Photos, posts and ongoing profile management

0:00 Photos, posts and ongoing management

Here's a question for business owners. When did you last look at your own Google Business Profile? Not your website. Your profile. Many haven't checked in months, and meanwhile someone has suggested different hours, a customer has uploaded a blurry photo, and the website link goes to a page that no longer exists. In this lecture you'll turn profile maintenance into a simple monthly routine: photos, posts, products, tracking and edits.

0:31 Why it matters

Why does ongoing management matter? Because complete, accurate, active profiles convert more searchers into customers. Google also says complete and accurate information helps match profiles to the right searches. And because anyone can suggest edits, profiles drift over time if nobody's watching. A profile isn't a one time setup. It's a living shop window.

0:54 Photos and videos

Let's start with photos. They help people choose. Upload a logo and cover photo, exterior shots showing how to recognise your entrance from the street at different times of day, interior shots of the atmosphere and cleanliness, your products or finished work, real team members at work with their consent, and short videos like a walk through. Use natural light, avoid heavy filters and stock photos, keep images current, and add new ones regularly, say monthly.

1:27 Posts = the café chalkboard

Next, posts. Think of posts like the chalkboard outside a café. They tell passers by what's new today. Updates share news or tips. Offers need dates and terms and must follow advertising rules and consumer law. Events promote workshops, launches and open days. A good post has an image, a short clear message, a call to action button, and a UTM tagged link so you can track clicks. Be realistic about the benefit. Posts help conversions and freshness. Treat any ranking effect as unproven.

2:04 Track with UTMs

Here's the key idea for tracking. Without UTM parameters, visits from your profile get mixed in with all your other Google organic traffic, and you can't tell what the profile actually delivers. Add UTM parameters to your website button and every post link: for example, source google, medium organic, campaign gbp listing. The lesson includes a Google Sheets formula that builds these links consistently. Then in GA4, filter by that campaign to see profile visits and conversions.

2:37 Example 1 (simple)

Worked example one, simple. A café in Leeds posts one offer a month: a seasonal drink with a photo, dates, and an order online button with a UTM tagged link. After three months, GA4 shows which posts actually drove visits and orders. The pumpkin drink post did well; the generic we're open post did nothing. So they stop posting generic updates and focus on seasonal offers and events. That's what tracking buys you: decisions.

3:09 Example 2 (illustrative)

Worked example two, realistic and illustrative. A restaurant group with four branches in Riyadh plans posts around Ramadan. Each branch gets posts for Ramadan hours, pre-order iftar platters, and an Eid family offer, each with a UTM tagged link where the content parameter names the branch. Special hours are set for every branch before Ramadan starts. After Eid, the marketing manager compares branches: which offers drove the most orders, and which branch had the most direction requests during Ramadan evenings.

3:44 Watch for edits

Now, edits. Anyone can suggest edits to a profile, and Google can update information from other sources. Check regularly for changes to hours, categories, address or website that you didn't make, and reject incorrect ones promptly. In twenty twenty-six, some dashboards also began showing a collected info area listing details Google gathered from recent customer calls or chats, which you can review and delete if they're wrong. Wherever controls like this exist in your account, add them to your routine.

4:19 Monthly routine (~1 hour)

Here's a monthly routine that takes about an hour. Week one: check core info for unwanted edits, and upload three to five new photos. Week two: publish a post with a UTM link, and review services and products for accuracy and pricing. Week three: respond to all new reviews, and check photos added by customers. Week four: review performance insights and analytics, note changes, and plan next month's posts around calendar moments.

4:50 What would a first-time visitor want to see?

Let's think about what makes a genuinely useful photo set, using a quick example. A clinic in Riyadh has twenty photos, all of smiling models from a stock library. What would a nervous first time patient actually want to see? The entrance from the street, so they can find it. The parking. The reception and waiting area. A treatment room. The real doctors. Maybe a short video walking from the car park to reception. Replace the stock images with those, and you've answered half the questions people would otherwise phone to ask.

5:30 Watch me do it: tracking + a month of posts

Watch me do it. I'll set up tracking and a month of posts for a Riyadh restaurant. First, the UTM builder tab. In column A, the base URL of the reservations page. Source, google. Medium, organic. Campaign, gbp listing. The formula in column F builds the final link. I copy it into the profile's website button. Next, a second row for posts: same base, but campaign gbp post and content set to the post name. Now the posts. I look at the calendar: the national day is coming, and so is the start of the cooler season, when terrace seating opens. I write three posts. An update: terrace seating opens from next week, with a real photo of the terrace. An offer: a family set menu for the national day weekend, with dates and clear terms. And an event: a live music evening. Each gets a reserve button and its own tagged link. Then photos. I upload five new ones taken this week, including the entrance at night, because customers kept saying they couldn't find it. Finally, the edit check. I open the profile's updates and see Google changed the Friday hours from a public suggestion. It's wrong, so I reject it and correct the hours. Then I set a reminder for next month's routine. Next month I'll open GA4, filter by the gbp post campaign, and see which of the three posts actually drove reservations. That tells me what to post next time, instead of guessing.

7:17 Common mistakes

Common mistakes. Stock photos or heavily edited images. Posting without tracking, so nobody knows what works. Ignoring public edits until hours or phone numbers are wrong. Relying only on the profile's own insights without connecting them to real business outcomes. And forgetting that posts must follow Google's content policies. Misleading offers or irrelevant images can be removed.

7:42 Recap

Recap. Upload real, current photos and videos regularly. Use posts for updates, offers and events, always with UTM tagged links. Tag the website button so GA4 separates profile traffic. Check for public and Google edits monthly, including any collected info, and follow a simple monthly routine. Try this now. Build your UTM links with the formula in the lesson, update your profile's website button, and plan three posts for the next month around real calendar moments.