Google Business Profile Posts: How to gain your customers’ trust
Using and optimizing a Google My Business listing is one of the most powerful SEO local strategies to rank higher in local results.
Having a Google My Business listing doesn’t guarantee that your business will rank well on Google. However, if you keep your profile active and optimized, with regular publications, your account will take up better spots on Google and will even reach relevant positions on SERPs.
Reviews on Google My Business also have a positive impact on the ranking of Google My Business listings.
You can find all the relevant information about Google My Business reviews here
What are Google My Business posts?
You can use Google My Business posts to inform about everything that concerns your business. It will be published on Google when users search for you.
There are different types of Google posts: What’s new, event, product and offer.
Google My Business posts: where to start
Step 1: Log into your Google My Business account
There are three different ways to access your Google My Business posts:
- Access your Google My Business account and select the option posts that appears on the left-side menu.
- When you are logged in to Google through the Gmail account used to create your GMB profile, search for your business. A box like the image below will appear where you can post directly without having to go to your Google My Business account.
- Through Metricool’s planning tool. Metricool lets you plan your content in the calendar and program your publications. Once you schedule your posts, you can spend your time in other tasks while Metricool publishes them at the right time.
Step 2: Include all the information from your post
The structure is simple but useful:
✅ Image
The size of the images varies depending on the number of active posts.
If you only have one publication active, Google recommends a minimum size of 480 x 270 pixels.
On the other hand, if you have more than one post published on Google My Business, you should adapt the format of your images to Google’s box of 800 x 600 pixels.
✅ Text
This part is key to capture the attention of users. Depending on the type of publication you have in mind, you can add a striking tittle, description or quote. Be creative.
✅ Link
It is the URL “inviting” to visit to your event page, post or offer. You will know how successful a publication has been by monitoring the number of clicks to this link.
Add a call-to-action button stating for example: “more information”, “book”, “register”, etc. It will help you to get more interactions.
Step 3: Post expiration
Use your publication to keep your audience up to date. However, be aware that your publications will be removed after 7 days.
Important: Posts must be updated. You must include any changes to your publications, for example, a change in the schedule should be reflected on your publications.
The best way to keep them up to date is to publish frequently on Google My Business.
How to create posts on Google My Business
This is the moment of truth, it’s time to start publishing on Google My Business.
The process is very intuitive but there are some hidden tricks that might help you to promote your business.
As we’ve just mentioned, publications expire after 7 days so, you should post on your listing often, or at least at a pace that you can keep overtime. That is, you should be constant, don’t publish three days in a row and then, wait one month to post something again.
Type of Google My Business posts
On Google My Business, there are 4 different types of post depending on your content marketing strategy:
Would you rather put the focus on your calendar of events? Or on a product offer?
Let’s review the options that we have with Google My Business:
✅ WHAT’S NEW
The most recent news about your business: Change of address, special open hours, new product releases, etc.
✅ EVENT
You organize a new event and you want to reach as many people as possible. It will allow you to publish the date, time and place of the event so your public won’t miss anything!
✅ OFFER
This a great option if you want to promote an offer and encourage potential customers to visit you.
✅ PRODUCT
Do you have a retail business? Then, this is the type of publication for you. You will be able to show a catalog of the products you choose to your audience.
Each Google My Business post has a limit of 1,500 characters. The ideal length is between 150 to 300 characters.
Structure of a Google My Business post
- Choose a striking title, this is the part that will stand out on your GMB post.
- Describe what your post is about. You should keep it short. You are allotted up to 1,500 to attract the attention of users.
- Add an image that summarizes the content of your post. Should be clear if the post is about an offer, a new product or event.
Add a call-to-action and encourage visitors to contact you. Which options do you have?
- “Book online”
- “Ask online”
- “Buy”
- “More information”
- “Register”
- “Call now”
Google My Business posts insights and data
Like in other social platforms, Google My Business also provides you with relevant information about how each publication has performed.
More information about managing Google My Business with Metricool by clicking here.
However, what can you see exactly?
Right under a post, you can access the insights that gather information about views and clicks. Here you can also find a button to share your post on other social media platforms. Besides, you can edit a post, delete it or see a preview.
You can also discover how many visits and clicks your publications have received in total. You can choose to see this information for the last 7 or 28 days.
Advantages of posting on GMB
- It broadcasts your business. Everything you post on your Google My Business listing will help your services, offers, etc. to reach more people. These publications are shared directly on Google and everybody can see them.
- Improve your local SEO. Google My Business is connected to Google Search and Maps directly. Your listing helps you to rank better in the most popular search engine in the world.
- Increase visibility. You will be easily found on the Internet, reaching a wider audience that will see your business and posts.
Some tips for your Google My Business posts
➡️ Use between 150 to 300 characters.
You have 58 characters for your title. Try to be concise to send a clear message to your audience.
➡️ Use the keywords that will help to position your business on Google
Make sure you use the right keywords on your posts. The SEO of each GMB post will help to position your brand on Google Search.
➡️ Use the right tone
Always use the appropriate tone on your posts, publishing is a direct channel with your potential customers, and you should use the same language on all your social media platforms.
➡️ Make sure your landing page is in line with your post
The landing pages that the CTAs from your posts lead your users to should be in line with the message you want to send. It doesn’t make sense to put a CTA button saying “Register” if in the landing page there isn’t a registration form.
How to use your Google My Business posts to attract more customers
Take advantage of this specific place that Google reserves for your business to attract the attention of your visitors. Google My Business posts is a great way to communicate with everybody who sees your listing.
For this, there are two key factors to consider in your Google My Business publications:
💡 THE QUALITY
You can get many conversions from your Google My Business posts as long as you add some value for the person who looks for your company. Spend enough time on your posts to make them perfect.
💡 THE QUANTITY
Try and search different brands and their publications. How many of them caught your attention? Posting frequently and keeping your Google My Business listing builds trust with your potential customers.
Manage your Google My Business posts
Keeping optimized your Google My Business listing and your posts requires time and should be included in your weekly agenda.
Plan and schedule each post with Metricool’s help to keep your listing active and reach more potential customers than your competitors. You can schedule your Google My Business posts for free with Metricool. Only once a month you will have to invest your time in planning the content that you want to share and including it in the calendar.
Save time, improve your local SEO strategy, plan your content and discover which posts work best in your Google My Business listing.
After this article, you are ready to create and schedule your Google My Business posts. Use this new feature for free and share with us your experience.
We will read your comments! 👇🏻
