Field guide

Roofer Google Business Profile: Storm Posts That Bring the Calls

Post within 24 hours of the storm, and post what you actually did, not what you sell. A photo of your crew tarping a roof in the neighborhood, a short note about what hail does to a roof, a reminder that you are booking inspections this week. Google Business Profile posts expire after 7 days, so the storm post is a one-week window, and the businesses that win it are the ones that post first, with proof they are already on the ground. Use your real business name, hide the address, list up to 20 service areas within about two hours of driving, and let the posts do the talking.

The 24-hour window

A hailstorm hits a neighborhood on Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, every homeowner with a damaged roof is searching for a roofer, and every roofer in the area is trying to be the one they find. The Google Business Profile post is the fastest way to be visible in that moment, and it has a hard limit: posts expire after 7 days. The storm window is one week, and the first 24 hours are worth more than the next six days combined.

The post that wins is not the one that says call us for a free inspection. It is the one that shows the crew already on a roof in the neighborhood, tarping a hole, with a short note about what the hail did and that inspections are being booked this week. Proof of work beats a sales pitch, because the homeowner is choosing between a roofer who is already there and a roofer who says they will come. Google's local ranking rests on relevance, distance, and prominence, and a storm post feeds prominence: it shows the business is active, local, and working, right now, in the place the searcher lives.

The setup underneath the post is the same as any trade profile. Hide the home address and list the areas you serve, up to 20 of them, set by city, ZIP code, or other named area, within about two hours of driving time. Use your real business name, exactly as it appears on the truck, with no keywords added. Google's guidelines are blunt that adding keywords or cities to the name can get the profile suspended, and there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

What to post, and what not to

Post what you did, in the neighborhood, today. A photo of the crew tarping a roof. A photo of hail damage on a shingle, with a caption explaining what the homeowner is looking at. A short note that you are booking inspections this week, and the number to call. One post per storm, with a photo, is enough. Three posts in a day looks like spam, and Google will not show all of them anyway.

Do not post stock photos of roofs you did not work on. A homeowner who asks which house that is will get an answer you do not want to give. Do not post before-and-after photos from another town and pretend they are local. The storm post works because it is local and recent, and a photo from a different storm in a different state is neither.

Do not chase the storm either. The roofers who drive three hours to a hailstorm, post from the motel, and leave before the work is done are the storm chasers, and homeowners have learned to spot them. The profile that posts from its own service area, with its own crew, on its own roofs, is the one that gets the call and the review. The review that names the town and the storm is worth more than the post, because it stays after the post expires.

After the post expires

The post disappears after 7 days, but the work it brings does not. The inspection leads to a quote, the quote leads to a job, the job leads to a review, and the review stays on the profile permanently. That is the real return on a storm post: not the clicks, but the review that names the town and the storm, which feeds prominence for the next storm.

The habit to build is not posting more. It is posting faster, with proof, in your own service area, and then doing the work well enough that the review writes itself. A roofer who posts within 24 hours of every storm in their area, with a photo of real work, will have a profile that looks alive when the next storm hits. A roofer who posts once a month, with stock photos, will have a profile that looks like a brochure. The storm does not care which one you are. The homeowner does.

Frequently asked questions

How soon should a roofer post after a storm?

Within 24 hours. Google Business Profile posts expire after 7 days, so the storm window is short, and the roofers who post first, with photos of work already underway in the neighborhood, get the calls. A post a week later is a post about a storm nobody is thinking about anymore.

What should a storm post say?

What you did, not what you sell. A photo of your crew tarping a roof, a short note about what hail does to shingles, a reminder that you are booking inspections this week. The post that says we are already here beats the post that says call us for a free inspection.

How many service areas can a roofer list?

Up to 20, set by city, ZIP code, or other named area. Google no longer allows a radius setting, and the whole area should stay within about two hours of driving time from where the business is based.

Do Google posts help a roofer rank?

They feed prominence, one of Google's three local ranking factors, and they keep the profile active, which Google rewards. They do not replace relevance and distance, but a profile that posts during a storm will beat a silent profile in the same area, because it is the one with proof of work.