Posts in Your Google Business Profile as a Reach Channel

Most businesses set up their Google Business Profile once, fill in the address, opening hours and a few photos, and then never touch it again. A shame, because in doing so they leave one of the simplest channels for local visibility unused: Google Business posts. These are short posts directly in your profile that appear exactly where people are searching for you anyway. In this article I'll show you what these posts can do, when they're worthwhile and how to build them into your routine without much effort.

What exactly are Google Business posts?

Google Business posts are small announcements you publish via your business profile, similar to a very short social media post, except that it appears directly on Google. When someone searches for your company name or opens your profile on Google Maps, they see these posts displayed prominently: with an image, a few sentences of text and often a button like "Learn more" or "Call".

The big advantage: with them you reach people who are already searching for you or your industry. That's a completely different kind of attention than a post on a platform where you first have to fight for reach. And the best part, it doesn't cost a single franc.

What types of posts are there?

Google offers a few different formats, and it's worth knowing what each is intended for:

• Updates: the classic for anything current, a new employee, a completed project, a seasonal note.
• Offers: time-limited promotions with a start and end date, ideal for communicating a specific occasion.
• Events: an open day, a market, a course, with date and time.
• Products: individual services or items with an image and a short description.

For most small businesses, updates and offers are entirely sufficient. You don't have to work every format, regularity is more important than variety.

What do these posts really bring?

I'm often asked whether the effort is worthwhile. My honest answer: posts are no miracle cure that catapults you to the top overnight. But they help on several levels at once. For one thing, they give people viewing your profile a current, lively impression, a business that posted something this week comes across as more dependable than one whose last sign of life is two years old.

For another, a well-maintained, active profile also signals to Google that someone here is on the ball. That's no guarantee of better ranking, but it's part of a coherent overall picture. And posts with a clear button bring you calls, clicks to the website or directions directly, exactly the actions that count in the end.

How to write a good post

You don't have to be a copywriter. A good Google Business post follows a few simple rules:

• One thought per post: one offer, one update, one event. Not everything at once.
• Concrete rather than general: "New summer cuts this week" has more impact than "We look forward to seeing you".
• A good image: a real photo from your business beats any stock image. Landscape and well lit.
• A clear next step: use the button so that interest turns into action.
• Keep it short: the first one or two sentences are the most important, write the essentials first.

Avoid pure advertising language. Write the way you'd speak to a customer in the shop, friendly, honest and to the point.

How often should you post?

Here honesty is called for: better one good post every two weeks than daily for the first three days and then six months of radio silence. A realistic rhythm for most SMEs is one to two posts per month. Worth knowing: update posts lose visibility after a few days and are considered outdated after about a week. So plan for few but continuous posts, rather than exhausting yourself briefly.

A little trick: collect occasions in advance. Holiday periods, a new offer, a nice reference, a seasonal note, if you keep an eye on these over the year, you'll never run out of material.

How your profile and your website work together

Posts unfold their effect best when they point to something. A post about a new offer that leads to the relevant page on your website is considerably more valuable than one that points nowhere. Make sure the linked page actually delivers what the post promises, and loads quickly. That's how a click in your profile becomes a genuine contact. If you'd like to set up the profile cleanly overall, you'll find more in my other articles on how local visibility comes about step by step.

Start small, stick with it

Google Business posts are no big project, they're a few minutes every couple of weeks that keep your profile lively and bring you attention exactly where people are searching for you. Start with a single post, look in the profile statistics at how it does, and turn it into a small routine.

If you like, I'll help you tune your profile and website to each other so that every click actually lands. Just get in touch via the contact form, and we'll look at your situation together.