Google Business Profile posts are short updates, offers and event announcements that a business publishes to its Google Business Profile. They appear on the profile in Google Search and Maps, so people looking at your listing can see what is new, what is on offer or what is coming up.
How Google Business Profile posts work
You create posts from the profile manager in Search or Maps, or through a third-party tool connected to your account. There are three main types:
- Updates for news, new services, seasonal changes or anything you want customers to know.
- Offers with a title, start and end dates, and optional voucher code, link and terms.
- Events with a title, dates and times, such as an open evening or a workshop.
Each post can carry a photo or short video and a button: Book, Order online, Buy, Sign up, Call now, or a button that sends visitors to a page for more details. Posts go through automated checks, and some are rejected; posts that include a phone number in the text, for example, may be refused, so use the Call button instead.
Newer posts appear first, and older ones drop out of view over time. Offers and events stop showing once their end date passes. At the time of writing (October 2026), Google does not offer posts on every profile type, so if the option is missing, check whether your category or account type has it.
Why it matters
Posts are less about ranking and more about what happens once someone finds you. Google has never confirmed that posting raises your position in the local pack. What posts can do is show a profile is active, answer a question before someone has to ring, and give a reason to choose you over the listing next to yours.
A bakery in Bath posting this weekend’s specials, a garage in Derby flagging MOT slots before the spring rush, or a dental practice explaining its new evening appointments are all giving searchers something useful at the point they are deciding.
Offers carry the same rules as any other advertising in the UK. Prices must be accurate, conditions clear and any “was” price genuine. Under the CAP Code and the DMCC Act, mandatory extra charges belong in the headline price rather than hidden in the terms.
Common mistakes
- Treating posts as a ranking trick. Daily keyword-stuffed posts do not move rankings and do put customers off.
- Letting the profile go quiet for years. A last post from 2022 suggests the business may have closed.
- Linking to the homepage. Link to the page that matches the post, such as the booking page or the offer details.
- Untracked links. Without UTM parameters, clicks from posts are mixed in with other Google traffic in GA4.
- Stock photos. Real photos of your premises, team or work do far more for trust.
How to act on it
Plan a light, steady rhythm you can keep up, perhaps a post every week or two, tied to real things: new services, seasonal demand, events, holiday opening hours or answers to common questions. Use your own photos, write in plain language and put the important detail in the first line, since only the start of a post shows before it is expanded.
Tag every post link with UTM parameters so you can see in GA4 which posts send visitors who enquire. If your profile also needs better categories, services, photos and review handling, that is the work of my Google Business Profile optimisation service.