Google Posts is a feature that allows business owners to publish content directly to their brand’s Google Knowledge Panel in their GMB listing – the box that appears to the right of the search results when someone searches for your business. Taking advantage of this Google My Business feature is an ideal way to reach local customers (for free!) make simply by having an optimized GMB profile.

Highlight Important Business News:

• Upcoming events, news, and announcements
• Offers and promotions
• New products or services
• And more

Posts can (and should) contain a clear CTA (call-to-action) that directs users to a corresponding page on your website where they can complete a desired action – make a booking, sign up for a newsletter, or learn about a new tour or activity. CTAs can also be shared to social media to generate more hype for whatever you’re promoting.

Pro tip: Currently, only 5% of businesses utilize Google posts. This means 95% of businesses overlook this simple tool to drive visibility in SERPs (search engine results pages)! Less competition means you have a prime opportunity to allow your business to stand out.

How Do Google Posts Work?

Much like social media Stories, which have a lifespan of 24 hours, Google posts are temporary and fall away from your profile after seven days (Event-type posts, however, remain visible until the event date has passed). Despite the temporary nature of Google posts, users are still able to access and view posts older than seven days by clicking a link to “view previous updates”, so they’re well worth the effort to post. 

When using Google Posts keep in mind:

• Users will only see the first 100 characters of your headline, so be sure to keep it short and to the point.
  • Ask yourself – if I only have 10 seconds of someone’s time, what do I want them to take away from this post? And, what can I include in the headline that might compel them to read the entire post?
• An ideal length for the remainder of the post is between 150-300 characters, though the total character limit is 1,500 
• Size your images to 750 x 750 pixels, and make sure they’re no less than 250 x 250 pixels
• If you have multiple posts live at once the most recent post will display first

The 4 Types of Google Posts

1. Product Posts

Posts that highlight a product or service offered by your business. For tour and activity businesses, this could be a new tour offering or merchandise like shirts. These posts require a title and photo or video.

2. Offer Posts 

Posts that provide offers or promotional sales for your business, such as 20% off bookings made on Black Friday. Offer posts also require a title, as well as start and end dates for when the promotion is being offered. Google automatically adds a “View offer” CTA button to the post.

3. Event Posts 

Posts that preview an upcoming event hosted by your business or an event that your business is involved with. These posts require a title and start/end dates and times for the event. For example, a tour or activity business might advertise a special holiday event, like a Mother’s Day tour. 

4. ‘What’s New’ Posts

Posts that share general information about your business or any relevant content you want to share with your audience, such as new operating hours, a new tour guide you want to welcome to the team, or a recent review you want to highlight. What’s New posts can include photos, CTAs, and other links.

Important Elements to Include in Your Posts

• Include a strong, clear CTA at the end of each post.
• Use high-quality visuals. The ideal size is 814px x 610px.
• Create custom landing pages to support post content.
• Make sure your GMB listing is optimized before you work on creating posts.
• Keep content short and sweet.
• Write actionable content and don’t forget to proofread before posting.
• Follow Google posting rules.
• Keep it simple – include only one offer or discuss a single topic per post.
• Share to social media.
• Post regularly – try to post at least once a week so that you always have at least one active post at any given time showing on the SERP. Try to post a few times a week if you’re able to.
• When in a time crunch, republish posts that contain evergreen content after the initial seven-day limit is over.
• Don’t forget to use UTM codes to track visits to your website from Google posts.

Get Started

There are so many different ways to put Google posts to work for your business; If you’re unsure where to start, think about what’s new and important to your business. Consider questions like:

• Did you receive a great review recently that you want to highlight?
• Do you have a promotion or event coming up?
• Have you added new offerings this season such as a virtual experience or private tour?

Pro tip: Even if business has been a bit slow, start by featuring one of your tours or activities with a Product post, gauge interaction, and go form there. 

Publish your post by clicking Posts from the menu and selecting your post type. From there, you can add photos and videos, text, CTA buttons, date ranges, and more. You can also preview the post to see how it will look before you publish it. 

To learn more about Google posts specifically, check out Google’s Help Center documentation on the topic and review all of Compass Google My Business guides.