Back in June we wrote about Google Posts – a new feature added to Google local listings using the Google My Business service.
To summarize, a Google Post is a short snippet (up to 300 words) which you can use to promote something – an event, a sale, a blog post. You can add an image to it. You can also add a one of 5 call to action buttons – “Learn more,” “Reserve,” “Sign up,” “Buy” or “Get offer.” Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like in Google My Business.
One big question people have been asking since Google added Posts is…
Do Google Posts impact ranking?
Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins shared a case study she did to see if Google Posts can improve an organization’s local search rankings.
Her conclusion… based on two local organizations she experimented with she believes Google Posts do have a mild impact on ranking. I encourage you to read the details of her case study.
Google Posts are “Lower Effort”
One of the other points Joy makes in her case study is, “Google Posts are low-impact, low-effort tasks. They should be combined with other tasks to help improve Local SEO for a small business.” Same goes for a church, school or locally-focused nonprofit.
If you are already producing content, like regular blog posts, then it takes less than 5 minutes to add the intro sentence, image, and link from your blog posts to a Google Post. Why not do it? My philosophy is…
With SEO there are few huge impact factors. Instead, it’s hundreds of little factors that combine to make a huge impact.
Thoughts?
- What do you think of the case study?
- Are you using adding Google Posts to your Google My Business listing? Why or why not?
3 Comments
Hi Paul, thank you for your great article again 🙂 I have not added any google post in Google My Business listing, but I will test and try. 🙂
I did this case study with Joy, the most important thing to think about here with posts is that copy/past does not work. You need to employ semantic search techniques in the content. That is really the key, build trust, tie together facts and not focus on just keywords.
Hey Ben, thanks for doing the case study and for commenting here. Would you explain what you mean by “semantic search techniques in the content?”
And when you say “copy/past does not work…” can you be more specific? If a company is already creating quality content – let’s say a weekly blog post that addresses questions prospective customers frequently ask and has a teaser intro sentence, are you saying you don’t believe copying that teaser intro into a Google Post and adding a “learn more” button that links to the rest of the post will not be effective? If so why? Did you find evidence of this in your case studies?