Google My Business is not
a website. Here's the difference.

What Google My Business actually does

Your Google Business Profile — still called Google My Business by most people — is the listing that appears on the right side of search results and inside Google Maps. It shows your name, address, hours, photos, phone number, and reviews. When someone searches "café West End" or "brunch near me," it's what pulls you into the local results.

That's genuinely valuable. A complete, well-managed profile gets you in front of people who are actively searching in your area. I've seen Brisbane cafés with solid profiles pick up real foot traffic from it.

But here's what it cannot do. It can't tell your full story. It can't show a proper menu, explain what makes you different, answer the questions customers have before they decide, or give them a reason to choose you over the place two streets away with the same rating.

Where the gap opens up

Think about the customer journey for someone discovering your café. They search. They see your listing. They look at your photos and your rating. Then — and this is the part most café owners underestimate — they want to know more before they commit.

What's the menu like? Do you do reservations? Is there parking? What's the vibe? Is it good for a work meeting or a birthday brunch? Are you open on public holidays?

Your Google Business Profile can hold some of this. But it's limited. You've got a description field that most people fill with generic text, a photo gallery that scrolls past quickly, and a Q&A section that almost nobody maintains. That's where the story ends — right at the moment the customer is most ready to make a decision.

A website picks up exactly where the profile leaves off. It's the space where you control the narrative, present your menu properly, set the mood, and make it easy to book or get in touch. Without it, you're handing off a warm lead and hoping Google's interface closes the sale for you. It won't.

Five things a Google Business Profile can't do that a website can

1. Show your menu the way it deserves to be shown

You can add a menu link to your Google listing, or upload photos of dishes. But you can't control how it looks, how it's organised, or how it reads. A website lets you present your coffee menu, brunch menu, and specials in a way that makes people hungry before they've even walked in the door. A PDF link in a Google listing does not.

2. Tell the story behind the business

People book cafés they feel something about. The spot in West End that roasts its own beans and has been run by the same family since 2009 has a story worth telling. Google gives you 750 characters in the description field. A website gives you as much space as you need to build the kind of connection that turns a first visit into a regular.

3. Capture bookings directly

Google does let you link to a booking platform, but the experience is clunky — the customer leaves Google, lands somewhere unfamiliar, and either pushes through or gives up. A website with an integrated booking button keeps them in your world. The fewer steps between "I want to go here" and "booking confirmed," the better your conversion rate.

4. Show up for longer search phrases

Google Business Profiles rank well for short local searches. "Café West End." "Brunch Brisbane." But the more specific searches — "best avocado toast West End Brisbane," "café good for laptop work West End," "dog-friendly brunch spot near Boundary Street" — those are won or lost on your website's content. A profile can't compete for those terms. A well-written website can.

5. Build trust before the first visit

Reviews do a lot of work in your listing. But reviews tell people what others think. A website tells people what you think — how you describe your food, what you care about, how you present yourself. That's a different kind of trust signal, and it matters particularly for higher-ticket decisions like catering, private bookings, or corporate accounts.

Where the myth comes from

The "Google My Business is enough" idea isn't totally wrong — it's just incomplete in a way that costs money. For a business that does zero online marketing, setting up a proper Google Business Profile is a significant improvement. It genuinely helps. So owners see a lift, feel sorted, and move on.

The problem is that the comparison isn't between a profile and nothing. The comparison is between a profile alone and a profile plus a website. The second setup captures more search traffic, converts more of that traffic into customers, and gives you a platform you actually own and control — not one that Google can change whenever it likes.

I've spoken to enough West End and South Brisbane café owners to know the pattern. Profile's set up, reviews are coming in, the place is doing okay. Then a competitor opens two blocks away with a proper website, better SEO, and an online booking flow, and suddenly they're getting the corporates, the group bookings, the people who found them by searching something specific. Not because they're better — because they're easier to find and easier to say yes to.

What to do about it

If your Google Business Profile is solid — great. Keep it that way. Keep your hours current, respond to reviews, add new photos. That work is worth doing.

But pair it with a website that does its own job properly. One that loads fast, looks right on a phone, shows your menu clearly, and makes it obvious how to book or get in touch. A site that's written for the searches your customers actually make, not just a page that says "we're a café" in three different ways.

That combination is what moves you from being findable to being chosen. Free website, no upfront cost — we build them for Brisbane hospitality businesses on the GROWTH plan at $189 a month. You see the design before you commit to anything.

The bottom line

Google My Business is a start. A good start. But "a start" is not the same as "sorted." The cafés winning in Brisbane's most competitive neighbourhoods — West End, Fortitude Valley, New Farm — aren't choosing between a Google listing and a website. They have both, and they make sure both are doing their job.

If you've only got one of the two, you're halfway there. The other half is where the bookings come from.