One of the best ways to improve your local SEO is to optimize your Google My Business (GMB) listing. Google continues to release new free features, and taking advantage of them can be extremely beneficial for increasing customer traffic to your site, and can increase your chances of getting in the local pack.
Google Posts is essentially a microblog incorporated in your business’ Knowledge Panel, allowing you to make short, frequent posts to those searching for your business or related keywords. You can produce mini-ads that reach a huge audience of people who aren’t even on your site yet. Learn how to do it the best way below!
Tips and Tricks
- Word Count – While Google allows your post to have up to 300 words, you have a lot less space to entice your audience. In the Knowledge Panel itself, it seems that only 100 characters or even less show up (especially if your post has a title and/or dates). Once someone clicks on the post, only 40-50 words show up before they have to click again to read more.
- Image – Google’s minimum image size is 250 x 250, but the general rule of thumb is that 750 x 750 is best. When uploading, Google forces a square crop, but the image is actually shown as a horizontal rectangle in the Knowledge Panel, so keep that in mind. Joel Headley, Director of Local SEO and Marketing at PatientPop had great success with making his images look like clickable buttons, having a simple colored background with text in the center. As long as the image pulls the audience in, anything should work.
- Expiration – After seven days, a post will no longer be shown in the Knowledge Panel, unless the post type is an event. An event will stay visible until the end date. Posts are never completely deleted though, as they are archived, and can be seen by clicking through current posts.
- Don’t know what to post? – You can make a variety of different posts. You can make a simple announcement, or highlight an event, offer, or product in special formats. Highlighting limited-time offers or a popular product would make great posts!
Contact Gauge Digital Media Today
Keeping track of your Google Posts can be tedious and time-consuming, especially with the seven-day expiration causing you to constantly repost and come up with new content. Luckily, Gauge Digital Media can help you with that. Contact us today if you want to know more about our Local SEO services!
