Has anyone seen improved rankings from doing GMB posts consistently?

[Seo Guru]

Trying to figure out if it’s worth the effort or not.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I would say it's worth the effort if all the other major-impact tasks are checked off the list already. We don't always do posts right away for new clients because we have more important things to do first that tend to move the needle a lot more. However, setting up posts takes very little time and effort so I'd say it's worth the time if you get even 1 conversion a month.

That being said, the only time I've been able to isolate posts was this case study I did a couple years ago. I'm looking to redo it but in my experience, posts have a very minor impact on ranking.
I think the value of posts will increase substantially if Google decides to roll out this test they're doing currently.

 

[Seo Guru]

Awesome, thanks for the info!

 

[BenFisher]

We do posts consistently for our clients and see a marginal impact from them. The greater the frequency in posts the greater the impact. Also, quality matters. But as Joy stated, doing other activities is more than worth it.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Seo Guru, I have not seen any rankings benefit from GMB posts. Doesn't meant there isn't any. Just means I haven't noticed it.

But a trickle of GMB posts is still worth at least a little bit of your time. For a variety of reasons, including:

1. The alternative is for that space in your knowledge panel (the right-hand sidebar) to be empty. Maybe that's a good thing if your review snippets are so amazing that you don't want them to share the stage with a GMB post (or description).

2. It's one of the few areas in your brand-name SERP where you can say pretty much whatever you want.

3. If you use my "Events" hack you can have a post stay up for months, rather than expire every 7 days. Doesn't have to be a time-taker.

4. If you mention specific products or services in a GMB post, Google will pull in a snippet of that post if and when you rank in the 3-pack for that search term. Relevant post: What do the symbols mean in Google’s Map Pack and Local Finder? - Search Engine Land

5. Likewise if you run an offer or coupon, as I wrote last week.

6. The posts are an opportunity to learn a thing or two about your customers and other searches (including whether they just don't give a hoot about GMB posts).

 

[Zhivko]

I never thought of posts as something that will improve rankings. More like an eye-catcher. Something that might encourage people to click. Something to set us apart from the competition. (Because most businesses don't seem to do it.)

Considering that it takes very little time and effort to keep the posts going on, I think it is worth doing it.

 

[Seo Guru]

Appreciate all the feedback!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

@Seo Guru Just a side note: if you are testing posts out make sure to add UTM parameters to the posts landing page so you can track performance in Google Analytics. This was you can see which posts lead to a conversion.

 

[brettmandoes]

Personal opinion: there are many other higher impact activities you could be doing. I don't think posts is worth the time/effort. I'd rather spend that time building kick-ass content or relationships that turn into links. Both of those activities can be done ad nauseum and are higher impact, so I just don't see the value in posts.

Even when the very minimal amount of conversions are measured, the question "would I still have received a conversion without the post" isn't answered. Since people see the posts when they're searching for the business it seems likely they would have converted anyway.

Again that's just my personal opinion

 

[Bryan Bloom]

OK so like many of you I always wonder about this (do posts help), and we do put new content continually on our client's GMB listings. I agree with others that worst case the GMB listing looks better and that is good for branding. But Google indexes everything so.... one can assume it may have some marginal benefit.

Here are 2 times I have seen it really help. I have seen in mobile where a client doesn't come up for a very competitive keyword like "san diego moving companies" BUT the post we did for them comes up in the "interesting finds" part - you can see one of these for our client Move Central right now...

The 2nd one with same client, and this is really odd but kind of cool, is that we did a post - thanks @Phil Rozek for this idea, that is an offer post - it is a FREE ultimate moving checklist. So it's a post with the ability to get a free (really helpful) moving checklist.

When I went to Google Maps and typed "san diego ulitimate moving checklist" our client's GMB came up as the instant choice. Try it, it's pretty cool.

If you type just "san diego moving checklist" without the ultimate, we come up as 2nd...

OK so not sure why anyone would really type this search into maps, but what it tells me is that Google IS indexing this information.... Thoughts? Hacks??

 

[Seo Guru]

@Seo Guru Just a side note: if you are testing posts out make sure to add UTM parameters to the posts landing page so you can track performance in Google Analytics. This was you can see which posts lead to a conversion.

Good call!

 

[Seo Guru]

OK so like many of you I always wonder about this (do posts help), and we do put new content continually on our client's GMB listings. I agree with others that worst case the GMB listing looks better and that is good for branding. But Google indexes everything so.... one can assume it may have some marginal benefit.

Here are 2 times I have seen it really help. I have seen in mobile where a client doesn't come up for a very competitive keyword like "san diego moving companies" BUT the post we did for them comes up in the "interesting finds" part - you can see one of these for our client Move Central right now...

The 2nd one with same client, and this is really odd but kind of cool, is that we did a post - thanks @Phil Rozek for this idea, that is an offer post - it is a FREE ultimate moving checklist. So it's a post with the ability to get a free (really helpful) moving checklist.

When I went to Google Maps and typed "san diego ulitimate moving checklist" our client's GMB came up as the instant choice. Try it, it's pretty cool.

If you type just "san diego moving checklist" without the ultimate, we come up as 2nd...

OK so not sure why anyone would really type this search into maps, but what it tells me is that Google IS indexing this information.... Thoughts? Hacks??

This is super interesting!

 

[BisnarChase]

I literally do it to 1.) hopefully get a pat on the back from Google for being such an active GMB partner, and 2.) Because I personally look for them when I google a company. I like to swipe a few and see what kind of tone the company has, and a few times its lead to me clicking through simply because they took the time to write something interesting and they caught my interest.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Bryan,

Two questions. First, the item in "interesting finds", is that not a blog (not a Google Post) that it links to?

Second, does this ultimate checklist exist on your client's website?

 

[Bryan Bloom]

Hey Bryan,

Two questions. First, the item in "interesting finds", is that not a blog (not a Google Post) that it links to?

Second, does this ultimate checklist exist on your client's website?

Uh oh - you are right, got too excited, yes that interesting find IS a real blog post, not GMB, we did post it in GMB but the one that shows up there is the actual post ;-)

The checklist does exist on the website, but it's hidden. The GMB post had the same title as the search, so I guess it can be from the site, but I searched it in Google Maps.

Thanks for pointing this out... next time I will slow down my fingers on the keyboard and count to 5!