Built to be found from day one
Every site has what search engines read. Where it ranks is still up to them.
What's there from day one
You don't switch any of this on. Publishing a site includes it.
Each page
- Its own search title, and a description you can change
- A canonical address, your own domain once it's connected
- A share image and social tags for shared links
- Its language set, and one main heading, both checked
The business
- LocalBusiness data with its name, phone, email and address
- Service area, map link and profiles when you gave them
- Opening hours only when they're verified
- No star ratings in the data, on purpose
The whole site
- A sitemap, refreshed each time you publish
- A robots file that names the sitemap
- Redirects from an earlier site's addresses, up to 24
- A blog with its own RSS feed, once you post
Data from verified facts
Search engines read a block of structured data to learn what a business is, where it is and how to reach it. Shingle writes that block for every published site as LocalBusiness data, using the facts you typed or the listing you chose. It doesn't fill a gap with a guess. Hours that exist only as loose text stay on the page for people and stay out of the data, so a search engine never gets opening times nobody confirmed.
Reviews get the same care. The data leaves out star ratings, because Google treats a business's ratings of itself as self-serving, and reviews appear on the page only if the owner chooses them.
Shingle is built not to invent, and a separate review reads each line against the facts. That makes a wrong detail less likely. It can't rule one out, so read the site through before you publish, because what it says is yours.
Get into Search Console
See which searches find you, and hand Google your sitemap. It takes no credits.
Publish your site
Search engines can list only a live site, and previews stay out of search.
Add the tag
In Search Console, choose the HTML tag method. Paste the tag in Widgets, and Shingle keeps its code.
Press Verify
Save and publish so the tag is live, then press Verify in Search Console.
Send your sitemap
Copy the address Shingle shows you and submit it under Sitemaps. Reports can take a few days to fill in.
What a builder can't do
No website builder can put you at the top of a search. Google says local results come down to relevance, distance and prominence, and that nobody can pay for a better place. A site helps with the first of those. Distance is where the business is, and prominence leans on things outside any website, such as its reviews and who links to it. Shingle gives you a sound site and the signals search engines expect, and that's the part a builder controls.
So some of the work is yours or your client's. Fill in the Google Business Profile and put the site's address on it, which you do on Google, since Shingle doesn't connect to the profile. Ask happy customers for reviews. Write about the jobs and places you really serve. When a detail changes, change it on Google and in your site's details, because one doesn't reach the other.
Shingle also doesn't show Search Console's reports in the app, suggest keywords or measure page speed. You'll read those in Google's own tools.
Common questions
Can't find your answer? Read Shingle Help or email [email protected].
A local SEO website needs a title and description on each page, a clean address, structured data about the business, a sitemap and a way to keep old links working, on pages that read well on a phone. Shingle includes those on every published site. It won't earn your reviews or links, and no builder can.
We can't promise that, and nobody honestly can. Google says local results turn on relevance, distance and prominence, and that nobody can pay for a better place. Shingle makes sure your site says the right things in the form search engines read, and Checkup lists what's left to fix.
It's structured data in a page's code that tells search engines a site belongs to a business, with its name, phone, address, hours and service area. Shingle writes it from verified facts on every published site. For a site built elsewhere, our free schema generator writes the same kind of block for you to paste in.
No. Your profile and your site are kept separately, so a change in one doesn't reach the other. A first build can read your Google listing for its facts, and you add your site's address to your profile yourself. Help has the steps.
Add redirects in your site's Pages tab, from any address the old site used to a page on the new one, up to 24 a site. A page you move or remove on Shingle keeps its old address working by itself. Redirects use no credits and go live when you publish.
No. Previews tell search engines not to list them, so a demo stays out of search. Only a published site can be listed, and publishing needs the plan. A site behind a password can't be listed either. Once you connect your own domain, that's the address search engines are given.
Read next
- CheckupA score and a fix list for search and accessibility.
- Custom domainsConnect a domain you own, with HTTPS set up for you.
- BlogPosts on your site, by you or drafted for 5 credits.
- Local SEO checklistWhat to do first, second and third to get found nearby.
- Local business schema markupA real example, the properties, and how to test it.
- Local business schema generatorStructured data for your page's head.
Build your first site
Start from a Google listing or a few notes. Demos usually take 5–15 minutes.
7 days for $1, then $49 a month. Cancel any time.