Google My Business: Should You Post Daily Updates? 5 Experts Chime In

Having an active Google My Business profile is crucial to driving more traffic to your business and ultimately gaining more customers. Depending on who you ask. In most posts we put together for you, we come up with clearly defined action steps and tips that you can use to promote your business. Whether or not you should post daily updates on your GMB profile to some degree comes down to personal preference. A certain amount of optimization is necessary in order to launch your GMB page, but in some senses business owners who are super dedicated to their GMB page might be investing in something that offers diminishing returns and in the long run it may not be worth it.

That said, there are a handful of GMB tips that when implemented right can get a business owner lots of traffic with minimal upkeep after the fact. The point is to do the initial work and develop some consistency without having to obsess about your GMB profile after that.

So should you post daily updates or not? Let’s see what the experts have to say.

Why You Should Update Your GMB Profile?

Most people looking for a local service person to do work in and around the home, such as a landscaper or a plumber, are just going to Google and click the first results they see. They will see top results but also see something called a Google Map Pack, which is basically a three-pack of highlighted search results that make the user more likely to click.

If you don’t optimize your GMB profile, you can’t get in this three pack. Even if you buy an ad to rank yourself at the top of the three pack, you’ll still have to optimize the profile. That means logging into your GMB profile account and carefully craft and submit the following details:

• Get reviews from customers and make sure you reply to comments that go with them. Google gives you lots of credit for both.
• Make sure your name, address, telephone number, business hours and web address are up to date and accurate. Not only on Google, but on other sites like Bing, Apple Maps, Yelp etc…
• Add photo and videos (both those uploaded by the business owner and from customers).
• Create a blog posts.
• Create Ads to add juice to your promotion strategy.

All of these elements are necessary for ranking your GMB profile and giving yourself a better chance to get into that three-pack. The number of customer reviews you get and whether or not they are five-star ratings is probably the biggest factor in how well you rank relative to the competition in your local area. It’s also important to respond to comments whether positive or negative that you get. Google rewards engagement and participation.

Nathan Sykes sums up best why service-based businesses need a GMB profile that’s updated:

“For a lot of service-based businesses, plumbers, landscapers, etc. – their target market is just googling plumbers and looking at good options. Maintaining a good profile is perfect because it helps make a great first impression with potential customers. And for a free service, they give you lots of opportunities for customization – I’d take advantage of them all.”

But Should You Update GMB Daily? Many Say No

Stacy Caprio is the founder of Accelerated Growth Marketing. She says that updating certain details within a GMB profile can make a difference to overall visibility and traffic. But she also says generally speaking updating the profile daily is unnecessary.

“There is no need to post Google Business status updates daily since they will likely not improve your visibility or reach. Updating store hours during holiday time and making sure your information is up to date is the only update that will impact your visibility positively.”

Katie Stone, a Brand Coordinator from LeadHub.net seems to disagree, though she touches on the idea that GMB profiles are great for building brand awareness but don’t function so well for creating engagement, like a more traditional social media platform such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

 “I have found that adding a post once weekly to our GMB listings allows our content to stay relevant while giving older content a chance to breathe. GMB isn’t a social media and shouldn’t be treated like one. Yes, there is some overlap. Posts are typically short and sweet like a social media post, but you won’t find the same engagement you find on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram simply because it wasn’t built for it. There is no like button. Users can’t subscribe or receive notifications. They can’t share the post or leave a comment. Google My Business is a completely one-sided platform which is great for brand voice but terrible for engagement.”

Stone says “…posting content that is relevant is what helps build thought leadership and brand awareness.”

She elaborates on what her business does, and what others should do:

“The kind of content businesses post on their GMB listing is going to vary by type of business. However, we like to post content-based posts for our home service clients as opposed to special offers or events. We post what makes sense for the brand. If we had e-commerce clients, we would be posting offers. If we had non-profit clients we would be posting events and event reminder posts.”

Some Say Post on GMB Daily Depending on Circumstances

Robin Luo is a sales manager for Rochehandle.com says that metrics actually show posting on a regular or daily basis actually works well:

“One of the things that I do is to post status and updates daily. Data from the analytics prove that this technique is effective. However, I limit the number of posts when making important updates such as sales and offers. This is because Google My Business prioritizes the most recent posts as old posts are pushed down or become invisible.”

Luo has a point. Older posts do become invisible, so you want to make sure the content you’re adding really does provide value to potential prospects. No sense posting something that doesn’t inspire people to take action or make them think.

Don’t Forget About Keywords

Keywords aren’t just important for search engine optimization or pay-per-click advertising, they’re also crucial to your GMB profile. Ultimately from a broader standpoint what SEO is about is making sure that people can find your business. Think about what a consumer does when they search. What keywords do they use? Whatever those keywords are, you want to make sure that you’re using them as well. If you need help with that, you can use Google’s tools. Keyword planner is free to use.

Marketer Kamrul Hayder says you should post something daily that includes at least one targeted keyword you want to rank your GMB profile for. But he also recommends telling customers about your brand. He says the content that you post and the strategy you implement should answer questions about your brand:

“Tell your customers in detail about your brand.

• Who are you?
• What type of product or service you’re offering to them?
• Why they should buy from you?
• Why you’re different from others?
• It will increase your brand awareness. Try to publish the latest news or
  new things about your service or product.”

Drew Johnson owns his own boating business, and he’s the one expert in this post that isn’t a marketer by trade. He doesn’t post daily, but still makes it a point to offer up content on his GMB profile fairly regularly.

“I have noticed a steady increase in ranking for my brand in the map listings. This includes new terms and terms I had already been targeting. From my experience with my brand and my client’s brands, I have found that you need to focus on posting a few times a week, or at least more regularly than your competitors. The biggest tip I can give is to use the keywords you want to rank for in the post itself. Google crawls the posts and looks for relevant terms to rank!”

What Should The Content Consist Of?

A good strategy for what to post is to think about giving people value at least three or four times before posting anything that’s more promotional or advertorial. Focus on over delivering when it comes to value and over the long run, your GMB ranking. Here’s a run down of what you can post on your GMB profile to add value to it, help rank it, and ultimately inspire people to get off the couch and use your service.

Post Photos

Don’t just put up generic photos from a stock photo website. Put up photos of your staff, your customers (with permission of course), your workspace. Post something funny, entertaining, or different. Show customers you’re human.

Post Videos

Google LOVES videos. They own Youtube after all! Do the same thing with videos that you do with photos. You don’t need cinema quality equipment these days. A relatively new smartphone will work well.

For both photos and videos, you need to focus on exterior shots of your building and the interior as well. Be well rounded. Pretend that every piece you put up is an opportunity to make your customer a member of your circle of friends and family.

Be Kind and Reply

Replying to customer reviews boosts your GMB profile and it’s an easy way to interact with your profile regularly. This becomes even more important when you get a more negative review. That shows Google and prospects you care about your customers. It’s also an opportunity to turn a three-star review into a five-star review.

Blog Posts

Take the time to use an original photo for this. Write something that adds value to the prospect’s journey as they get to know your brand. Use this as an opportunity to link back to a bigger post on your website. Viola! You’ve got the customer off of Google and on your site. In putting together all of this content and linking it to your brand, you can use a digital marketing agency to help you put together a content marketing strategy to make this happen.

So should you post on Google My Business everyday? In the beginning, yes. Long-term, you don’t necessarily need to, but generally, the more you do the better. Just make sure the value is there.

Photo by Christiann Koepke on Unsplash

Jack Choros

Jack has been in the internet marketing space for 10 years. He enjoys writing and watching the Toronto Raptors.