Google Business Profiles are an essential piece in building a powerful digital footprint in the homebuilding industry. Ideally, every community should have its own profile, giving each location greater visibility with potential buyers. Many builders already follow this practice, but simply setting up profiles is only the first step toward realizing their potential.
What many don’t realize, however, is that Google Business Profiles aren’t just static listings. They also include a posting feature that functions much like a mini newsfeed. These posts let you share updates, events, promotions, or highlights directly on your profiles.
Why does this feature matter? Most information that Google’s AI search results pull into queries within our industry is coming directly from Google Business Profiles. The more active and engaging your profiles are, the more likely your communities are to surface in relevant searches. Regular posts are one of the simplest ways to bring your profiles to life and boost their impact organically.
What is the Post Feature for Google Business Profiles?
If you navigate to Google Business Profile Manager and click the “Post” icon, you are able to create a post that will be displayed on your profile. There are three different types of posts that can be made:
- Updates: This feature is a generic post that can essentially be utilized like a social media feed. Updates expire after 6 months and are removed from the profile.
- Offers: This feature is a great way to organically promote incentives. They expire at the provided end date, and can use up to 1,500 characters in the description.
- Events: Much like the offers option, the events feature is a great way to organically promote upcoming events. They expire at the provided end date, and can use up to 1,500 characters in the description.
The offers and events features are extremely under-utilized in the homebuilding industry, where companies thrive off of both incentives and events. Leveraging these tools not only makes your profiles more competitive in Google’s local pack, but also signals professionalism and trustworthiness to potential buyers.
Offers and events are pretty straightforward, but what about the updates feature?
How Can Builders Maximize the Updates Feature?
The Updates feature is ideal for sharing timely, relevant information that doesn’t fit elsewhere on your Google Business Profile. These posts can also strengthen your visibility in AI-driven search results, making them a powerful and often overlooked tool.
Some examples of great opportunities to use Updates include:
- Showcasing new model homes or fresh photography
- Highlighting available QMI homes
- Sharing educational content
- Promoting amenities within a community
- Sharing information about the area that a community is located in
While builders may not immediately think of Google Business Profiles as a content channel, Updates offer an easy way to keep your profiles fresh, visible, and buyer-friendly. Posting consistently ensures your communities stand out when prospects are searching, in addition to feeding Google’s AI with content for search results.
Measuring Success
As with any aspect of digital marketing, testing and measurement are essential. Builders should experiment with all of the different post types and track performance over time.
A simple best practice is to tag each link with UTMs (example: campaign=GBP-post) and monitor engagement through GA4. This makes it easy to see which posts drive quality traffic, and which ones fall flat.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to proper GBP posting. The key is to stay consistent in your posting, test new approaches, and adjust based on performance metrics. One thing is for certain, and that is that most builders are not taking full advantage of GBP posts. Those who do gain a low-hanging edge over competition.
