Can SEO be done without a website?

• Google Business Profile. The listing in Google Maps and the map results. For a business that serves customers in a place, it is the most valuable listing there is. It ranks on the category you choose, the completeness of the profile, your reviews and how close the searcher is.
• Marketplaces. Amazon, Etsy and eBay are search engines for products. Titles, attributes, photos, reviews and sales all decide where a listing appears, and their search boxes are where many buyers start.
• YouTube. The second place people search for how to do something. Titles, descriptions, chapters and whether viewers keep watching decide ranking, and videos also appear in Google results.
• App stores. For an app, store listing optimisation (the name, subtitle, keywords field and ratings) is the SEO.
• Directories and review sites. Trade directories, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Trustpilot and the like often rank for “best X in Y” searches themselves, so a good listing on them gets you onto the first page indirectly.
• Other people's sites. Articles you write for industry publications, answers in communities your customers read, interviews. Each one ranks on its host's strength and points readers back at you.

The principles are the same on every platform. Say plainly what you are, in the words your customers use, in the fields the platform gives you. Fill in everything. Keep your business name, address and phone number identical everywhere, because search engines use those to recognise that a dozen listings are one business. Ask for reviews, and answer them. Add photos.

• Ownership. A platform can change its ranking, its fees or its rules, suspend a listing, or close a feature. In 2024 Google turned off the simple websites it used to let Business Profile owners build, and every business relying on one had to find another home.
• Room. A profile is one page. You cannot have a page for each service, each area, each common question, which is how a website ranks for many different searches.
• Measurement. Each platform shows its own statistics, in its own way. You do not get the search queries and click data Search Console gives a site owner.
• Trust from the rest of the web. Links and mentions point at a website. A business with no site has nowhere for that trust to accumulate.

When customers keep asking questions your profile cannot answer. When you want to be found for services or areas the profile has no room for. When one platform is most of your business and a change to it would hurt. When you want to be found by people who have not heard of you yet.

It does not need to be large. A small, fast site that says clearly what you do, where, and how to reach you does most of the job, and once it exists a free scan will tell you what to fix on it. Link it from every profile you have, so the trust those listings have earned points somewhere you own.