Introduced in 2017 by Google, Google Posts allows businesses to post text and photos directly to Google My Business (GMB). These posts appear on the local panel and on Maps. If used effectively, Google Posts can increase traffic to your website and boost conversions. They are also a great way to engage with customers because they can be used to highlight seasonal offers, Special Promotions, event/ open days, and emergency updates.
Below are some tips on how to make your Google Posts more effective:
- Post often. The posts only stay live for seven days. While there currently isn’t a way to schedule posts from directly within GMB some third-party tools will allow scheduling. Events will stay live until the event is over.
- Stick with 80-100 words per Post. (Even though you’re allowed to write up to 300 words, depending on the device, not all those characters will be visible, and the number of characters displayed will vary – especially between mobile and desktop devices.)
- Following SEO best practices, make sure to put keywords and the most important message towards the beginning of your Post. Use the Posts to highlight sales, promotions, or unique selling propositions. Don’t just shove a bunch of keywords into your post — doing this currently has no impact on your ranking.
- The best size to use for the image is 750×750. If you use anything smaller than 250×250, it won’t be accepted. Make the images “centre-weighted” so that they show up properly, and Google doesn’t accidentally crop anyone’s head off.
- If your image has text on it, keep in mind that the text may get cut off on mobile devices. When possible, it’s best to just stick to an image with no text on it.
- Remember, a post is your opportunity to talk directly to your customers, so speak clearly and use a “real-world” conversational tone in your copy
- Make sure that the landing page you send visitors to matches the content of the Post and meets a visitor’s expectations.
- Be creative with your messaging and the CTA (button) you select to use. If you’re selling a treatment, use the wording “Claim offer” or “Book online”.
And finally, make sure you track click activity with UTM codes. Since Google Posts don’t integrate naturally with Google Analytics, it’s hard to get any insights beyond the standard number of views and clicks Google provides inside the Google My Business dashboard. By creating a custom URL to use in the call-to-action link, you can see more information about the users in Google Analytics and find out if they converted after visiting your site.
For example, instead of linking the button to: www.domain.com, you can link it to: www.domain.com/?utm_source=GoogleMyBusiness&utm_medium=Organic&utm_campaign=invisalignpromo.
Here is a free tool to help add those UTM tags in a URL: https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/
