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Startup Roadmap module
Google Business Profile posts

Two post flows: before the job, and after the job

Write the post before you leave the shop, and write the one that shows the finished work. Both produce drafts you read, edit, and publish yourself inside your own Google Business Profile.

This tool does not post anything to Google. It has no connection to your Google Business Profile and no access to your account. It writes text and a photo checklist. You copy the text, open your own profile, attach your own photos, and publish it under your own business name.

1. Your business, and the number your ads have to carry

A Google Business Profile post is advertising. In several states a registered contractor has to show their registration or license number in advertising, and leaving it off is its own violation even when the registration itself is perfectly current.

Prefilled from your saved state when we have one. Changing it changes the advertising rule shown below.

Where these rules come from

We only state a rule for a state we have an official source on file for. For every other state this page shows a generic caution instead of a made-up rule, because a wrong statute cited confidently is worse than no statute at all.

2. Which kind of post

Google Business Profile has three post types you write yourself. Pick the ones you want mixed into your queue. What's new is always on because it is the workhorse.

Which type for which flow. After-the-job posts are almost always What's new: the work is finished, there is nothing to expire, and the photos are the whole point. Before-the-job posts can be any of the three, because that is where announcements, dated promotions, and scheduled events live.

Offer details

These are the fields Google asks for on an Offer post. Title and both dates are required by the editor; the rest are optional.

Write the actual offer. This builder will not invent a discount for you.
Verify in the editor, do not trust this page. The exact field names, which fields are mandatory, and whether an Offer post gives you the normal button picker or only a redeem link have all changed across versions of the Google Business Profile editor. Fill these in, then check what the editor in front of you actually asks for before you publish.

Event details

3. How many posts, over how long

Pick a cadence you can actually keep. A queue you finish beats a cadence you abandon in week two. Every draft in the queue uses a different angle, so the queue does not read as one post copied ten times.

4. Which flow are you writing

These are two different jobs with two different sets of inputs. Pick one, fill it in, generate its queue. Come back and do the other one whenever you like — each flow keeps its own drafts.

Before the job

The angle here is booked-work proof and availability. You are telling the neighborhood that you are working in it today and that there is still room on the calendar.

Used to vary the queue so the same neighborhood is not named in every post.
Only used in availability posts. Leave blank and those posts say "room on the schedule" instead of a number.
If you have one, the suggested button becomes Book. Without one, it stays Call now.

After the job

The angle here is finished work. Describe one real job in your own words and the queue turns it into showcase, before-and-after, problem-solved, and detail posts — each one a different way of showing the same job to the same neighborhood.

If no, the queue skips the before-and-after angle instead of asking you to publish a photo you do not have.

Photos: shoot more than you think you need

Text is the easy part. Photos are the part that makes a profile look like a working business instead of an empty listing, and they are the part most contractors skip because the phone is in a pocket and the hands are dirty.

Minimum 3 per job. More is better. Take them as you go, not at the end: arrival, prep, the work itself, and the finished result. Every post card below has its own photo checklist and a counter, so you can see at a glance whether you have enough before you publish.
What we will not invent. How many images a single Google Business Profile post accepts, the current minimum pixel dimensions, and how long a post stays visible on the profile have all changed over time and differ between the web dashboard and the mobile app. This page does not quote a number for any of them, because we do not have a current Google source on file. Attach what the editor lets you attach, put the rest in your profile's photo gallery, and check Google's own help page if you need an exact limit.

Before the job

  • The truck, with your signage and registration number readable
  • Arrival: the crew, gear coming off the truck, the load ready to go
  • Site prep: floor protection, drop cloths, containment, shoe covers
  • The equipment or materials this specific job needs
  • A wide shot that shows the neighborhood, not the house number

After the job

  • The finished work, wide, so a viewer can tell what they are looking at
  • A detail shot close enough to show the actual workmanship
  • The before shot and the after shot from the same angle
  • Cleanup: the site left tidy, debris gone
  • Model or data plate on anything you installed, if it is relevant
What never goes in a photo. House numbers, street signs that identify one address, license plates, mail, paperwork, customer faces without their permission, and the inside of anyone's home beyond the work area. Name the neighborhood, never the address. A customer who feels exposed by your marketing is a complaint, not a review.

What this builder will never write, and neither should you

None of the drafts on this page contain any of the following. If you type one in over the top, the draft is flagged, but the responsibility is yours — you are the advertiser.

One state-specific trap worth naming. California's contractor board says California law prevents contractors from stating in advertising that they are bonded, because "bonded" can imply more consumer protection than the bond actually provides. Carrying a required bond is not permission to advertise it. Check your own state before you put the word in a post.

This module is one step of the Startup Roadmap

The roadmap is the ordered path from idea to first paid job for your state: entity, registration, bond, insurance, tax accounts, and the marketing setup this post builder feeds into.

Get the Startup Roadmap — $148 Or see the free roadmap for your state first →
Everything this page produces is a draft. Contractor Lane does not publish to Google, does not have access to your Google Business Profile, and does not review what you post. Before you publish anything under your own business name, read every line, confirm that the work described is work you actually did, check that the registration or license number, dates, offer terms, and photos are correct and yours to use, and confirm your own state's advertising rules. You are the advertiser and you are responsible for the advertisement. This is self-help information with official source links, not legal advice. Contractor Lane is not a law firm.