Hiring someone to manage your SEO or Social Media and need to give access to your Google My Business listing?
A Step-By-Step Guide to Adding Users to Your Google My Business Listing
First a word of caution: We recommend that you NEVER provide full admin access to your Google My Business (GMB) listing unless it is to a co-owner. Full admins, labeled as ‘Owners’ in the GMB system, have full control over everything including the ability to add/remove users and delete the listing. Thankfully, GMB offers different user roles that you can use.
GMB has three user roles: Owner, Manager and Editor. The Owner role allows a user to do anything with the listing as previously mentioned. The Manager role allows a user to do anything to a listing EXCEPT add/remove users and delete the listing. The Editor role is far more limited in that it only allows a user to edit select portions of a listing and post to the social feed.
GMB listings are managed by Google accounts. This can often lead to confusion, but hopefully this simple description will clear things up. All Google services, from gmail to YouTube, Ads to Google Drive, can be managed with a single Google login. The account can initially be setup to create a new gmail email account – or a user can register their account using any email address including their business email. Once a user has registered with Google the user automatically has access to ALL of Google’s free services including GMB. One login for everything.
If you’ve hired someone to manage your GMB, they likely will need Manager access in order to properly optimize and manage the listing.
How to add a user to your GMB listing:
- Ask the user you wish to add for the email address they use to access Google’s services.
- Log in to your GMB listing via https://google.com/business
- Access is shared on a per listing basis. If you have more than one listing, select the proper one from the list from within the GMB dashboard.
- From the listing dashboard, click on Users (near the bottom of the left most vertical menu).
- From the Manager Permissions screen, click on the add users icon in the top left of the popup window and then click on Invite New Users in the drop-down menu.
- From the Add New Users popup, enter the user’s email that they previously provided. The email address must have been registered as a Google account.
- Choose a Role – Again, typically you’ll want to make new users Managers, but choose the role that is best suited to your needs.
- Click Invite to trigger an email invite to your new user. The new user must click on a link in the email to accept the invite.
If you have a need to remove a user in the future, simply return to the Manager Permissions screen and click the X beside the user’s name and they will be removed. By keeping a tight rein on who accesses your GMB listing, you can prevent problems should someone happen to make a mistake – or worse – attempt to intentionally harm your business.
Your GMB listing may very well be the most effective FREE marketing tool available to your business. Be sure you understand how to maintain control over it.
