In the end of July and beginning of August in Sweden lots of Swedes begin preparations for a traditional summer party called Kräftskiva. This is a celebration of summer that revolves around crayfish, silly hats, and schnapps. Imagine then the sort of value a company could gain by having items associated with Kräftskiva show up directly in their Google search results. What sort of impact would free shipping, discounts on decorations, or a sale on the crayfish themselves have on purchase intent? This thought process has nearly universal application. It could be applied to offers that are seasonal, regionally specific, weather dependent, or just about anything else. So how can you, as a business owner or marketing manager take advantage of this sort of purchase influencing visibility? The answer is Google's latest feature: Posts. Google, the go-to search engine for most consumers, continues to introduce new features and tools for businesses to make your search results attract customers. Setting up your company properly on Google and Google Maps means that more people will find you through direct and indirect searches and that the results will include all relevant contact information, branding, and images. Doing this correctly means that your company can dominate up to 42% of the total visible screen on desktop and laptop search results (see image below) and the entire screen on mobile (the search results will appear below your business, requiring the customer to scroll down). That's a pretty significant amount of space that can have a powerful impact on purchase decisions!
Google search results showing nearly half the screen occupied by Google My Business content for a single company
Google's latest offering is a post tool embedded directly in Google My Business. Google Posts allow you to leverage your verified Google My Business locations by adding custom content directly in the search results! At the moment you have to request access to Google Posts but the process is simple. Once Google has approved your request, you will find the posting tool in your Google My Business account by clicking on "Manage Location" and navigating to the "Create Post" button shown below.
The post tools can be found in Google My Business under the "Manage Location" button.
The posting tool gives you a variety of options for your message including the ability to create an event or use a number of call to action options such as "buy now", "reserve", and "learn more" among others. It is even possible to add an offer for a product or service right in the search results. You can also upload an image and insert a URL to a product page, booking site, blog post, or web page. Once you have entered all of the relevant information you can click the preview button to see how the post will look once published.
Example post creation using a blog URL and the "Learn more" call to action option.
Three items to keep in mind when using Google posts:
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Keep your post titles short (80 characters or less) to avoid awkward truncating of the title
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Posts will be publicly displayed for only 7 days (This may change in the future)
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Multiple posts may be displayed at the same time so long as they are both less than a week old
Screenshot showing recent posts displayed in Google search results for PinMeTo
Once posts are created and published, Google gives valuable insights into people's reactions to your posts in terms of views and engagement. Engagement in this case being button clicks for items such as "Learn more" or "Buy" or "Reserve". These insights are displayed on the post summary page at the bottom of each post.
If you have any questions about Google Posts, Google My Business, or just location marketing in general don't hesitate to contact us at Hello@PinMeTo.com or just chat with us right from this page!
