Are you a business owner? Do you want customers? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then you need to have a presence on Google (unless you have a secret business you don’t actually want anyone to find!).
An easy way to get your name out into the world without even creating a website or any social media pages is to set up a Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business).
It’s also possible to manage a Google Business Profile on someone else’s behalf. If you want to know the easiest way to get access to a Google Business Profile, keep on reading.
What is a Google Business Profile?
Formerly known as Google My Business (yes Google My Business is now discontinued!) a Google Business Profile is a simple online page you create about your business. It’s like a digital storefront that makes your business more visible and is great for local SEO, as people can find you with a quick search.
The information you include on a Google Business Profile appears on Google Maps, Google Shopping and Google searches.
A Google Business Profile looks like this:
What is the difference between Google My Business and Google Business Profile?
To reiterate, they are the same thing. Google My Business was the old name for the tool that has now become Google Business Profile. In 2022 Google decided to retire the "My Business" name, along with the My Business app. This was to provide a better user experience and encourage business owners to edit their Business Profile via Google Search or Google Maps.
What are the benefits of having a Google Business Profile?
If you create a Google Business profile for your business, you have a direct line of contact with your customers. They can easily find details on how to contact you, leave Google reviews, ask questions, and you will appear on Google Maps when they conduct an ‘X near me’ search.
You can also provide customers with accurate information about your opening times, so they know when you’re available. Your Google Business Profile is a convenient way to share live updates about any temporary changes to your regular hours. As the example above, where it shows the restaurant is temporarily closed.
A Business Profile also helps you build up credibility if you collect reviews and ask customers to share pictures of your product or service.
Reviews are extremely important if you want to build trust with potential customers - 98% of internet users check reviews for local businesses.
Do you need a physical location to set up a Google Business Profile?
If you have a business where you travel to your customers and don’t have a physical storefront, you can still set up a Google Business Profile.
You still need to provide an address for your business, but it doesn’t need to be publicly visible.
To confirm your account, you will still need to go through the same verification process. You will either receive an email, a phone call, a video call, a postcard, or you need to send a video recording.
How to optimize your Google Business Profile
To run an effective Google Business profile, you need to include as much business information as possible in your profile.
That way, potential customers can get the relevant information they are searching for, which will boost your credibility. If you appear trustworthy and reliable, people are more likely to choose your business to spend their money.
At a bare minimum, you need to include:
- Business name
- Business address
- Phone number
These need to be correct if you want to build trust with potential customers.
You also need a business description that makes it clear which service your business provides.
Make sure you stick to Google’s guidelines when writing, so you don’t get penalized. You can check the guidelines here.
Other things to add to optimize your Google Business Profile:
- Photos
- Products
- Fill out info about facilities and accessibility
- Add an FAQ about your business
- Special offers
- Upcoming events
- Add review responses
1. Why do you need to give access to your Google Business Profile?
Does a marketing agency or freelancer take care of your website’s paid traffic, SEO and marketing? Then they will likely need access to all your Google assets, including your Google Business Profile.
If that’s you, check out section 1 of this article. Follow the steps to grant somebody else access to your Google Business Profile.
Or check out the quickest way to grant access to Google assets here.
Agency or freelancer? Skip to section 2 to find out the manual way for how to get access to your client’s account. Or skip straight to the speediest way here.
Prefer a video? Watch below!
How to give access to a Google Business Profile
There are two ways to do this, if you are inviting someone using an organization account, it will be slightly different to giving access to someone’s personal Google account.
The key difference: You can’t invite someone with an organization account using their email address.
The process for both options are listed below.
i) How to invite an individual with their email address
1. Go to https://www.google.com/business/ and log in to your Google account
2. If you have several businesses, choose which one you want to give access to. To give access, you need to be the owner of the business
3. Click on the 3 dots in the top right corner of your Google Business Profile Manager:
4. Click Business profile settings
5. Select Managers:
6. Click Add
7. Enter the email address of the person you want to add: If you’re inviting an organization account skip to section ii)
Choose which role you want to give the agency or partner you are inviting. You have two options:
a) Manager Role
b) Owner Role (can invite others to manage your Google Business Profile)
8. Click Invite.
9. The invited person will receive a confirmation email to tell them you’ve invited them to manage your Google Business Profile that looks like this:
They click Accept and will have access to your Profile.
ii) How to invite someone with a Business Profile Group account (not an individual via email address)
To do this the agency or partner needs to give you an Location Group or Business Profile Group ID number which you can paste into the email address space like this:
If the Business Profile group exists, you will see it in a drop down box.
Select the Business Profile group you want to invite.
Click invite
They will see your invitation in the Manage Invitations section of their organization dashboard:
How to remove manage access from a Google Business Profile
If someone with access to your Google Business Profile no longer requires access, you can remove them using the following steps:
1. Follow the same process as above. At step 6, you will see a list of people with access to your profile.
2. Click on their name
3. Click remove
4. They no longer have access
2. Why do you need to request access to a Google Business Profile?
Are you a marketing agency or freelancer wondering how to get access to a client's Google Business Profile?
If your client's Google Business Profile needs pulling into the 21st century, you’ll need to request manage access in order to update it.
i) How to request access to a Google Business Profile using an individual Google account
You can request access to your client's business locations if you are an agency or freelancer who looks after client Google Business accounts. Here’s how to do it with an individual Google account:
1. Go to https://www.google.com/business/
2. Sign in to your Google account
3. Click on the 3 dots in the top right then Add a new Business Profile
4. You can request access to businesses that are already claimed by searching for the Business Profile you want to manage:
5. Google will confirm this business is already claimed.
6. Click Request Access
7. Fill out the requested information about your business so the owner can see your request and confirm it.
ii) How to request access to a Google Business Profile using an Organization Business Profile Manager
1. Go to business.google.com/agencysignup to set up your Organization Business Profile Manager account
2. Enter your agency website and connect it to your Google account
3. Sign in to your Google Organization Business Profile Manager
4. Click on Manage invitations, where you can see any invites from your clients:
You can request access to businesses that are already claimed by clicking request access in the top right corner:
5. Select the Location Group to assign. Only Location groups can be added for those with organization profiles
6. Type in the name of the business you want to request access to:
7. Google will confirm this business is already claimed & ask you to enter your agency details
8. Click Request Access
9. Your client will receive your request and will need to confirm it
10. You can see all your pending requests in your organization dashboard under Manage Invitiations and Requests Sent:
11. When your client accepts your request you will receive a confirmation email:
Leadsie makes it 100 times easier
Do all the above explanations give you a full on headache?! Making manual requests whenever you need access to a client’s Google My Business is time-consuming and wastes your resources.
Leadsie has a super simple solution: it allows you to request access to multiple Google Business Profiles at the same time.
With Leadsie, you can send a personalised Leadsie request link to your client. The client clicks on the link, logs in to their Google account and grants you the access you’re requesting.
Leadsie does the work in the back end and adds you as a manager or owner to the account. It removes steps from the manual process and makes your client onboarding smooth and easy.
What's more, we now fully support Agency Organization accounts! To get access with your Organization account, just go to your Google integration settings and select the account attached to your Organization, the Business Group and it's done!
You can even request access to Google Ads, Analytics and Tag Manager with the same link.
If you manage multiple assets for your clients, you can easily request access to their Facebook pages, Facebook Ad accounts and Instagram via Leadsie.
If you want to simplify your client onboarding and make client onboarding hassle-free, then try us out for free for 14 days.
You can create your account in less than a minute below 👇
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