- Posts and photos help customers decide, and Google has not said posts move rankings.
- Show your exterior, team, vehicles and real finished work.
- Use real photos, not stock images or heavy graphics.
- Post useful updates, real offers and seasonal reminders at a pace you can keep.
- Check hours, services and reviews every time you post.
What posts and photos are for
Your Google Business Profile has parts you set once, like your name, category and address, and parts you are expected to keep fresh. Posts and photos are the fresh part. They show customers what your work looks like, what is going on right now, and that a real business is behind the listing.
Be realistic about what they do. Google's own tips for local businesses include adding photos and keeping your information current, but Google has not said that posts move rankings, and you should be skeptical of anyone who promises results from a set number of posts. Their real job is to help people who already found your profile decide to call you. A profile with recent photos of real jobs and a post from last week gives them more reason to pick you than one with a logo and nothing else.
Photos customers actually look for
Customers look at photos to settle practical doubts: whether the place is real, what it looks like inside, who will show up at the door and whether the work looks good. Give them photos that answer those questions directly. Refresh the set as things change, such as a new truck, a remodeled lobby or a new hire, so the photos match what customers will find.
- Exterior: your storefront or building from the street, so people recognize it when they pull up. Service-area businesses can show their trucks or vans instead.
- Interior: the waiting room, treatment rooms, shop floor or showroom, clean and well lit.
- Team: real staff at work, in uniform if you have one. Customers want to see the person who will show up.
- Work: finished jobs and before and after shots, like the new water heater installed neatly, the finished deck or the plated special. Get permission before showing a customer's home or face.
- Your logo and a cover photo, set in the profile. Google may still choose which photo appears first in search results.
What makes a good profile photo
Shoot on a recent phone in good light, held sideways for most shots. Take a few seconds to clean up the background first. Skip heavy filters and text slapped across the image. Google's guidelines ask that photos represent the business as it really is, so stock images and promotional graphics are a poor fit.
Customers can add photos to your profile too, and some will be unflattering. You cannot delete their photos yourself, but you can report ones that break Google's policies. The best answer to weak customer photos is a steady supply of better ones from you.
Short videos work too. A quick walk-through of the shop or a time-lapse of a job can show more than a still photo, and it takes a minute to shoot.
What to post
Google Business Profile posts come in a few types, including general updates, offers and events. Good post ideas for local businesses usually fall into one of these. Write each one the way you would talk to a customer at the counter: what it is, why it matters to them now and what to do next.
- A recent job, with a photo and one or two sentences about the problem and the fix. Leave out customer names and addresses.
- A seasonal reminder, like furnace tune-ups before the first cold snap, gutter cleaning after the leaves come down, or back-to-school dental checkups.
- A real offer, with any conditions and an end date.
- An event, such as an open house, a community sponsorship or a free clinic day.
- A new service, a new product line or a new team member.
- A plain answer to a question customers ask you all the time.
Rules that get posts rejected
Google reviews posts against its content policies, and posts that break them are rejected or taken down. Keep them about your business and your customers. Avoid anything misleading, offensive or off-topic, and be careful with regulated products and services, which carry extra restrictions.
Use the button on the post, such as Call or Book, rather than typing a phone number into the text. Link to your own website. Do not repeat the same post over and over, and do not cram posts with keywords and city names. It reads badly to the customers you are trying to win.
If a post is rejected, read the reason Google gives, fix the wording and post it again, rather than resubmitting the same text and hoping.
How often to post and add photos
Google does not set a required number of posts or photos. What matters is that the profile never looks abandoned. A post every week or two and a few new photos each month is a pace most busy owners can keep, and it means anyone who checks your profile sees something recent.
Make it easy by building it into work you already do. Have techs or staff take a photo of every finished job, with the customer's permission. Pick the best one or two each week. Write the post on Monday morning in five minutes. Seasonal posts can be written ahead of time and saved for when the season arrives.
Watch the dates on offers and events. An offer that ended in March and is still showing in June makes the business look careless, which is the opposite of what the post was for.
Check the rest of the profile while you are there
Every time you post, take a minute to look over the rest of the profile. Check that the hours are right, including upcoming holidays, that your services are current, that nobody has suggested an edit you have not seen, and that every review has a reply.
A profile that gets a few minutes of attention every week tends to stay accurate, and an accurate, active profile is what customers expect from a business they are about to call. Small problems, like old hours or an unanswered complaint, get caught before they cost you a customer.
Posts, photos and review replies are all part of Northward's Google Business Profile Management service, for owners who would rather not do it themselves.
