Do businesses really need posts on Google My Business

As long as your business meets Google's guidelines, a profile on GMB can greatly increase your presence and position in Google search results completely free of charge.

Your potential customers can see basic information about your business, such as your name, address, and phone number, and you can show them much more: photos, descriptions, and reviews from other users. Customers can also make any reservations and view other information that catches the attention of any searcher without even visiting your website. I believe you agree that this is a pretty powerful online tool.

Google My Business helps with local rankings

It's not just that your GMB profile is easily visible to potential customers when they search for you online. GMB is the key and most important factor for a company's local ranking in search results, according to research.

Various online surveys that explore what affects the position in Google search results state that between 2017 and 2018, the importance of a good GMB profile in ranking in Google searches increased from 19% to 25%. This means that among all the factors that Google considers for positions in search results, a good GMB profile is worth at least 25% of the score that triggers a good position in search results.

Establishing a GMB profile is therefore your first and key step in local optimization. Unfortunately, it is a mistake to think that establishing a GMB profile with a company is already enough to rank higher locally. Of course, this is not the case, as it is only the beginning.

It is up to you to constantly monitor the activity in your GMB profile, log in to your profile dashboard frequently, and thus make sure that the profile contains only information that is relevant, true and relevant. In this way, you improve the ranking of your company online and ensure the integrity of your business profile.

Features in your Google My Business account that will rank your business at the top of the search engine

Google offers a variety of ways to optimize and improve your Google My Business profile. You can add photos, videos, business hours, company description, FAQs, communicate with customers via messaging, allow customers to book appointments, respond to online reviews, and more.

One of the most powerful ways to grab a searcher's attention is by creating Google My Business Posts. GMB Posts are like mini-ads for your business, products or services that you offer.

Google offers different ad formats that you can create to promote your business:

• What's new
• Event
• Offer
• Products

GMB Posts allow you to include calls to action (calls) to action. CTA, Call to Action) which allows you to perfectly control what the visitor does after seeing your post. By doing this, you can create a real marketing experience.

Current calls to action (CTAs) available in GMB:

• Book
• Subscribe
• Buy
• Read more
• Announced
• Get A Quote
• Call

A GMB post consists of a combination of images, text, and calls to action (CTAs) that you can use to creatively create your messages aimed at potential customers. Posts appear on your GMB profile when someone searches for your business name on Google or looks at your GMB Business Profile on Google Maps. And that's not all! You can even share the created post on your social channels and social media to gain additional exposure.

Still, Google Posts isn't like social media posts. It is typical to condense the essence of the message in the first 100 characters of the text, since the rest of the content is hidden and visible only when you click on the post. So you need to make sure that all the main and key words are at the beginning of the text. Don't use hashtags because they're meaningless. It's best to create posts once a week.

Google My Business Posts are such a great way to showcase your business in a unique way at a specific time. This is when a potential customer searches for your business online. That raises an important question: Do companies actually create GMB posts with the intention of informing potential customers about their services and/or items?

Important question: Are businesses actively using Google My Business posts?

There's been a lot of debate in the SEO industry about Google My Business Posts and their value in general: Do they help rank a website? How effective are they? How often does it make sense to publish them? Should I post on GMB at all? A lot of questions, right?

While connoisseurs and experts in the field of digital marketing are researching and checking all these different aspects of GMB profiles, this time we will focus on what GMB profiles do and what kind of posts are published by average, everyday local businesses. Do they publish anything at all? How often do they post?

Google My Business Listings Study: Facts Only

The study is based on an analysis of 2,000 GMB profiles, which includes a sample of profiles of companies competing in highly competitive industries. Competing keywords and phrases in ten cities in America are taken into account, according to population density data from Wikipedia.

Results:

• Cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Jose, San Francisco, Washington DC, Houston, and Boston.
• Keywords: A real estate agent, a mortgage, a travel agent, an insurance agent or broker, a dentist, a plastic surgeon, a compensation lawyer, a plumber, a veterinarian or a livestock doctor, and a locksmith.

Surprise! The survey found that lawyers and locksmiths are the most likely to publish.

We were interested in the answers to the following questions:

• How many businesses have active Google My Business posts (posted in the last seven days)?
• How many have had at least one post before?
• How many have never made a post before?

It turned out that:

• 17% of businesses are actively posting on Google My Business
• 42.1% of businesses have posted at least one post on Google My Business
• 40.4% of businesses have never posted on Google My Business

EMPHASIS :Total 59,60%of companies have made at least one post on their Google My Business profile.

Are searchers responding to Google My Business posts?

If a company takes the time to create GMB posts, do searchers and prospects take the time to view the posts? And more importantly: are they taking action and responding to posts?

The chart above shows nine random customers and their GMB profile views compared to GMB post views on those profiles over a 28-day period. If we look at the number of views of the GMB profile and compare this with the number of views of GMB posts, we see that the views of GMB posts are higher on average. This means that, on average, an individual user has viewed several different GMB posts.

This means that if you take the time to create GMB posts and that these posts are also meaningful and have some value, then you can expect to turn a potential customer into an actual customer with a high degree of probability. Or at the very least, that it will dedicate its time to you and look at your marketing message that you wanted to convey through the GMB post.

Does a search engine click on a Google My Business post?

The next question that arises is whether searchers who find your business online and see your post click on "read more" to read the full post.

The chart above shows the views of the GMB profile compared to viewing the post in a way that searchers click on "read more". We can see that, on average, those who view GMB's profile practically always click on "read more" on posts that are posted on GMB.

GMB publication is worth it

In the analysis of 2000 GMB profiles, we discovered a lot of information. One thing is definitely true. It is difficult to estimate on a weekly basis how much and how often companies use GMB posts because posts are automatically removed after a week.

Also, Google recently moved GMB posts to the bottom of the GMB profile, so they are no longer as exposed as they were just a few months ago. This could mean less initiative for companies to create GMB posts.

This study, however, found that businesses that are in highly competitive local industries benefit from using Google My Business optimization strategies and tools such as GMB posts to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.

Source: Moz Blog , BrightLocal