How to give us access to your Google Business Profile.
It takes about two minutes. You will not give us your password, you stay the owner of your listing the whole time, and you can take our access away again whenever you want.
Print this if it helps. It is written to print on a page or two.
Why we need this
Part of what you pay us for happens on your Google listing rather than on your website: setting the profile up properly, keeping your categories, services, areas, hours and photos accurate, and fixing what changes when Google edits the listing on its own. None of that is reachable from the outside. Google built a role called Manager for exactly this situation, so a business can let somebody work on its listing without handing over the account.
That is the whole of what we are asking for: the role Google designed for it, and nothing above it.
What Manager access lets us do
- Update your hours, address, phone number, description, categories and services.
- Add and manage your photos.
- See your messages, your questions and answers, and your reviews.
- See how many people found you, and what they did next.
What Manager access does not let us do
- We cannot delete your listing. Removing a Business Profile is reserved for the owner, and the owner is you.
- We cannot remove you, and we cannot lock you out. Adding and removing people is an owner action. A manager has no access to it at all.
- We cannot add anybody else. Same reason.
- We cannot take ownership. Transferring ownership is the owner's to do, and only the owner can do it.
This access also reaches only your business listing on Google. It is a separate permission from your email, your photos, your files and everything else in your Google account. That is our description of what the role covers, and it is what the permissions themselves are limited to.
You will never give us your password. Google is built so that every person uses their own account, which is exactly why this works the way it does. If anybody ever asks you for your Google password in order to work on your listing, that is a reason to walk away from them.
Before you start
Sign in to Google using the same email address you used when you first set your business up on Google. If you are not sure which one that was, tell us and we will help you work it out. It is the single most common place people get stuck, it is not a problem, and it is not something you should spend an evening on.
You will also need the address to invite. It is shown in your review cockpit, the page where you approved your site, and in any email we sent you about this. Paste it rather than typing it, so a stray character cannot send the invitation to nobody. It is a RedoLocal address at our own domain, never a personal Gmail account.
If your listing is not ready yet
Four situations come up often. If one of them is you, sort it out first and then come back to the steps below.
- Your listing is on Google Maps but you never claimed it. Search your business name and your city, select Claim this business, then Manage now. Google will ask you to verify.
- You have claimed it but it is not verified yet. Finish the verification Google is asking you for. Google picks the method, not you.
- Somebody else holds it, an old agency or a former employee. Go to business.google.com/add, select your business, select Request Access and submit the form. The current owner has 3 days to answer. If they do not answer, you may be offered a Verify step and can take the profile over, though Google does not always offer it.
- You do not have a Business Profile at all. Create one at business.google.com/add. Google will ask you to verify, and Google chooses the method: a phone call or a text, an email, a video, or a postcard, which usually arrives within 14 days.
If any of that goes sideways, tell us. We have done it many times and we would rather spend ten minutes on a call than have you stuck.
On a computer
- Go to google.com and make sure you are signed in to the right account.
- In the search box, type your business name and your city. If your business does not come up, search for my business instead.
- A panel for your business appears at the top of the results, with buttons like Edit profile and Read reviews. That panel only appears for you, because you own the listing.
- Select More. It is the button with the three dots.
- Select Business Profile settings.
- Select People and access.
- Select Add, at the top left.
- Paste in the address from our email.
- Under Access, choose Manager. Please do not choose Owner: we do not need it and we do not want it.
- Select Invite.
That is everything. We get an email, we accept it, and Google sends you a confirmation that we are now a manager. Until we accept, the invitation sits in a section called PENDING on that same screen, and you can cancel it there if you change your mind. There is no rush at your end: the invitation waits for us, and nothing on your listing breaks while it does.
On your phone
Open the Google Maps app and make sure you are signed in to the right account. Tap Business at the bottom right. If you run more than one location, tap the arrow at the top and pick the right one. From there, follow steps 4 through 10 above: the settings are in the same place and carry the same names.
You stay the owner
- You remain the primary owner of your listing. Adding a manager does not change that, and a manager cannot change it either.
- You can see exactly who has access at any time, by name and address, on the same People and access screen.
- Google emails you when we accept, so the change is never silent.
- If we ever part ways, everything we published while we worked for you stays on your listing: your posts, your photos, and any replies that went out. It is your listing and it always was.
How to remove us, whenever you want
You do not need our permission and you do not have to tell us first. It takes under a minute:
- Go back to the same People and access screen. Steps 1 through 6 above get you there.
- Select our name in the list.
- Select Remove person.
We are out immediately. Google emails us to say so, and that is the end of it. We can also step back ourselves when an engagement ends, without asking you to do anything.
One thing worth saying plainly, because it is the other half of the same coin: the Google work is part of what you are paying for, so while we have no access we cannot do those items, and we will tell you rather than let it sit quietly undone.
If you get stuck
Reply to the email that brought you here, or send us a message, and we will get on a quick call and do it together while you share your screen. It usually takes less time than reading this page.
The rest of what we do on your listing, and where the line sits between our work and yours, is set out in our Terms of Service.