hours of your weekends in month 1.
You sign up for a platform, pick a contractor template, write the copy, source the photos, build the menu, hook up the contact form, point your domain. If you are reasonably technical and have a Sunday afternoon free every weekend for two months, you can ship a real site this way.
The catch: most contractors who try this finish 70 percent of the build, get stuck on the part where the form does not work or the mobile version is broken, and abandon it. The site then sits in a half-finished state for two years and reflects badly on the business.
Verdict: good if you genuinely enjoy this kind of work. Most contractors do not.
Option 3: Hire a freelancer for a one-time build
Cost: $1,500 to $5,000 one-time. Then nothing, until something breaks.
You hire a local Tampa freelancer. They build a 4- to 8-page site, hand you the login, and disappear. The site is yours. Until your hours change, or your services change, or a plugin breaks, or Google rolls out a new schema requirement, or your contact form starts bouncing to an old email address. Then you are paying $75 to $150 per hour for someone to fix it, or you are watching the site decay.
Verdict: works if you have a marketing person on staff who can babysit it. For a solo contractor, it usually does not.
Option 4: Subscription, done-for-you
Cost: $300 to $800/month. Includes hosting, updates, edits inside 48 to 72 hours, GBP integration, review automation.
This is the lane Skylift Web operates in at $499/month. The studio designs, builds, hosts, and updates the site. You message them when something needs to change. There is no big upfront bill. The contact form works, because making sure it works is in the contract. The site stays current, because someone is paid monthly to keep it that way.
The math at $499/month: $5,988/year. Compared to a $4,000 freelancer build plus $1,500/year in maintenance and fixes, the subscription is in the same ballpark on price, and the asset stays alive instead of decaying. Compared to Option 1 (do nothing), it is $5,988 a year that buys you ranking, lead capture, and an owned channel that compounds.
Verdict: built for the contractor doing $200k to $1.5M who wants the asset without spending Saturdays learning Squarespace.
What to look for, regardless of which option you pick
Whatever you choose, the replacement site needs to do what the GBP site quietly did:
- Rank for local intent searches. That means a Services schema markup, LocalBusiness markup, a real services page for each service, and a service area page for each city you cover.
- Capture the lead. A quote form that emails you instantly, and that you actually test from a real device. Most "websites" lose 30 to 60 percent of their inbound because the contact form silently fails.
- Reinforce GBP. Same business name, same address, same phone number. Link from the site to your GBP. Reference your GBP place ID in your schema. Google rewards consistency.
- Show your work. Real photos, taken on a smartphone, of recent jobs. Not stock photos of generic tools. Customers buy from contractors whose work they can see.
Most "replacement" websites I see Tampa contractors get sold are missing two or three of these. They look fine. They do not convert.
A 30-day path back to ranking
If your GBP-built site died and you want to be visible on search again inside 30 days, here is the order of operations:
Days 1 to 7: Rebuild and audit your GBP. Free. 80 percent of contractor GBPs are 40 percent built out. Add every service, photos of recent jobs, business hours, a weekly post, and a review request flow. This is the bedrock — every other channel reinforces it.
Days 8 to 14: Pick a replacement option. DIY (Option 2) if you have time. Freelancer (Option 3) if you have a contact and a budget for the one-time hit. Subscription (Option 4) if you want to stop thinking about it.
Days 15 to 21: Build the site (or have it built). A real contractor site is 6 to 10 pages: home, services overview, one page per service, one page per service area, portfolio, contact, about. Stop there.
Days 22 to 30: Submit and verify. Get the new URL into Google Search Console. Request indexing. Set up a Google Analytics 4 property. Run the PageSpeed Insights test. Address the speed issues. Test the contact form three times.
By day 60 you should be ranking again for at least one or two local money keywords. By day 90 you should be back to your pre-sunset lead volume.
The mistake to avoid
Do not let a Tampa agency talk you into a $7,500 brochure site as the replacement for your $0 GBP site. The math does not work. A contractor doing $400k a year cannot lose 2 percent of their annual revenue to a website that will need replacing again in three years.
If a quote is more than $5,000 one-time or more than $800/month, ask three questions before you sign:
- What is the monthly maintenance and edit policy?
- Who owns the domain and the hosting?
- What is the SEO ranking guarantee?
If the answers are "we charge $75/hour for edits", "we host it on our system", and "we do not guarantee SEO" — keep looking.
Where Skylift fits
The Skylift subscription model at $499/month was designed for exactly the contractor whose GBP-built site got killed and who wants to get back to ranking without taking a $5,000 hit. We build the replacement site, we wire your GBP back up, we set up review automation, and we maintain it monthly. You message us when something needs to change. We do it inside 72 hours. Read more on the process page for how it works step-by-step.
Whether Skylift is the right answer or not, the order is the same. Rebuild GBP first. Then pick your replacement option. Then commit for at least 90 days to let the rankings stabilize.
What to do this week
If you have not opened your GBP dashboard in the last 30 days, do that today. Confirm the listing is verified, the hours are accurate, and the services are listed in full. That is the single highest-return 20-minute task you can run this week. Then decide which of the four options above fits your time and budget.
The replacement does not have to be expensive. It just has to actually exist.