Your Google Business Profile in 2024: posts, Q&A, photos

Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing people see when they search for your name or find you on the map. The basics (address, hours, phone) you fill in once. Posts, questions and photos are the part that goes stale, so it's worth having a routine: a few minutes a week, not one day a year.

Posts: the types and how long they stay up

Google offers three kinds of posts on a profile, and all of them appear in Search and Maps:

Updates and events can carry a button to a page where people can book, order or learn more. Use it. A post with no next step is just an announcement.

One detail that matters for your routine: Google archives posts older than six months unless they have a date range set. A profile whose last post is a year old looks, to a customer, like a business that may have closed.

What works in practice:

• a finished job, with its photo and two lines on what you did;
• changes to your hours (holidays, season), posted a week ahead;
• events, with the correct dates, so they show up as an event and not as a plain update;
• a real offer with a clear end date, not "permanent sale."

You don't need a post a day. One a week or every two weeks, consistently, beats ten in one month and then nothing.

Questions and answers on your profile

The profile has a Q&A section where people ask directly on your business page: "Is there parking?", "Do you take cards?", "Are pets allowed?" Questions and answers belong to each location separately; Google manages them on their own, with a dedicated API.

What to do with it:

1. Check it often. A question left unanswered for a month says nobody's listening.
2. Answer briefly and precisely, the way you would on the phone. "Yes, there's parking in the courtyard, five spaces" beats "We look forward to seeing you!"
3. Post the questions you hear all the time and answer them yourself. That way the correct information, in your words, sits at the top.
4. Keep answers current. If your hours changed or you stopped delivering, update the old answer too.

Photos: what Google asks for and what to post

Google's specs for profile photos:

Google also asks for photos that are in focus, well lit and without heavy edits or filters.

The photo types Google recommends, at least three of each:

• exterior, from the directions customers approach and at different times of day, so they recognize the place;
• interior, the way a customer sees it walking in;
• products or food and drink, your most popular ones, in even light;
• the team, natural, not a stiff group shot;
• for hotels, your most popular rooms, and for shared spaces (spa, breakfast room), one photo of each.

Plus the logo and the cover photo, which sit at the top of the profile. The cover should say at a glance what the business is.

A housekeeping tip: replace photos when the place changes. A renovated salon still showing the old salon confuses people on their first visit.

A simple monthly routine

• Weekly: one post, a quick look at questions.
• Monthly: 3–5 new photos (a job, a product, a change on site), and a check of your hours and contact details.
• Before holidays and the season: special hours and a post about them.

If you'd like us to keep your profile up to date, see our Marketing services. For the basic setup, there's our older guide: Your Google Business Profile: what to fill in first.