Every verified business can now publish short posts with a photograph and a button on its Google listing. Most expire after seven days, so they work as a weekly ten-minute habit, not a campaign.

What changed last night

Since yesterday evening, every business verified in Google My Business can publish posts on its own Google listing.

A post is a short update with a photograph: news, an event with dates, or an offer. It appears on the listing itself, the panel people see when they search for your business by name.

Until now this was open only to a few kinds of accounts. Now it sits in the same dashboard as your hours, and it costs nothing.

The listing has always held facts and reviews. Now it can also hold a few sentences of your own, current to this week.

What a post can hold

The second is the one to plan around. On most screens the text is cut after a line or two, and the rest shows only to someone who taps, so the opening words must carry the point alone.

Where people will see it

Posts show on your listing in Google search results and in Google Maps. On a computer they sit in the panel beside the results; on a phone they appear within the listing as someone scrolls.

So they reach mostly people who searched for your name or tapped your business in local results: not strangers browsing, but people close to deciding.

Which makes a post closer to a sign in the window than an advertisement. It speaks to people already standing outside.

How long a post stays up

Most posts disappear from the listing a week after they go up. Event posts last until the event's date has passed.

The short life is deliberate. A post from this week tells a searcher the business is active; one from months ago would say the opposite, and Google has settled that for you.

It also means posts are a habit or nothing. A single post today is gone by next Friday, and the listing looks exactly as it did on Thursday.

What to post

The useful posts answer something a person checking your listing wants to know this week.

Seasonal changes: summer hours, a holiday closure, the first week of a service offered only part of the year.

Events with a date: a workshop, an open house, a sale weekend, a booth at a local fair.

Something new and specific: a product that has arrived, a service you have added, a second location.

And offers with plain terms: what it is, until when, and how to claim it.

What to leave out

A post is the wrong place for anything a visitor cannot act on or check.

Slogans waste the one line that shows. "Quality service since 1998" tells a searcher nothing they could not assume.

Old news reposted to fill the space reads as filler to the regulars who see the listing most.

And nothing that contradicts the website on a price, an hour or the terms of a promotion. Whichever version is wrong is the one somebody quotes back at the counter.

A worked example

A whale watching company with two boats in a small harbour town takes most of its summer bookings from visitors searching on a phone the evening before, often from a hotel room.

Its Facebook page carries a sighting report after every trip, but those visitors have never seen it. They see the Google listing: hours, a phone number, and reviews from several summers back.

So the office spent its mornings answering the same calls. Are the boats going out, what has been seen lately, are there seats this afternoon.

This morning it published its first post: a photograph from Wednesday's trip, a first line naming the whales seen this week, the departure times, and a button linked straight to the booking page.

The plan is a fresh post every Monday with the week's sightings, plus an event post for each sunset cruise, which stays up until the date.

The visitors deciding tonight were never going to follow the company anywhere. They look it up once, and the post meets them there.

The button

Each post can carry one button, and it is the part most often wasted.

Link it to the page that finishes what the post started. A post about a Saturday sale should open the sale page, not the home page, where the visitor has to find it again.

If that page is slow or awkward on a phone, the site undoes what the post did. Tap the button on your own phone first.

When the event or offer ends, the page should say so rather than vanish, because people save links.

Fitting it into a week

Posts work as a ten-minute routine, not a campaign.

Pick a day, the same one every week, and a person. Monday morning suits most businesses: the post covers the week ahead and expires just before the next one.

Keep a running list of ideas as they come up: a delivery, a finished job, a question three customers asked. The list is what keeps Monday to ten minutes.

Take the photographs as things happen. A phone photograph of real work in decent light beats anything found later.

The counter-case

Some businesses will get little from posts.

A business rarely searched by name, such as a trade that wins most work through contractors, will find few people see its posts. An hour on the listing's basics will do more.

A business with little that changes from week to week may struggle to post honestly every Monday, and a forced post is worse than none. Monthly, around real events, is a reasonable scope.

Posts never replace the basics either: correct hours, a working number, and a website that answers what people bring from the listing.

For most local businesses, though, a weekly post is the cheapest current information you can put before people about to choose.

The first post

  1. Sign in to Google My Business and find Posts.
  2. Choose one photograph of real, current work.
  3. Write the first line so it stands alone.
  4. Link the button to the page that finishes the job.
  5. Check the post on your own phone.
  6. Pick a day and a person for every week.
  7. Start an ideas list everyone can add to.

Step three decides whether the post is read at all. Most people will see only that line, so it has to say something specific and current without help from the rest.

Watching what other people change on the same listing is covered in Google Map Maker is gone and the map is still editable.

Frequently asked questions

What are posts on a Google listing?

Short updates with a photograph, published from Google My Business, that appear on your listing in search and Maps. They can carry news, an event or an offer.

How long does a post stay up?

Most posts drop off after seven days. Event posts stay until the event's date has passed, so a weekly routine keeps something current on the listing.

Who actually sees the posts?

Mostly people who searched for your business by name or tapped it in local results. They are close to deciding, which is why specific, current posts matter.

Where should the button link?

To the exact page that completes what the post started, such as the booking or sale page, not the home page. Check it on a phone before leaving it.

What should I avoid posting?

Slogans, recycled old news, and anything that contradicts your website on prices, hours or terms. Whichever version is wrong is the one customers will remember.

How much time does this take?

About ten minutes a week, once there is a set day, a named person, and a running list of ideas and photographs to draw from.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Listing with nothing current on it?

We can set up your first post and a weekly routine your staff can keep going in ten minutes.

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