Google Business Profile posts: are they worth the effort?

Most businesses set up their Google Business Profile, add a few photos, and never touch it again. Posts are one of the few features that let you put something new in front of people who are looking at your listing right now, and almost nobody uses them.

The three types

Google offers three kinds of post:

Updates. General news with a photo or video and an optional button linking to your website. New stock, a new service, holiday hours, a team member starting.
Offers. Promotions and deals, which need a title and a date range, with optional coupon code and terms. This is where promotional content belongs, since the business description does not allow it.
Events. Something happening at your business, with start and end dates. A tasting night, a workshop, a market day.

How long they last

Google archives posts older than six months unless a date range is set. In practice, an update from last spring looks stale long before that. A regular, light rhythm beats an occasional burst.

The rules

Posts go through Google’s review before they appear. Google rejects posts with misspellings and text that adds no value, offensive or explicit content, links to harmful sites, phone numbers that cannot be verified as belonging to the business, and content about regulated goods such as alcohol, tobacco, weapons and gambling. Keep posts plain, accurate and about your business.

Are they worth it

Honestly, it depends on your business. Posts are most useful where something genuinely changes: menus, stock, events, seasonal services. For a business whose offer is the same year round, a post a month is plenty. Google does not publish posts as a ranking factor, so treat them as a way to convert people already looking at your listing, not as a search trick.

A ten minute routine

Once a fortnight, take one real photo of something new.
Write two or three plain sentences about it.
Add a button to the relevant page on your site.
Post it, and reply to any new reviews while you are there.

Where posts fit

Posts sit alongside the other parts of your listing that you control: the description, the photos and your replies. See writing your description and Business Profile photos.