This post goes over whether Google My Business posts help with SEO.
Google My Business, sometimes shortened to GMB, has provided the ability to publish posts to your Google My Business account. This is somewhat similar to a social media post, except it shows up in the Google search results.
If you are reading this, it probably means you are at least familiar with Google My Business posts. Your questions are probably something like:
Should I be taking the time to post on Google My Business?
Are there SEO benefits to posting on Google My Business?
Are Google posts worth my time and effort?
After all, Google My Business posts expire after 7 days, so it can be somewhat annoying to remember to post something new at least once a week.
In addition, Google My Business does not offer a way to schedule posts for the future natively, nor a way to publish the same post across multiple GMB locations at the same time.
(However, OneUp allows you to schedule Google posts for the future, set them to automatically repeat, and to post across multiple locations at once. More on OneUp at the bottom.)
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Google My Business SEO case studies
Case Study #1
Kyle runs an SEO agency, and was able to get his client ranked in multiple cities in just a short time by utilizing Google My Business posts. This has led to a 54.94% increase in organic traffic for his client compared to the previous period.
Watch Kyle’s video for a full explanation of his process:
Case Study #2
In this study from Seach Engine Land, Joy states that using Google My Business posts moved the business into the top 3 positions of Google, also known as the 3-pack.
For this business, we saw their ranking in the local results increase one position on “garage flooring Vancouver.” It moved up from position four to position three, winning them a spot in the 3-pack, less than a week after they started posting.
For just “garage flooring” (implicit search), they increased from position seven to two about four days after the posts started. I double-checked to make sure they didn’t receive any new reviews a few days prior to the increase, since they did receive a few new reviews during the course of the test.
Joy also talks about a church moving from the 5th spot to the 3rd spot in Google just by using Google My Business posts.
Case Study #3
In this study published on the Moz blog, they looked at the companies that rank in the top 20 of the search results for local searches in major cities for these keywords:
real estate agent, mortgage, travel agency, insurance or insurance agents, dentist, plastic surgeon, personal injury lawyer, plumber, veterinarian or vet, and locksmith
Their findings: A total of 59.60% of businesses that rank in the top 20 for these terms have posted a Google My Business Post on their Google My Business profile.
Additionally, 17.5% of businesses had an active post in the last 7 days.
While it may not prove it with absolute certainty, it leads one to believe that Google My Business posts certainly do have a positive effect on SEO.
Case Study #4
The question was raised whether Google My Business posts help with traffic on this SEO subreddit, and many people responded saying that they have seen positive results from using GMB posts.
Case Study #5
This same question was also raised in the Google My Business Help Group on Facebook.
The responses were a resounding yes.
Need an easy way to schedule and automatically repeat Google My Business posts?
The fact that your Google My Business posts expire after 7 days means that you have to constantly go back into GMB and post something week after week, again and again.
The solution: schedule out your Google My Business posts weeks or even months ahead of time.
OneUp allows you to schedule and set your Google My Business posts to automatically repeat. You can schedule the same post across multiple Google My Business accounts and locations at the same time.
The process is simple. Just connect your Google My Business account on the Accounts page.
Then schedule your GMB post, optionally adding any link or image to the post.
Then add your Call-To-Action button and a link.
In addition to just scheduling posts, OneUp allows you to set GMB posts to automatically repeat at custom intervals — such as once a week or once a month.
This allows you to reap the benefits of being active on Google My Business, without the hassle of constantly going back in every week to manually post something once your post expires.
Then choose to post it now, or schedule it for a date in the future.
Here is what the post looks like inside your Google My Business account:
And here is what the post looks like on the Google search results page:
Thanks for sharing all of your experiences!
Very informative SEO article, I found this helpful. Thanks for sharing
For my local SEO students I tell them to add an event to their calendar on the day of the week that Google Analytics shows the most traffic to their website. That will have to do until Google comes up with a scheduler program for GMB posts.
You can schedule GMB posts with OneUp 🙂
Thanks for this useful information
This is incredible!! Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I look forward to seeing the results with my London wedding photography business 🙂