Your Google Business Profile lets you talk directly to customers on Search and Maps, right at the moment they are deciding whether to call you or the next bloke on the list. Google's own line on it is that when customers find your latest business updates on your profile, it helps them decide to visit your business.
Plenty of tradies still ignore the posts feature. Some have had posts knocked back and given up. Others post once, hear nothing, and never bother again.
Both problems are fixable, and the rules have changed a fair bit since we first wrote this guide. Here is the current state of play: the three post types you can use, how to get posts approved, and what to actually write about when you fit switchboards for a living.
Where Your Posts Actually Show Up
Worth knowing before you write anything, because it explains why some posts feel invisible.
Posts can carry text, photos, or videos, and customers find them in the Updates or Overview tabs of your profile on mobile in Search and Maps, and in the "From the owner" section on desktop. That desktop label matters. Customers reading "From the owner" are getting your words, not a review or a directory scrape, which is a different kind of trust.
One feature you can safely ignore for now: Google also shows featured posts pulled from social channels like Facebook and Instagram directly on some mobile profiles. That is currently limited to single-location food and drink businesses in a handful of countries including Australia, so unless you have branched into a cafe, it does not apply to your trades business yet.
The Three Post Types
Google gives you three, and most tradies only ever use one of them. That is the first thing worth fixing.
Updates
The workhorse. Updates share general information about your business, and you can add a description, a photo, a video, and an action button with a link. Google is specific about the button: it should send customers to a website where they can actually complete the action, such as making a booking, ordering online, or learning more.
That last point is where most update posts fall down. A button pointing at your homepage is a wasted click. Point it at the quote form, the specific service page, or the booking calendar.
Offers
Offers promote a sale or a deal, and they behave differently to updates. An offer requires a title, dates, and times, and Google automatically attaches a "View offer" button to the post. You can also add a description, photo, video, coupon code, link, and terms and conditions.
The automatic button is the bit worth noticing. You get a call to action for free without having to argue with anyone about wording, and the coupon code field gives you something measurable. If ten people quote "GUTTER25" at you in September, you know precisely what the post was worth.
Events
Events promote something happening at your business. You add a title, start and end dates, and times. Leave the times out and Google will show the event as running for 24 hours across those dates. You can add a description, photo, video, and an action button as well.
Fair warning: most trades businesses do not run events, and there is no point inventing one. But if you have a showroom, a stand at a home or caravan show, an open day, a demo morning, or a community workshop, this is the post type built for it, and almost none of your competitors will be using it.
How To Create A Post
The old "promote" flow is gone. The current path:
- Open your Business Profile.
- Select Posts, then Add post.
- Choose the post type: Update, Offer, or Event.
- Select the elements you want to include. For extra detail, use the available options such as Button or Coupon code.
- Add the information for your post.
- When you are ready, select Post at the bottom right. If you manage several profiles, pick the ones you want to share it with and select Post, or select Skip to publish to a single profile.
To edit or delete something you have already published, go to Posts, find the post, and select More at the right of it, then Edit or Delete. Google explicitly encourages editing rather than deleting when details change, so if a price moves or a date shifts, update the existing post instead of starting again.
The Six Month Rule Nobody Mentions
This one is genuinely useful and often missed. Posts older than six months are archived unless a date range is set.
Read that second half again. A plain update quietly disappears after six months, but a post with a date range attached behaves differently. For offers and events, where dates are part of the format anyway, you have more control over how long that content hangs around on your profile.
Practically, this means your posting effort is not a treadmill. A well-written update on your main service earns its keep for half a year, not a week, which was the old rule most tradies still have in their heads.
Why Posts Get Knocked Back
Google reviews every post against its posts content policy before it goes live. Here is what actually trips tradies up.
Phone numbers in the post text. This is the big one, and our earlier advice on it was wrong, so let us correct it properly. Google's policy explicitly prohibits including a phone number in your post content, a practice it calls "phone stuffing". Putting the number in the image instead is not a clever workaround, it is the exact behaviour the policy exists to stop.
The official solution is better anyway. Attach a "Call now" button to your post, which uses the verified phone number already on your Business Profile. One tap, no typing, and no risk of rejection. If you have additional numbers you want customers to see, add them to your profile properly rather than smuggling them into posts.
Content that breaches the policy. Your posts have to comply with Google's prohibited and restricted content rules, and so do your photos and videos. Misleading claims, duplicate content, poor quality images, and random links all read as spam.
Regulated goods and services. Worth knowing if you work in a specialised area. You can use posts if you operate in a regulated industry, but you cannot post content about the regulated products themselves. Google's list includes things like pharmaceutical products, weapons, fireworks, gambling, and financial services.
Untrustworthy links. Links leading to malware, phishing, or explicit material are blocked outright. If you are linking to a third party quoting tool or a supplier, make sure it is a site you would hand your own customer.
Checking Your Post Status
After you publish, your post gets one of three statuses:
- Live. Public and showing on Search and Maps.
- Pending. Not showing yet. It is either uploading, processing, or your profile is unverified.
- Not approved. Not showing, and the post breaches a content policy.
Two things worth pulling out. First, "Pending" that never resolves often means the profile itself is unverified, which is a bigger problem than the post. Second, when a post is not approved, the question mark next to the status tells you which policy it violated. You do not have to guess, and you do not have to rewrite blind.
Google's Own Tips For Better Posts
Straight from the help documentation, and all of it easy to get wrong in a hurry between jobs:
- Keep it professional. Avoid misspellings, extra characters, filler text that adds nothing, and auto-generated content.
- Keep it respectful. No inappropriate or offensive language, images, or video.
- Only link to sites you trust.
- Keep it family friendly.
- Add complete and relevant details, including a descriptive title, event start and end times, and full offer information.
That first point deserves emphasis for anyone tempted to let AI churn out their posts. Google names auto-generated content in the same breath as misspellings and filler.
What Tradies Should Actually Post About
The blank box is the real barrier. Some starting points that suit trades work:
Updates: a finished job with a before and after photo, a new service you have added, a suburb you now cover, a new licence or accreditation, a new apprentice or van on the road, or a seasonal reminder such as checking gutters before storm season or servicing air conditioning before summer. Answering a question you get asked on every second job also works well.
Offers: a free quote or inspection, a seasonal service discount, a bundled service, or a discount for off-peak booking. Use the coupon code field so you can measure it.
Events: a home show stand, an open day, a demo morning, or a community workshop.
One good photo of your own work beats a stock image every time. Google is explicit that low quality imagery hurts you, and customers can pick a stock photo of a generic tradesman instantly.
How This Fits Your Wider Local SEO
Posts are not a ranking silver bullet, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. What they do is give a customer who has already found you a reason to choose you rather than keep scrolling, and they keep your profile looking active rather than abandoned.
They also work best alongside everything else on your profile. Your social media links, your product listings, your reviews, and your contact options all pull in the same direction. If you have set up the WhatsApp chat button on your profile, a post is a natural way to tell customers it exists.
You can read Google's full guidance on creating and managing posts and the posts content policy for yourself.
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