Are you a Google My Business user? If yes, you should take a look at the new feature Google just rolled out for local businesses. It’s a major upgrade every brokerage can benefit from greatly.
Last week, Google officially released Google Posts, a new feature for Google My Business users. Now, local businesses can post messages to Google My Business and they will show up in Google search and Maps.
Google Posts for real estate and how it all works
Up until now, only celebrities and organizations like museums could see their Google posts show up in Google search. This served as another way to drive traffic to their sites since they could post all sorts of content: images, text, videos, etc. The feature was not available to other businesses though.
Now, local companies can do it too! Your Google My Business Posts will show up on Google search and Google Maps and it opens a whole new avenue for growth:
- you can share daily promotions to showcase your just listed/featured/hot listings via Google Posts and they will show up in Google search;
- you can promote events (for example, open houses or community events);
- you can even include a custom call to action! For example, you can link to a specific landing page on your site and tell people to sign up for your newsletter or market updates, book a free evaluation, download a neighborhood guide, contact an agent, etc. See how it looks like in the image below:
As you can see, Google Posts appear as snippets which people can tap to read more or sign up.
All in all, agents can now benefit from a stronger digital presence and a new way to promote their listings. They can also offer people an easy way to get in touch. This is particularly important since “82% of people turn to search engines to find local information” (Source).
How do you publish a message via Google Posts?
If you’re already using Google My Business, you can:
- post from the desktop;
- post from Google My Business Android and iOS apps.
If you don’t use Google My Business, sign up asap! This listing is essential to building a strong online presence and high rankings for every local agent.
