Google Business Profile6 min readPublished 24 February 2026
Google Business Profile Posts and Q&A: The Free Content Marketing Most Businesses Ignore
Alexander Rule
Founder, Northrule SEO
Google Business Profile posts are short pieces of content — text, image, and a call-to-action button — that appear directly inside your business listing in Google search results and on Google Maps. They are free, require no advertising budget, and put your message in front of people who are already searching for your business or the services you offer. Most businesses never use them.
That neglect is an opportunity. In any competitive local market, posting consistently to your Google Business Profile creates visible momentum that inactive competitors cannot match. A customer comparing two plumbers, two accountants, or two restaurants will notice the business that has a current promotion or recent news item — and the one that looks like it has not been updated since it was first claimed.
GBP posts are one component of a broader Google Business Profile optimisation strategy, but they are among the easiest to implement and among the most visible to customers at the exact moment of decision.
Google Business Profile offers four post formats. Each serves a distinct commercial purpose, and rotating between them keeps your listing varied and relevant.
The general-purpose post format. Use Updates for:
Updates expire after 7 days and are then archived. They do not disappear from your profile permanently, but they stop appearing prominently after expiry, which is why weekly posting matters.
Offer posts are designed for promotions. They include a start date, an end date, and optionally a coupon code or redemption link. Offer posts display a distinctive orange badge in your listing, making them visually prominent.
Use Offers for:
Offer posts remain visible until their end date, so a well-timed promotion can stay live in your listing for weeks without any additional effort.
Event posts promote specific dates — workshops, open days, product launches, webinars, or any time-bound activity. They require a start and end date and can include a booking or registration link.
Use Events for:
Event posts expire on their end date, so they are self-cleaning. However, they are only useful if you actually have events to promote — do not manufacture events for the sake of posting.
Product posts showcase individual products with a name, description, price (optional), and a button linking to a product or service page. They are particularly useful for retail businesses and service businesses with clearly defined offerings.
Use Products for:
| Post Type | Duration | Best Use | CTA Options |
|---|---|---|---|
| Update | 7 days | News, content, general interest | Learn more, Call now, Book, Order online |
| Offer | Until end date | Promotions, discounts, deals | Get offer, Learn more |
| Event | Until event date | Workshops, open days, webinars | Book, Sign up, Learn more |
| Product | Ongoing | Products, services, featured items | Buy, Learn more, Get offer |
Most businesses that do post to their Google Business Profile make the same mistakes: too much text, no clear action, a generic stock image that communicates nothing specific. An effective post has three components in the right order.
Google recommends images at 1200 x 900 pixels for GBP posts. The image should be specific to the content of the post, not a generic logo or banner. A photo of a real product, a real service in progress, a real event space, or a real team member performs better than clip art or stock photography. If you are announcing a promotion, show the product. If you are promoting a service, show the outcome.
GBP post text is truncated after roughly 100 characters in the listing preview. The most important information — the offer, the announcement, the reason to act — must appear in the first sentence. Write the preview line first, then expand with supporting detail.
Effective structure:
Keep the total text under 300 words. GBP posts are not blog articles — they are shop window content.
Every post should include a CTA button. Choose the button that matches the intent of the post:
If your post does not have a CTA button, you are giving customers information without a next step. That is a missed conversion.
The Questions and Answers section of your Google Business Profile is one of the most overlooked and mismanaged parts of local search presence. It appears directly in your listing and is visible to anyone searching for your business. Anyone — including competitors and strangers — can post questions and answers.
That last point is critical. If you do not manage your Q&A section, someone else will answer on your behalf, and their answer may be inaccurate, unhelpful, or damaging.
The best approach is to populate the Q&A section proactively with the questions customers actually ask, answered the way you want them answered. Think of it as a FAQ that lives inside your Google listing.
Good candidates for pre-seeded questions:
Log into your Google account, find your business listing, navigate to the Q&A section, and post each question as a user — then answer it from your Google Business Profile dashboard as the business owner. The owner answer is displayed with a distinctive label.
Set up notifications for new questions in your GBP dashboard. A question that sits unanswered for a week tells customers you are either not monitoring your listing or not interested in their enquiries. Neither interpretation helps you.
Google allows business owners to report Q&A content that violates guidelines — spam, advertising, irrelevant content, or competitor attacks. Use the three-dot menu next to any Q&A item to report it. Google's review team will assess and remove violating content, though this can take several days.
Do not leave spam or misleading Q&A content in place hoping customers will not notice. They will.
One of the highest-leverage tactics for keeping your GBP listing active is connecting it to your blog publishing schedule. Every time you publish a new article, your GBP listing can automatically receive a new Update post with the article title, a snippet, and a link back to the full article.
For WordPress sites, plugins such as Blog2Social and JEWE handle this connection. Once configured, the workflow is entirely automatic — publish an article on your site, and within minutes a corresponding GBP post goes live.
This is particularly effective because blog content naturally provides a varied stream of relevant posts covering different topics, products, and services. Rather than inventing a new post topic every week, your editorial calendar becomes your GBP posting calendar.
For the autopost to perform well, each blog article should already have a strong featured image and a clear opening line — the autopost plugin will typically use these. Apply the same image quality and first-line clarity standards to your blog articles that you would to a dedicated GBP post.
GBP posts cannot be scheduled natively within the Google Business Profile dashboard — you must post in real time or use a third-party tool. Scheduling options include:
For most small businesses, a simple weekly routine works well: set a recurring calendar reminder, write one post per week, and publish it manually. If you publish blog content weekly, autoposting removes even that manual step.
The minimum effective posting frequency is once per week. Daily posting is not necessary and can feel spammy if the content is thin. Quality and consistency matter more than volume.
GBP posts work best when they are part of a joined-up approach rather than a standalone activity. A post announcing a new service should link to the relevant service page. A post promoting a blog article should link to that article. An Offer post should link to the relevant product or booking page.
Using UTM tracking parameters on your Google Business Profile links lets you measure exactly how much website traffic is arriving from your GBP posts, which post types convert best, and which offers drive the most enquiries. Without UTM tracking, GBP clicks are typically lumped in with direct or organic traffic, making it impossible to attribute performance accurately.
Responding to and generating Google reviews alongside a consistent posting schedule creates a profile that looks genuinely active — both to customers and to Google's ranking algorithm. The two activities reinforce each other.
If you want support setting up a consistent GBP posting strategy, or connecting it to your wider content and SEO plan, our SEO optimisation services cover the full Google Business Profile setup. Contact us to find out what is possible for your business.
Four types: Updates (general business news and announcements), Offers (promotions with start/end dates and coupon codes), Events (upcoming events with dates and descriptions), and Products (product showcases with prices). Each type has a different format and serves a different commercial purpose.
At least once per week. Regular posting signals to Google that your business is active and engaged. Posts expire after 7 days (except Events and Offers, which expire on their end date), so weekly posting keeps your listing fresh. Businesses that post weekly see higher engagement and visibility.
Google Business Profile includes a Questions & Answers section where anyone can ask and answer questions about your business. You should proactively seed this with common questions and monitor it for customer queries. Unanswered questions look neglectful. Spam questions should be reported and removed.
Yes, with WordPress plugins like Blog2Social or JEWE. These automatically create a GBP post whenever you publish a new blog article. This keeps your listing fresh with minimal effort. Include a compelling image and a clear call to action in each autopost.
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