Google ‘Posts’ first launched in January 2016 under the name ‘candidate cards,’ but they were only available initially for political candidates to post content that would show up for relevant political search queries. A couple of months later, the feature was available for a very limited number of small businesses. It has slowly expanded since then until the recent full launch for all users.
This has been long anticipated and is now rolling out to all small businesses that use the Google My Business (GMB) platform. The content will appear in both Google search and maps results.
There are several options when writing a post:
- Upload an image
- Write text (up to 300 words)
- Add an event title (with start and end dates and times).
Users can also add call-to-action buttons including “Learn more,” “Reserve,” “Sign up,” “Buy” or “Get offer.”
Google states this give businesses the ability to:
- Share daily specials or current promotions that encourage new and existing customers to take advantage of offers.
- Promote events and tell customers about upcoming happenings at a specific location.
- Showcase top products and highlight new arrivals.
- Choose one of the available options to connect with customers directly from the Google business listing: give them a one-click path to make a reservation; sign up for a newsletter; learn more about latest offers; or even buy a specific product from the business’s website.
This is a useful development that will help businesses to better promote themselves especially upon mobiles, which has been a primary focus of Google for a while now.
If you’d like more information about the Google Posts for GMB or how your business can benefit from a listing, please contact us now.