If you are a business owner, no matter the size of your business, chances are that you already know what a Google My Business profile is and how to set it up.
According to a survey, close to 64 percent of Google users have used GMB listings for finding information regarding a business, be it a phone number or an address.
Many businesses already have a GMB account and the ones who don’t should consider creating one. Google My business is a great way to get started on your journey online if you don’t own a website.
And even if you own a website, a GMB profile is a good opportunity for you to increase your credibility and visibility.
But we are not here to discuss the benefits of creating a Google My Business profile for your business. Instead, I will discuss ‘Google Posts,’ a very useful but underutilized and undervalued feature of Google My Business.
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Google Posts
Google posts are also known as Google My Business posts. Google Posts were first released in the year 2016 and were called ‘” Candidate Cards.” After their success, Google decided to include them as a feature in almost all Google My Business profiles.
When this feature first rolled out, many of us were a little skeptical about it. Even some experts thought it was going to go away in a couple of months. But here we are after five years, and Google posts are fastly becoming the next big thing, especially for local businesses.
“Google posts” are posts that you can create within your Google My Business profile. These posts are displayed along with your Business address and contact number whenever a user searches for your business.
These posts are just like social media posts that you create on your Facebook on Instagram profile. These posts can contain images of your products and their description, any new products you want to introduce, your menu, any promotions that are going on, or information about products that are on sale at a discounted price.
There are so many ways in which you can use this feature of Google My Business. Anyone searching for a local business might instantly get attracted to your Google My Business profile due to eye-catchy Google posts. Google posts have tons of uses and benefits. Let’s discuss some of them.
No Additional Costs
Google Posts are free for all users, making them very useful, especially for businesses on a tight budget and small businesses.
Google posts are a good way to inform people about any recent launches and promotions. You can also create events in your Google posts. Not all businesses have heavy marketing budgets to spend on promotions. Google posts help businesses in promoting their products free of cost.
Through Google posts, users searching for your business address on Google can also view any new products or promotions that are going on, resulting in more leads. In short, we can say that Google posts are a free marketing tool for businesses.
Using Google Posts
Google Posts can be accessed from your Google My Business dashboard easily. Choose the update option, and you’ll be able to add any post of your choice. However, you should keep in mind that anything you post will be automatically removed after seven days by Google.
Google adopts this strategy to help its users in accessing only fresh and relevant content.
Any event that you create will be removed after the ending date of that event has passed. You can add up to 300 words in a single post. However, adding just 100 to 150 words is recommended because only a small amount of these words are visible to the users, and they have to click on “more” to review the rest of your post.
Adding Keywords to your GMB posts can also help them in appearing in relevant search results. Close to fifty-six percent of actions on Google My Business listings are website visits. Google Posts are a great way to convince a viewer to visit your website and buy a product or a service.
Your business listing will have to be verified for you to add Google Posts.
Types of Google Posts
Google Posts can be of different types. These posts can be video posts, image posts, Event posts, promotion posts, what’s new posts, offer posts, and product posts.
- Promotion posts are used to promote a new product or service that you have added to your portfolio. These posts make your new products and services visible to potential customers.
- Event posts are used to create awareness about any upcoming event your business is hosting. This event can be a launch event or a meet and greet event.
- ‘What’s new’ posts? These posts can include a new menu or any other updates about your business.
- Offer posts are used to post about offers and sales that are going on.
- Product posts include information about a product, and they can include a picture or video of that product and user reviews. It can also have an ingredient list.
- Video posts include any short videos about your brand to increase user interest in your brand.
Adding Pictures
Business listings containing images are considered two times more reputable than business listings without any images.
It is recommended to invest in professional photos for your Google posts because these photos can compel users to take action.
Business listings with Images are considered 35 percent more likely to be clicked on.
If you want to increase your chances of generating leads, adding images to your Google My Business profile can certainly help. Never add low-resolution or blurry images to your Google Posts because they can leave a bad impression on the viewers.
SEO Benefits
Adding Google posts can increase the interest of viewers in your business. Interesting posts can compel viewers to visit your website, resulting in increased organic traffic. In addition, adding keywords to your Google post can increase the chances of your GMB listing getting ranked in relevant search results.
Google posts can be a good tool to improve your overall SEO strategy. Google posts are beneficial for all businesses, but they are specially designed to help out local businesses.
You can also add a video instead of an image in your Google post. This video can help increase user engagement.
Your users can also share your posts with their friends and family, resulting in increased organic traffic for your website.
Google posts can also help in increasing backlinks for your website. For example, if you add unique and useful posts in your Google My Business listing, websites and blogs will likely link to your website more.
Including a Call To Action
Including a CTA in your Google post can increase the rate of conversions. Users are more likely to take action if they like your post. You can add a buy now link for your users under a post promoting a new product.
You can also add a visit now link for your website under a video review of your customer. These are just a few examples of adding a CTA in your Google post. You can use it in countless ways to increase leads and organic traffic.
Users can also follow your business on Google Maps to get notified about any recent updates and posts about your business.
Whenever you add a promotion or an event to your GMB listing, don’t forget to add a CTA to it.
A Call To Action makes it much more likely for users to buy a product or register for an event.
Bottom Line
There are a lot of free tools that you can use to increase organic traffic to your website. GMB is one of those tools; google posts are a handy and underrated feature of GMB.
Google posts are very useful for local businesses because they help increase users’ interest in a particular business. You can think of Google posts as a new social network for your business, where users can keep up with the happenings of your business.
These posts can result in increased organic traffic, which can result in increased leads.
Do you have a GMB profile for your business? Are you taking advantage of Google posts?
Meta description
Google Posts is a feature you must utilize if you already have a GMB listing. In addition, Google posts are very helpful for improving the overall SEO strategy of your website.
