Google Business Posts 101 – Easily Create Weekly GBP Updates – 202

Jesse Dolan: Welcome back to LocalSCO Tactics where we bring you tips and tricks to get found online. I’m your host Jesse Dolan.

This episode here today we’re going to revisit a topic which we’ve talked about in the past on various episodes and that’s your Google Business Profile posting. So this has been around for a while for a few years and we put out some content here. Let’s pull up some to reference. Back in episode 19 we talked about… What are the offer posts? Which I’ll describe that here in a second. So how to use them. Episode 40, we talked about what are these posts, how to use them. 42, setting up your initial posting strategy. And then in episode 86, we talked about repurposing some of your web content, blog posts, articles, things like that, and turn them into Google business profile posts. So if you want a primer or maybe some kind of tangential information on GBP posting, Check out those episodes here today.

We’re going to talk about just kind of posting once a week some best practices and some tips that we have that we use for our clients. But I think I’m going to help you out here. So let’s dive in first a little bit of background on this. If you don’t take a moment to kind of check out those previous episodes, I’m just going to go over a quick summary on what this is, why it matters to you. So first Google business profile. That is your free profile that you can set up on Google, Now it’s Google business profile, which is then GBP, cause we love acronyms. And this is completely free with Google. You set it up. They have to verify that you’re a legitimate business. They’ll usually send you a postcard with a pin and there’s a process there. Again, we’ve walked through this in other episodes. So I’m not going to belabor that point, but you do have to have a Google business profile that’s active and accessible to be able to do this posting. So what is this post? It’s kind of just like a mini blog post, right? Or maybe a social media post. that type of function where you’re just putting up some information to share to prospects, clients, and just the public at large. And this is posted on your Google Business profile. So this is visible if you do a desktop search, if you show up in the knowledge panel off to the right-hand side. If you just do right now, just do a search for your business like your proper business name, if that’s what’s on your GBP listing for your name. And you’ll see your knowledge panel off to the right-hand side. If you’re doing any posting, it’ll be visible down in that. And if you’re not doing any posting, well, you won’t see it there, but that’s what’ll show up after we go through this here. So on mobile and in maps, that’s also visible pretty much anywhere in Google where the local business information, either through maps or the knowledge panel, is gonna show up because that’s where your GBP is triggered. So this won’t be part of your website, right? This is gonna be part of your Google business profile, but it is good for SEO. This is a spot, kind of like we always say in your GBP, when Google gives you the ability input information to communicate to Google, i.e. put in keywords, right?

We wanna take advantage of that. So this is a great spot to be able to do that. And usually you don’t have to create some unique piece of content or have it be a very laborious process. You already have all this information probably on your website, through social media, maybe email, newsletters that you’re sending out, whatever it is, you just wanna repurpose that content really or spin it or kind of get inspired by it.

So couple other housekeeping things here. So this used to be, I keep referring to this as GBP posts and I will through the episode here and indefinitely in the future. But when we go into the profile, which I’ll show in a second here with screen sharing for everybody that’s watching on video or if you’re just listening, if you wanna come back later and check this out on YouTube, I will have a little bit of a walkthrough. But it is called an update now, right? It used to be called posts, now it’s called an update. So as we get in there, you’ll see that’s what the function is. And also these used to be only visible for seven days. once you input them into your GVP. Google changed that a number of months ago and it is now six months that this will be visible. If you don’t have anything in your profile that’s fresher than six months, I believe there’s a button that it says, like, you know, view recent content or something to that effect. So it still is there, it doesn’t get deleted. And it remains in your file, in your repository, in your profile indefinitely, but it’s only shown to search users for six months. Another really cool part about this, which kind of shows the horsepower for SEO is the information that you put, the text I should say that you put into your GBP posting and updates can trigger and be included in the justifications for your profile. And what do I mean by justifications?

I also refer to this as snippets. If you do a search and you get the map back, we’ll always see, right, like we’re familiar with the reviews, the business information. but then sometimes there’s maybe a little quote or a snippet from a review that somebody left that has the keyword or related phrase. Other times it’ll say this business offers or provides or has whatever. It’s gonna be able to pull that information out of these updates. So the information that you put into these updates not only is visible to the public, they can read that, be exposed to it and get your message there. Also understand that all this information we’re gonna be putting into this post is feeding right into Google and that’s all your keywords, right? What’s your intent as a business? products and services that you offer. It’s great for all that as well. So how do we post?

Well, let’s do a little screen share here. And here we’re looking at our Intrycks listing and you can see right here, where is it if I can hover over it?

There it is, add update. So we don’t have a lot of activity on this GBP, which is why I’m gonna show it here. If we click add update, you can see here we have three types of updates to get into, the add update, which is what we’re gonna do here, post updates to your customers on Google. Also add an offer and add an event. We’re gonna be covering those in future episodes a little bit more in depth. As I mentioned, we did a pretty good one on the offer, add an offer or offer post previously. You can check that out. It’s a little bit outdated now, but the core information is still there. And the event we’re gonna be getting to here down the road. So let’s click add update and you can see just what it’s gonna look like for you. You can add a description or IE your content. This is 1500 characters and just like any other piece of content on your website or in your SEO related marketing, keywords and phrases are going to matter here. Top to bottom, left to right. That’s how we read in Western culture, right? So same thing applies here. Input your keywords, make sure they’re early and often related phrases, kind of different variations on those keywords, geographic references, things like that. Just have some intention on what you’re going to be Oftentimes you can just pull this information from, again, in a blog post that you have, or maybe a product or service page on your website. We recommend don’t copy and paste it exactly, change it around a little bit. We’re looking for unique content, not just play drives right off of your own website, but don’t think that you have to create a brand new piece of unique content. You can definitely repurpose it and make your life easy. And again, it’s 1,500 characters. So I might’ve said words earlier. If I did, I didn’t mean that. It’s 1,500 characters. And you can do some basic stuff, bullet pointing or emojis, things like that. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. You’ll have to play with it. And once you publish the post, you’ll be able to see it and see what carries over. But otherwise, just input that in there. And right off to the right here, you can see we can add a photo. Go ahead and add your photo. We definitely like to use unique images, not something from stock photography. Even if just take something with your iPhone. It doesn’t have to be the greatest image ever created, but it should be relevant and unique to this topic.

Again, if you have that image on your website, let’s say it was a blog post, go ahead and bring that one over and you can use that for this as well. And then you can see right here for add a button, there’s a few options. It says optional, we definitely recommend that you add a button. And our favorite is just learn more. And that’s gonna link back to your website. You can see there’s some other options here, book, order online, buy, sign up and call now. As you pick them here, if I did call now, you can input the phone number that you wanna use, sign up. you know, link to a signup page, things like that. We say, learn more. It’s very generic, very general. Everybody knows what it means. And it allows you, as you can see here, link for your button. It’ll put a button on the post. That’s gonna link back to your website.

So I’m gonna stop the screen share there. And I wanna dive into some best practices here for how to utilize this and leverage it where we have success. So when you add that button, you wanna link it back to your webpage, not your homepage, right? So… Just think about what is the topic that you’re posting on. Let’s just say if it was a service that you provide, if you’re an electrician, you know, you’re gonna have half a dozen or a couple dozen services. Ideally in your website, you have a page for each major, you know, service or chunk of services. We would wanna do the same thing here. So for every service page on your website, you know, that can be a Google post for you down the road. We’re gonna wanna do one of these per week. You can do more. You can do less as well. We just like that frequency and that cadence of one a week. It’s easy to get into, do it Monday morning, Friday afternoon, whatever it is. And just go through and every service page on your website, just use that as inspiration. And then when you use the image from that, and when you put in the text from that, you’re gonna link back through this learn more button to that exact page.

So that’s not only going to provide all this information to Google for, here’s what you do, here’s the image, et cetera. you’re gonna link it back to that webpage and kind of help close the loop on that. That’s for Google. Now for human beings and users out there, when you click on that button, it’s gonna bring you right to your webpage, which is what we want, right? We want traffic to our website, we want people to convert, we want them to digest that information. So that’s another reason why we wanna do that.

So that’s the main concept. Other ways that you can leverage this are, I just mentioned like your service pages, maybe you do e-commerce or even if you don’t have e-commerce, we’ll make product pages that… you know, it’s not something you can buy, but just like a service page, it really gives all the details, features, benefits, information about that product. Same thing here for every product that you have, you can make a post for this in your Google business profile, every blog post that you have, and really anything else. Some clients that we work with, maybe they don’t have a ton of that information on their website, but they post a lot on social media. You know, same thing here. If you’re posting something on social media, go ahead and repurpose that content or that idea and that thought. into your Google business profile posting, create an update for that. Sometimes if you’re posting to social media, maybe you just have a really cool image, you don’t have a lot of text. This is 1500 characters of text. You don’t have to use all 1500. We would definitely recommend at least a few sentences. You’re gonna wanna take advantage of this and put in those keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business. And worst case scenario, you should be able to rattle off a couple of sentences about whatever your topic is if you’re sitting down to do this.

So don’t feel obligated to use all 1500 characters, but definitely get a few keywords in there. I’ll give a little bit of a description on what it is that you’re posting about and fire that thing off. So there you go, kind of a quick one here. This is not very technical or very complicated, but it is something that we find when we bring on a new client, it’s something we’re having to do with every client. There’s not a lot of businesses out there where if you don’t have an SEO working for you or helping you out. Probably not doing this, I guess is what I’m trying to say, which is what we find. So if you’re watching or listening, definitely take action on this. This is a very easy thing to do to start creating more content in your GBP. Gets you into that GBP as well. There’s just great habits here for maybe replying to reviews, reading messages, keeping your profile updated. A lot of good reasons to be in your profile once a week to be doing this post, and then just do some other housekeeping while you’re in there.

So play that helps you out. Just a little quick one here today. That’s pretty easy to do, but definitely a good impact. If you like this, we would love to hear from you. We’d love to get a review. Go on out to localscotactics.com, scroll down to the bottom, click the button to leave a review, and we’d love to hear from you, whether it be through Apple Podcasts, Facebook, Google Business Profile, as we’re talking to you today. Whatever it is, that’s how we know this show is beneficial for you, and we’ll keep doing it. If you do leave us a review, we’re gonna read it. I got a great one here today. from Momo Joe 09 says, I’m excited. I’m sorry. It says, I’m so excited that I found this podcast. I’m about a decade late to the SEO party, but I guess it’s never too late. That is correct. Fortunately, I found this podcast and it’s really helpful. I’m gonna do all that over. We have a great one here from Momojo9. I’m sorry, Momojo9 says, “‘I’m so excited I found this podcast “‘and I’m about a decade late to the SEO party, “‘but I guess it’s never too late.'” That is correct. “‘Fortunately, I found this podcast “‘and it’s really helpful. “‘Easy to understand, great insights, “‘perfectly aligned with all the questions “‘I have in my head. “‘Thank you!’ Triple exclamation marks. Thank you for that. If you feel that same way, we’d love to have a review from you. Like I said, go onto localseotactist.com, scroll down the button. Scroll down to the bottom, click the button for leaving a review and we’d love to hear from you. Also, just like Momo Jo Nine says, if you have questions that are in your head that are aligned with you, if we haven’t answered them yet on the show, please drop us a line. You can also click the button there for submit a question and we’d love to hear from you. Use it on the show, helps you, helps all of us. And yeah, thanks for tuning in everybody. Hopefully this episode was good one for you and we’ll check in the next one. Take care.