Posts on Your Google Listing That Expire

A post from April

In the spring, somebody added a post to the business's Google listing: a photograph of the shop, a line about new stock, a button to the website.

For about a week it sat on the listing, where people searching for the business could see it. Then it dropped out of view, and nothing replaced it.

Plenty of listings with posts look like this: one burst of activity after somebody heard posts were worth doing, then months of nothing.

Posts are short-lived by design. They suit a small, steady habit far better than an occasional effort.

How long each kind of post lasts

Google My Business offers several kinds of post, and they do not all last the same length of time.

A what's new post, the ordinary update, drops out of view after about a week. An event post stays up until the event's end date, and an offer post until the offer ends.

That makes dates the most useful thing a post can have. A series of summer workshops posted as an event stays visible for as long as it runs.

Do not invent events or offers to keep a post up longer. A workshop that does not happen, or an offer nobody can redeem, is worse than an empty space.

What to post when nothing is new

• A job finished this week, with a photograph you took.
• A question customers ask, answered in two sentences.
• A seasonal reminder, a week or two before people need it.
• Hours for the next long weekend, posted well ahead.
• A person on the team, and what they do for customers.
• A workshop or demonstration, posted as an event with its dates.

The second is the easiest to keep going. Whoever answers the phone already knows the week's most common question, and the answer, written in two sentences, is a complete post.

A routine that takes ten minutes

One post a week keeps the listing current, since each ordinary post covers about seven days. Pick a day, Monday morning for most businesses, and make it part of opening up.

The Google My Business app on a phone is the quickest way. Take the photograph, write two or three sentences, choose a button, and publish.

Keep a running list of ideas in the phone's notes, added to whenever a customer asks something or a job turns out well. The list is what makes Monday easy.

If the person who posts is away, somebody else should know how. A routine that lives in one person's head stops on their first holiday.

A worked example

An independent paint and decorating store in a suburban plaza sells the same brands all year. Nothing in the store is new from one week to the next.

Its only post, in the spring, had offered a discount that ended in May. Since then the listing had shown no posts at all.

This summer the manager started posting on Monday mornings: a question about deck stain answered, colours a customer chose for a fence, the store's hours for the BC Day long weekend.

The Saturday demonstrations on exterior painting went up once, as an event running until the end of August, so the post stays visible until the last one.

Each photograph is the manager's own, taken in the store or at a finished job with the customer's permission, with the subject in the middle of the frame.

Photographs that survive the crop

Posts crop their photographs, and the crop is not always the same on a phone as on a computer. Anything near the edges can be cut off.

Keep the subject in the middle with space around it. Avoid text in the image entirely, since it is the first thing a crop slices through.

Use your own photographs, recent and taken in good light. A stock image of a smiling family tells a searcher nothing about your business.

A photograph wider than it is tall usually crops best. A tall phone photograph often loses its top and bottom.

The first line does the work

Only the start of a post shows before it is cut short. Somebody glancing at the listing reads the first line, and perhaps the second.

Put the point there: the question and the answer, the date of the event, what the offer is. Save background for later in the post, or leave it out.

Add a button that leads somewhere specific: the page about that service, the booking page, the event details. A button to the home page sends people back to the start.

Who sees posts

Posts appear on your listing in Google Search and Maps, so the people who see them are mostly already looking at your business.

That makes posts a final nudge rather than a way to reach new people. They answer a question, show recent work or mention a date at the moment somebody is deciding.

The dashboard shows how often each post was viewed and how many people pressed its button. After a few months, the pattern shows which kinds of post are worth repeating.

The counter-case

Posts are not the first thing a listing needs.

Correct hours, the right category, recent photographs and replies to reviews matter more. A listing with wrong hours and fresh posts is still a listing with wrong hours.

A business whose listing is rarely viewed, or one closed for the season, gains less from weekly posts, and a monthly post may be plenty.

For most businesses people visit or call, though, ten minutes on a Monday keeps something current on the listing every week of the year.

Every Monday

1. Check the listing's hours and details first.
2. Pick one idea from the running list.
3. Take a photograph with the subject centred.
4. Lead with the point in the first line.
5. Add a button to a specific page.
6. Post anything dated as an event or offer.
7. Add new ideas to the list during the week.

Step seven is what keeps the routine alive. Monday's post takes ten minutes only when the idea was written down on Thursday, while a customer was asking about it.

Getting customers to the listing in the first place is covered in a short name for your Google listing.

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