TLDR: We tested 14 multifamily properties with turning off daily Google Business Profile posts, which resulted in a decline in SEO efforts and negatively impacted GBP presence, traffic, and overall visibility.
Earlier last year, Digible investigated what impact posting daily on your Google Business Profile (GBP) could have on your property’s organic presence. Our case study explored the impact of implementing daily Google Posts across 15 multifamily-specific properties’ GBPs. The results were remarkably positive:
- Businesses that posted daily on their GBP saw a significant boost in visibility, with an average 5% increase on Google Maps across mobile and desktop. This heightened discoverability directly translated into increased customer actions like requests for directions and phone calls originating from the GBP listing.
- Moreover, daily Google Posts drove higher-quality organic traffic to the business’s websites. There was a slight increase of .02% in average sessions from organic search and a significant jump in the average organic website conversion rate at 24%. User engagement metrics like average session duration and pages per session also improved.
- The case study showed the potential of leveraging the Google Posts feature consistently. But in the end, we were even more curious (a core value of Digible). What would our case study findings prove if we looked at year-over-year (YoY) metrics comparing similar leasing cycle time frames? Read on to see what we found out!
GBP-Specific Conclusions
Turning off daily posts on your GBP listing can decrease the visibility of your GBP listing. With no fresh content being added regularly, your listing becomes stale and loses its ability to capture the attention of potential customers searching for your business or services in the local area.
In our test period, we observed a significant decrease in total profile views on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and Google Maps across both mobile and desktop devices. This drop in visibility directly translates to fewer opportunities for potential customers to discover and engage with your business online.
Furthermore, the absence of daily posts led to a decrease in various local actions, such as requests for directions, phone calls, and website clicks originating from the GBP listing. These actions are crucial for driving foot traffic, facilitating customer interactions, and ultimately boosting revenue for local businesses.
Website Specific Conclusions
Discontinuing daily posts on your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing can have a detrimental impact on the quality of organic traffic directed towards your business. Our analysis revealed that upon turning off daily Google posts, there was a noticeable decline in several key metrics crucial for online success. Specifically, we observed a decrease in organic sessions, indicating reduced overall traffic from search engines. Moreover, there was a decline in average engagement time on site, suggesting that visitors were spending less time interacting with the properties online. Additionally, conversions experienced a decrease, signifying a drop in the number of users taking desired actions, such as booking a tour or contacting the property for more information. These findings underscore the importance of maintaining a consistent presence on GBP through daily posts to sustain and enhance organic traffic quality, engagement metrics, and ultimately, conversions.
Social Media Post Previews for Google Business Profiles
Google Business profiles now have a new sub-section titled “Social Media Updates,” which displays the latest posts from your linked social channels, providing another way to showcase your apartment community within Google Search and Maps.
Business owners can connect their profile links for social post previews, which are populated automatically based on the social profiles linked to the business. And while you can (and should) manually link your social media accounts, Google also notes that it may add social media links to eligible Business Profiles automatically in some cases. Similarly to GBP posting, we recommend posting on your social media consistently and frequently.
Takeaways When Turning Off Google Posts
Map Views Decreased
Turning off daily posts on GBP can decrease map views for a property’s listing across mobile and desktop. There was an average decrease of 75% in profile views for Google SERPs and an average decrease of 115% for Google Maps.
Decrease in Quality Traffic and Organic Leads
Based on the YoY data collected from Google Analytics, results yielded that more sessions occurred and users were more likely to stay on-site longer and convert when daily posts were turned on. With Google posts turned off we saw an average decrease of 45% in organic users and a decrease of 157% in organic conversions.
Enhancing Multifamily Visibility: Digible’s GBP Strategy
In Digible’s approach tailored for the multifamily industry, we grasp the vital role of harnessing GBP metrics as a ranking signal for properties featured in local map packs. Through our strategic use of GBP posts, we adeptly address common inquiries from prospective tenants, maintain a robust brand presence, and nurture ongoing engagement within the profile. By curating informative and compelling posts, we enrich the content available within the GBP, catering specifically to the needs and interests of multifamily residents.
