Google Business Profile posts: the complete guide for UK small businesses (2026)

Google Business Profile posts are short updates, offers and events that you publish on your business listing in Google Search and Google Maps. They are free, take a few minutes each, and Google now lets you schedule them and set them to repeat. This guide covers the three post types, how to publish one, the rules that get posts rejected, what the evidence says about rankings, and what to write, with examples for UK trades, salons and cafés.

#What are Google Business Profile posts?

A Google Business Profile post is a message you publish on your own listing: the panel that appears when someone searches for your business by name, or taps on you in the map results after searching something like "emergency plumber Mansfield". Posts sit alongside your reviews, photos and opening hours, and they are one of the few parts of that panel you control completely. Reviews come from customers and Google decides what appears in the map, but a post says exactly what you want it to say.

According to Google's help centre, posts appear:

• on mobile, in the Updates tab and the Overview tab of your profile
• on desktop, in the From the owner section
• as featured posts on mobile

Posts cost nothing. You publish them from the same place you edit your opening hours and reply to reviews, so there is no separate account to set up.

#Which types of post can you publish?

Google offers three post types: updates, offers and events. The table below sets out what each one is for and what Google asks you to fill in, based on Google's instructions for creating posts.

#Updates

Updates are the post type most small businesses use most of the time. Anything that is true, recent and useful to a customer works: a job you finished this week, a service you have added, a seasonal reminder, or a line from a review.

#Offers

Offers suit anything with a deadline. Because Google asks for dates and gives you a field for terms and conditions, an offer post is a better home for a discount than an update is. Use the terms field properly. "10% off labour on boiler services booked before 30 November. New customers only. Not with any other offer." reads as honest and saves an awkward phone call later.

One exception worth knowing: Google's posts policy says hotels cannot create offer posts, or any post that mentions deals, promotions or discounts.

#Events

Events have a start and end date, which makes them right for anything people need to put in a diary: a salon's late-night opening before Christmas, a café's quiz night, or a trade counter's open morning.

#Buttons

Update and event posts can carry one button. The actions available through Google's system are Book, Order online, Buy, Learn more, Sign up and Call now. Pick the one that matches what you want the reader to do next. A plumber usually wants Call now; a salon usually wants Book.

#How do you create a Google Business Profile post?

You create a post from your Business Profile, following Google's steps:

1. Go to your Business Profile. The quickest way is to search for your business name on Google while signed in to the Google account that manages the profile.
2. Select Posts, then Add post.
3. Choose the post type: update, offer or event.
4. Add the elements you want: photo, video, button or coupon code.
5. Write the post.
6. If you want it to go out later, turn on Schedule this post and choose a date and time. If you want it to go out regularly, choose a frequency from the Repeats drop-down.
7. Select Post. If you manage more than one profile, Google offers to publish the same post to your other profiles. Select Skip if you only want it on this one.

After you publish, each post shows a status:

You can edit or delete a post after publishing through its More menu.

#How do you schedule or repeat a post in Google Business Profile?

You schedule a post by turning on Schedule this post while creating it, then picking a date and time. Google added this in late 2025, as reported by Search Engine Land, and followed it with a Repeats option that sends the same post out weekly, monthly or on a custom schedule.

This is genuinely useful and it is free. Before it existed, keeping a profile active meant remembering to log in every week or paying for a separate tool. Now you can sit down once a month and queue four posts.

Two things it does not do:

• It does not write anything. You still need four good ideas and the words for each one.
• A repeated post says the same thing every time. Repeats are ideal for something that genuinely recurs, such as "Late opening every Thursday until 8pm". They are less good as a way to keep a profile active, because customers who see the same words week after week stop reading them.

#How long do posts stay on your profile?

Google's help centre says: "Posts older than six months are archived unless a date range is set." Offers and events have date ranges, so they appear for the period you set.

In practice, this means a profile that has not posted for six months has nothing in its updates section at all. A regular rhythm keeps something current on show. For how often that rhythm should be, see how often you should post on Google Business Profile.

#What makes a Google post worth reading?

A good post tells a nearby customer something specific and gives them one obvious next step. The post editor allows up to 1,500 characters, but most good posts use a fraction of that, because people read them on a phone and longer text is shortened behind a link to read more.

Six habits make the biggest difference:

1. Put the useful part first. "Boiler services now booking for November" beats "Hope everyone is keeping well this week".
2. Be specific. Name the job, the street or area, the product, the price if you are happy to share it. Specific details show you are real.
3. Mention the places you cover. "Mansfield, Sutton and Kirkby" tells a reader in Kirkby you will come to them.
4. Ask for one action. Use the button for it: Call now, Book or Learn more.
5. Use your own photos. A slightly wonky phone photo of an actual job looks more trustworthy than a stock image of a smiling model with a spanner.
6. Write the way you talk. UK spelling, plain words, no jargon customers would need to look up.

#Three before-and-after examples

A plumber's update.

Weak:

We offer high quality plumbing and heating services at competitive prices. Contact us today for all your plumbing needs!

Better, and ready to adapt:

Replaced a 19-year-old combi boiler in Forest Town this week. The old one was losing pressure every few days and the family had been topping it up since summer. New boiler fitted and registered for the manufacturer's guarantee on the day. We are booking boiler services for October and November across Mansfield, Sutton and Kirkby. Tap Call now to get a slot before the cold weather.

A salon's offer. Title: "Midweek colour, 15% off". Dates: 1 to 30 November.

Book any full head colour on a Tuesday or Wednesday in November and get 15% off. Includes a toner and blow dry. New and existing clients welcome. Patch test needed 48 hours before, which we can do any day the salon is open.

Terms field: "Tuesdays and Wednesdays only, 1 to 30 November 2026. Not with any other offer. Subject to availability."

A café's event. Title: "Pumpkin carving morning". Date and time set in the event fields.

Bring the kids for pumpkin carving in the back room on Saturday morning. We supply the pumpkins, tools and aprons, you supply the imagination. £6 per child, includes a hot chocolate. Ten places only, so book a table using the button below.

For 40 more ideas grouped by where they come from, see what to post on Google Business Profile.

#What photos and videos can you add to a post?

Update, offer and event posts can all carry a photo or video. Google's photo and video guidelines for Business Profiles set these requirements for media you add to your profile:

A modern phone photo is well inside these limits. What matters more is the subject. Good choices for a local business:

• the finished job, taken from where the customer would stand
• the team, in uniform, outside the van or the shop
• the thing being sold: today's cakes, a new colour, the new showroom tiles
• a before-and-after pair, where it is your work and the customer is happy for you to share it

#What gets a Google Business Profile post rejected?

Most rejected posts break one of a handful of rules. The one that catches out more UK trades than any other is a phone number in the text.

Google's posts content policy says it may remove posts containing unverified contact information, which "includes phone numbers, email addresses and social media handles". The policy points you to the verified Call button instead, which uses the number already on your profile. The same policy also asks posts to follow Google's wider prohibited and restricted content rules.

On reviews: since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act has banned fake consumer reviews in the UK, and the Competition and Markets Authority has published guidance on what that means for businesses (summary from CMS law firm). If you quote a review in a post, make sure it is real and that you have not changed what it means.

If a post shows Not approved, edit it to remove the likely cause and publish it again.

#Do Google Business Profile posts help your ranking?

Probably not directly. The evidence points to posts helping the people who already see your profile decide to call you, rather than moving you up the map.

• Google's own explanation of how local ranking works names three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. It recommends complete and accurate information, verifying your business, keeping hours up to date, responding to reviews and adding photos. It does not mention posts.
• Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors survey of 47 local search specialists, published November 2025, ranked "frequency of Google posts" 148th among local pack factors.
• Sterling Sky ran a test in 2021, adding one post a week for nine weeks to three inactive listings, and found no measurable change in local pack rankings. The test was small and old, so treat it as a pointer rather than proof.

So why bother? Because a customer comparing three plumbers on their phone sees your posts. A profile with a recent job, a clear offer and a quote from a happy customer looks like a business that is open, busy and careful. One that last posted in 2023 does not. The full evidence, and what it means for how often to post, is in how often you should post on Google Business Profile.

#How often should you post?

Once a week is a sensible minimum for most local businesses. It is frequent enough that there is always something recent on your profile, and realistic enough that you will keep it up. Post more often when you have an offer, an event or a seasonal rush. The reasoning is in our guide to posting frequency.

#What should you post about?

Post about things a customer would want to know before they get in touch with you. Eight dependable starting points:

1. A job you finished this week, with the area and what you fixed
2. A line from a recent Google review, quoted exactly
3. A seasonal reminder: boiler services in autumn, gutter clearing after the leaves fall, Christmas booking deadlines
4. A service customers do not know you offer
5. A quick tip that saves someone a call-out
6. Your credentials: Gas Safe, NICEIC or NAPIT, insurance, guarantees
7. Changes to your opening hours or the areas you cover
8. An offer with a clear end date

There are 40 more, with examples for each type of business, in what to post on Google Business Profile.

#How much time does posting take, and can you automate it?

Writing one decent post, finding a photo and publishing it takes most people 10 to 20 minutes, in my experience. At one post a week that is roughly an hour a month for Google alone, and more if you also want to be on Facebook and LinkedIn. The hard part is rarely the typing. It is thinking of something new to say on a Thursday night after a day on the tools.

Your options, from cheapest to least effort:

postd reads your website and your real Google reviews, writes each post in UK English, and publishes it to your Business Profile at a sensible local time. It can also post to Facebook Pages, LinkedIn Company Pages and X, writing a separate version for each. You can approve every post first or let it run on autopilot. The wider question of what to automate and what to keep human is covered in automated social media posting for UK small businesses.

#Your first month: a simple plan

If you have never posted before, this gets you going without overthinking it:

Before you publish each one, check:

• no phone number, email address or social handle in the text
• the useful part is in the first sentence
• the area you cover is mentioned
• there is one button, and it matches what you want people to do
• the photo is yours

Keep your Google profile active every week without writing a word. Start a 14-day free trial of postd, no card needed.