Go look at your Google Business Profile right now. Scroll down to your posts. What is sitting there?
For most asphalt contractors, it is a photo of the crew. A Fourth of July graphic. A shot of the new paver. Maybe a note that paving season is here.
Every one of those posts is real estate. And you gave it away. Because the person looking at that post is not scrolling for fun. They are shopping for a contractor right now, and you handed them nothing to act on.
The Person Reading Your Google Posts Is Not Your Facebook Audience
This is the whole thing. If you get this, the rest is easy.
Someone on Facebook or Instagram is there to be entertained. They want to see what their buddies are up to, watch a video, kill ten minutes. Nobody opens Facebook because they want to buy a driveway. If you show up in that feed, you are interrupting them.
Google is the opposite. That person typed in “asphalt contractor near me” or “driveway paving” and they are actively looking at businesses. They are in a buying mood. They want to be sold to. They are trying to figure out who to call.
Same content, completely different person. So a post that works fine on Facebook does nothing for you on Google.
Your Google post has one job: get them to pick you instead of the other three contractors they are looking at.
Stop Posting These
Here is what we see on asphalt and paving profiles constantly. None of it is working.
How-to posts
“How to sealcoat your driveway.” Think that one through. You just taught your customer to do the job you wanted to sell them. Save the education for your website and your social channels.
Tip lists
Five tips for maintaining your asphalt. Great blog content. Fine on Facebook. On Google, nobody is sitting down to read tips. They are picking a contractor.
Industry news
Asphalt prices, paving season announcements, new equipment technology. The homeowner comparing three driveway quotes does not care what is happening in your industry.
Company news
You hired a new crew lead. You bought a new machine. You hit ten years in business. It matters to you. It does nothing for a stranger who has not hired you yet.
Keyword stuffing
Jamming a post full of “asphalt paving sealcoating driveway parking lot repair” does not help your ranking. Keywords in Google posts do not move your position. All you did was make your profile look like spam to the one person you were trying to impress.
Recycled blog posts
This is the most common one. Every time you publish a blog, you push it out as a Google post too. Nobody browsing search results is going to stop and read your blog. They are looking for a business to call.
Holiday greetings and hiring posts
Happy Thanksgiving is a nice gesture, but your actual customers are not sitting on your Google profile to see it. And nobody in the history of the internet has gone digging through Google posts looking for a job. Put your hiring on Indeed.
Good Google Posts Do One of Two Things
Every post should either sell or convince. That is the filter. If a post does not do one of those two things, it does not go up.
Bucket one: posts that sell
A selling post is a special, an offer, or a deal. It is the exact thing somebody shopping for paving wants to see.
- Book your sealcoat before May 1 and save 10 percent
- Driveway paving with financing as low as $99 a month
- Early season crack repair special, this month only
- Free estimate on commercial lots over 10,000 square feet
Put the offer in the image itself, not just the caption. Put the price in the image. Somebody is already looking for the service. Your job is to make saying yes as easy as possible.
Bucket two: posts that convince
Convincing posts answer the only real question the customer has: can I trust these guys to show up and do it right?
This is where asphalt contractors have an advantage that almost nobody uses. Your work is visual. A cracked, crumbling driveway next to that same driveway freshly paved and clean does more selling than any paragraph you could write. Post before and after pairs, one after another. Let the work argue for you.
Then keep going:
- Highlight specific services. When somebody sees “commercial parking lot striping” or “residential sealcoating” sitting right there, they think, good, they do the exact thing I need.
- Repost your best reviews. Some of your strongest reviews are buried thirty deep in your list where nobody will ever find them. Pull one out and give it a spotlight.
- Post awards, certifications, and years in business. People trust an award-winning contractor over a name they have never heard.
- Post job case studies. Commercial lot, 40,000 square feet, resurfaced in two days with no shutdown for the tenant. That is compelling to the property manager comparing bids.
The Part Nobody Says Out Loud
We get why contractors post the new paver and the crew photos. You are proud of that stuff. You should be. That equipment cost real money and that crew is why the business works.
But that pride is the trap. You end up posting what you want to show off instead of what the customer needs to see in order to pick up the phone.
Your customer does not care about your equipment. They care whether their driveway is going to look good and whether you are going to show up when you said you would. Post that instead.
A Rotation You Can Actually Keep Up With
You do not need to post every day. You need to post things that work. A simple rotation, one post a week:
- Week 1: a current offer or seasonal special
- Week 2: a before and after from a recent job
- Week 3: a five star review, reposted with the customer’s words front and center
- Week 4: a service highlight or a completed job case study
Sell, convince, convince, convince. Then run it again. That is more than most of your competitors are doing, and every single post is pointed at somebody who is ready to buy.
The Short Version
Google posts are not social posts. The person seeing them is not looking to be entertained or educated. They are looking for a contractor.
So sell them with an offer, or convince them with a review, a before and after, or an award. Do that consistently and you will pull more jobs off your Google profile than every competitor still posting holiday graphics.