Of the optional Business Profile features, photos are usually the best use of your time because they help customers decide and are cheap to do well. Posts are worth a light, occasional effort, but Google has not said they directly lift rankings. Check what your own profile currently offers for questions, as it has changed over time.
Photos are the most worthwhile of these three features for most Christchurch businesses, posts deserve a light and occasional effort, and questions depend on what your profile currently offers. Google has not said that posting directly improves rankings, so the aim is to help real customers decide, not to chase a signal.
Posts: useful, but keep expectations modest
A post is a short update that appears on your profile: an offer, an event, a new service or a seasonal reminder. Google's help pages describe them as a way to share updates with customers, and that is the honest limit of what we can say. We cannot point to anything Google has published showing that posts move you up the map results.
So why bother? Because people who find your profile are often one step from calling. A recent post tells them you are open for business and gives them something specific. Say a Cashmere hairdresser posts "School holiday appointments now open, Tuesday to Saturday". It costs two minutes and answers a question the customer had in mind.
Keep posts plain and factual. A short paragraph, one clear photo and one action is plenty. If you cannot think of anything useful to say this month, skip it. A stale post list is not harmful, but a stream of padded ones is a waste of your time.
Photos: the cheapest thing you can do well
Photos shape the first impression, often before anyone sees your website. They are also entirely in your control. Google's guidance on photos asks for real images that represent your business, and customers can tell the difference.
What a trade should photograph
Say a Hornby plumber has a profile with one logo and nothing else (the same goes for builders and landscapers, as SEO for builders and landscapers explains). Better options:
- The van, parked and clean, with the signage readable.
- Finished jobs: a neatly installed hot water cylinder, a tidy bathroom, a repaired pipe run.
- Before and after pairs where the customer has agreed.
- The team in uniform, because people want to know who is arriving at their house.
What a cafe should photograph
A New Brighton cafe has different needs, which SEO for cafes and restaurants covers more widely:
- The shopfront from the street, so people recognise it on arrival.
- The interior at different times of day, including seating and outdoor tables.
- The food and drinks you actually sell, as served.
- The menu board, or a clear picture of the menu.
What to avoid
- Stock photos. They tell customers nothing and can feel dishonest.
- Phone numbers, prices and discount codes stamped on images. They go out of date and look like advertising. Use the proper fields.
- Old, dark or blurry shots. A phone camera in daylight is fine.
- Photos of other people's work. Only show jobs you did.
- Spammy posts. Repeating the same offer weekly, stuffing in lists of suburbs, or posting links to unrelated pages.
Mistakes like these sit alongside bigger problems, which we cover in common Business Profile mistakes.
Questions: check before you rely on them
Profiles have had a questions feature in the past, where anyone could ask and anyone could answer. Google's features change over time, so we are not going to state what your profile offers today. Open your own listing, look for a questions section, and see what is there.
If you find questions, answer them accurately as the owner and keep the answer short. If you do not, put the answers on the profile itself instead: services, hours, service areas and the "from the business" description. Your website's FAQ page is a good home for longer answers.
A 20-minute monthly routine
- Five minutes: check the basics. Hours (including public holidays), phone number, services, and service areas still match reality.
- Five minutes: add photos. Upload three to five new, real photos taken since your last visit. Take them during the job, not as a separate task.
- Five minutes: one post, if you have something to say. A new service, an opening hours change, a seasonal reminder.
- Five minutes: reviews. Reply to any new reviews and send a polite request to a recent happy customer. The reasoning is in how reviews affect ranking.
Put it in the calendar on the first Monday of each month. Small and regular beats big and abandoned.
How to tell whether it is working
Open the performance section of your profile and compare months. You are looking at calls, direction requests and website clicks, not the number of photos uploaded. If those are flat while you are doing everything above, the cause is probably elsewhere, such as the primary category, a thin set of reviews, or a distance disadvantage. Our map ranking guide covers those.
What this will not do
Photos and posts will not rescue a profile with the wrong category, an unverified listing or no reviews. They also will not change where you are on the map. If you have not yet got the foundations right, begin with a proper profile setup and add this routine afterwards.
Next steps
If you would rather have someone check your profile and tell you what is worth doing, our local SEO work in Christchurch covers profile reviews, or you can request a free SEO audit and we will point out the quick wins first.
