Digital profile or website.

A digital profile is one page, made for the phone, that your card opens. On it are your name, what you do, buttons to call, WhatsApp and e-mail, and a button that saves your contact to the address book. A website is something else: several pages, a text about every service, an enquiry form, and everything arranged so that people find you when they search.

I make both, and both have their place. The question isn't which is better, but how people actually reach you.

When a profile is the right choice.

A profile suits work where people meet you first and look for you afterwards. They don't arrive by searching, but through a recommendation, a meeting or a card you gave them. They don't need a long website about you. They need your number in their contacts and a few things in one place.

• A musician. They play at weddings, in konobas and on terraces. People hear the music, then want to book it for their own celebration. For one musician I built a profile with his contact, his setlist, gig booking and a tip button, in Croatian and English.
• A driver. A taxi or transfer driver meets a new passenger in the car. A card on the back of the seat opens a profile with call and WhatsApp buttons, and the passenger saves it for the ride back.
• A tradesperson. A tiler, electrician or plumber works by recommendation. When someone recommends them, they send the profile link, and on it are the number, the area they work in and photographs of finished jobs.

The basic and the full profile.

The basic profile has your contact, save-to-contacts, links, for example to Instagram, Google reviews or your website, and a map to you. Its build is included with an NFC contact card, which costs €35, so you get it as soon as you order the card.

The full profile has all of that plus what a particular kind of work needs: booking an appointment or a gig, a price list, a gallery of work and a tip button. A full profile build costs from €250.

Both open in the phone's language, with a switch between Croatian and English. Both can be saved to the home screen, with your icon, and opened like an app. A profile lives at an address like sorich.hr/c/your-business/first-last/, and keeping it there costs €2/month or €20 a year. A profile on your own domain is possible by agreement.

When a profile isn't enough.

A profile is one page, and that is both its strength and its limit. If people look for you on Google by service and place, say “hairdresser Trogir” or “apartment Seget”, you need a website. A search engine needs a text about every service, in every language, on a page of its own. One page of buttons can't replace that.

A website is also the better choice when:

• you have several services and each deserves an explanation, photographs and a price;
• guests or customers arrive from a search engine rather than from your card;
• you need orders, bookings or enquiries to arrive composed in one message;
• you want a site on your own domain, with your business's name in the address.

Then the right thing is a website, which costs from €500, with care at €150 a year. I don't promise a place on Google, for a site or for a profile, because nobody honest can. What I promise is that your details are laid out so that search engines and AI tools can read them.

A profile and a website together.

One doesn't exclude the other. When you have a website, the profile still has a job: the card opens the profile, from which the contact is saved in one tap, and the profile links to your site. That is how the konoba Anin Dvor has it: a website in several languages and a card that opens a digital profile.

You can also start with a profile and add a site when the business grows. You won't need a new card then. I add a link to the new site on the profile, or change where the card leads, as I explain in how an NFC card works.

An address on the sorich.hr domain is mine and can't be moved. If you later want the profile on your own domain, I help you move it and set up redirects, so the old links keep working.

How to decide.

Think about how your last new customer found you. If someone recommended you, if you gave them your number in passing or you met on a job, start with a profile. If they found you on a search engine, or should have, you need a website. If you're not sure, send me the address of what you have today for a free check, and I'll tell you what I would do.