Search Marketing

How To Add Your Agency To Manage Your Google Business Listing

We’ve been working with several customers where local search visitors are critical to the acquisition of new customers. While we work on their site to ensure it’s geographically targeted, it’s also critical that we work on their Google Business Listing.

Why You Must Maintain a Google Business Listing

Google search engine results pages are broken up into 3 components:

  • Google Ads – companies bidding on primary ad spots at the top and bottom of the search page.
  • Google Map Pack – if Google identifies the location as being relevant to the search, they display a map pack with the geographic locations of businesses.
  • Organic Search Results – Website pages in search results.
SERP Sections - PPC, Map Pack, Organic Results

What many companies don’t realize is that your ranking on the map pack has virtually nothing to do with your website optimization. You can rank, write amazing content, work on gaining links from relevant resources… and it won’t move you on the map pack. The map pack is dominated by companies that have recent, frequent activity on their Google Business listing… most notably their reviews.

As frustrating as it is to maintain yet another marketing channel, this is a critical one for local sales. When we’re working with a local company, it’s essential that we ensure the accuracy of their Google Business listing, keep it updated, and solicit reviews as a regular practice with their teams.

How To Add Your Agency To Your Google Business Listing

A rule that every company must stand by is to own every resource that’s critical to their business – including their domain, their hosting account, their graphics… and their social accounts and listings. Allowing an agency or third party to build and manage one of those resources is asking for trouble.

I once worked for a local entrepreneur that hadn’t paid attention to this and he had multiple YouTube accounts and other social accounts he couldn’t log into. It took months to track down old contractors and get them to pass ownership of the accounts back to the owner. Please don’t allow anyone else to own these assets that are so critical to your business!

Google Business is no different. Google will have you verify your business by phone number or by sending a registration card to your mailing address with a code for you to enter. Once you register your business and you’re set as the owner… then you can add your agency or the consultant who wants to optimize and manage the channel for you.

When you access your account, you can navigate to Users on the left menu, then add your agency or consultant’s email address to add them to the account. Be sure to set them to Manager, not Owner.

google business listing

You may also notice down the page that there’s a call out to Add a manager to your business. It will pop up the identical dialogue to add users to manage the page.

But My Agency Is the Owner!

If your agency is already the owner, ensure that they add your business owner’s permanent email address instead. Once that person (or distribution list) accepts ownership, reduce the agency’s role to manager. Don’t put this off until tomorrow… plenty of business relationships go awry and it’s critical that you own your business’ listings.

Be Sure To Remove Users After They’re Done!

As important it is to add a user, it’s also critical to remove access when you’re no longer working with that resource.

Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr is CMO of OpenINSIGHTS and the founder of the Martech Zone. Douglas has helped dozens of successful MarTech startups, has assisted in the due diligence of over $5 bil in Martech acquisitions and investments, and continues to assist companies in implementing and automating their sales and marketing strategies. Douglas is an internationally recognized digital transformation and MarTech expert and speaker. Douglas is also a published author of a Dummie's guide and a business leadership book.

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