Plain answers before you hire anyone.

Create a free Google Business Profile, then verify it: customers can only find the profile on Google after verification is complete. If you visit customers or work from home, you hide your address and show a service area instead.

If your site still works on phones, you can edit it and the platform is yours, a redesign of the words, photos and a few pages is usually enough. If it is slow, breaks on phones, or locks you into a platform you cannot leave, a new build costs less in the long run.

Wix is a good start if you want to build it yourself this weekend and are happy renting the platform. A custom site makes sense when you want it to be faster, look like nobody else, and be yours to keep and move.

A focused five-page business website takes weeks, not months. What decides the timeline is mostly how quickly the words, photos and decisions arrive, and how much the site has to do beyond showing your business.

If you sell products people add to a cart and pay for online, Shopify is usually the right tool. If customers call, book or visit you, a regular business website does the job and costs less to run.

Fewer pages than most people think: what you do, what it costs, proof you do it well, and one clear way to reach you. Everything should work on a phone first, because that is where most customers will see it.

For most small businesses, a freelancer or a small studio is the better fit: you talk to the person doing the work, and you are not paying for layers you do not need. An agency makes sense when the project needs a whole team at once.

A Facebook page is a good place to stay in touch with people who already know you. A website is where new customers find you on Google and decide to call, and it is the one place online that you own and control.