10 Secrets to Eye-Catching Google Posts
Your customers' first impression of your business often comes from your local Google Business Profile (GBP), showcasing your hours, location, reviews as well as offerings—and keeping these listings up-to-date and responding to customer reviews is absolutely crucial. But did you know you can stand out even more by creating personalized experiences for each profile?
Whether you're managing a multi-location business or a single location, don't overlook Google's free tool: Google Posts. Let's dive in and see how you can make the most of it!
What Are Google Posts?
Google Posts are a valuable—and free—tool for businesses to share information with their audience directly through their Google Business Profile. These posts can include announcements, promotions, events, and other engaging content to attract potential customers.
Generally, there are different types of posts featuring a photo, video, description, and action button:
Offers can include promotional sales or offers with a specified duration.
Updates provide general information about the business.
Events promote specific events at the business with start and end dates.
By utilizing Google Posts effectively, businesses can enhance their online presence, improve visibility in search results, and drive more traffic to their website or physical locations. But if you're already active on location-based social media like Facebook and Instagram, you might be wondering why Google Posts—and why now?
How do Google Posts differ from other social platforms?
Google Posts do share a similar structure to your social media content, but they don't foster two-way engagement—which brings us to why you should avoid treating Google Posts like social media at all!
Images for Google Posts should have a minimum resolution of 400 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall and be in either JPG or PNG format. Videos, on the other hand, can be a maximum size of 100 MB and should be in formats such as AVI, MP4, MOV, FLV, WMV, MPG, M4V, MKV, M2TS, or MTS.
While social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are designed for interactive engagement and community-building, Google Posts primarily serve as a tool for providing essential business information and updates directly on Google Search and Maps. The ultimate goal isn’t awareness or brand building, but conversions.
Moreover, social media platforms typically prioritize content that encourages ongoing interaction, such as likes, comments, and shares, to boost visibility and engagement. In contrast, Google Posts focus on delivering concise and informative content to users actively searching for specific products, services, or businesses. Thus, Google Posts lack the same level of audience reach and sharing capabilities as traditional social media platforms.
The Perfect Google Posts: Make Your Content Stand Out
With over 50% of shoppers using Google to discover new brands, Google Posts offer you a chance to stand out, provide timely content to local buyers. To sum up: they set your brand apart from competitors in a crowded market.
10 Tips for Better Google Posts
Answering the 5Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why) helps you craft compelling offers that resonate with your audience. Once you identify ideal content, the next step is to package it effectively.
“Focus on driving action. There is so much going on within a Google Knowledge Panel for local businesses. Using a clean and eye-catching post that encourages users to take action will really help to stand out in a hyper-competitive market. Don't overcomplicate the message – instead, focus on simple messaging and develop an ongoing post calendar and cadence.”
Here are ten actionable tips to ensure your Google Posts stand out and drive engagement:
Focus on action: craft posts that prompt users to take action, such as visiting your website or calling your business, to drive engagement and conversions.
Provide clear CTAs: include a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages users to take the desired action, whether it's making a purchase, or visiting your store.
Keep it concise: use clear and concise language to deliver your message efficiently and effectively, ensuring that users can quickly understand the offer or information.
Use visuals: incorporate high-quality images or videos to make your post visually appealing and attract the attention of users as they scroll through search results.
Include relevant keywords: optimize your post by including relevant keywords related to your business or offer, helping to improve its visibility in search results.
Highlight unique selling points: showcase what sets your business apart from competitors by highlighting unique features, promotions, or services in your post.
Post regularly: maintain a consistent posting schedule to keep your audience engaged and informed, establishing your presence and reliability on Google.
Engage with emojis: use emojis strategically to add personality and emotion to your post, helping to capture attention and convey your message more effectively.
Showcase testimonials: share positive reviews and feedback from satisfied customers to build trust and credibility with potential customers.
Monitor performance: track the performance of your posts and analyze metrics such as views, clicks, and engagement to optimize future posts and strategies.
And don’t forget to plug local events to further engage with the surrounding community and showcase your business's engagement.
Now one question remains: who is responsible for Google Posts—headquarters or local teams?
It’s highly beneficial to empower local and regional managers to contribute, fostering a personalized touch and community engagement—after all, they know their local customers best. To keep control at headquarters, though, you can leverage platforms that facilitate posting at scale to ensure brand consistency across all locations while enabling broad-reaching content distribution.
5 Inspirations for Your First Google Post
Get your creative juices flowing with the following ideas for engaging Google posts:
Highlight seasonal or limited menu items, such as "Pumpkin Spice Latte now available for Fall!" or "Special holiday-themed cookies for Easter only!"
Promote flash sales and short-term discounts like "Today only: 50% off all appetizers between 5-7 PM!"
Host a poll asking followers to vote for their favorite menu item, such as "Which pizza topping is your favorite: pepperoni, mushrooms, or sausage?"
Invite customers to exclusive events, such as "wine tasting event this Friday at 6 PM – limited spots available, RSVP now!"
Share an interesting fact about your business, like "Did you know our coffee beans are sourced from a family-owned farm in Colombia?"
Make sure, however, to follow Google’s guidelines to the bit, and keep in mind that additional rules may apply to Google Posts in particular. Posts including a phone number, for example, may be rejected—but you can attach a "Call now" button to your post that uses your verified Business Profile phone number. Moreover, posts older than 6 months may be archived unless specified otherwise.
Monitoring the Success of Google Posts
Monitoring post performance metrics such as views, clicks, and engagement is crucial for refining future posting strategies and maximizing effectiveness. By tracking these, businesses can gain valuable insights into the types of content that resonate most with their audience and drive the highest levels of engagement.
For example, if a particular post receives a high number of views but low engagement, it may indicate that the content is attracting attention but failing to compel users to take action. On the other hand, posts with high engagement rates suggest that the content is resonating well with the audience and prompting them to interact with the post.
Armed with this information, businesses can adjust their content strategy accordingly, focusing on creating more of the types of posts that drive the desired outcomes. Additionally, monitoring post performance over time allows businesses to identify trends and patterns, enabling them to refine their posting schedule, content format, and messaging for optimal results.
Overall, leveraging post performance metrics empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions that enhance the effectiveness of their Google Posts and contribute to their overall digital marketing success.
The Key to Local Digital Brand Presence: Google Posts
Without a doubt: Google Posts are an integral part of any digital marketing strategy—just think of it as a free conversion booster tool. And with recent Google algorithm updates, Google continues to evolve how Google Posts are surfaced to searchers with the ultimate goal to increase local market reach, impressions, recalls, and engagement rates.
By adhering to best practices like limiting posts to 300 words, selling your product within the first 100 characters, and including an image, CTA, and URL, businesses can generate more traffic to their website or store. Additionally, the incremental click or foot traffic suggest that Google Posts positively impact local SEO ranking, making them a valuable asset for businesses aiming to boost their online visibility.
Convert search into local sales, effortlessly