With the internet closely integrated into every aspect of our lives, even simple shopping is taking place online. Business owners are well aware of that and more and more businesses are using google products to advertise, one way or another. The problem arises when you have several businesses and more than a few accounts to manage. Fortunately, it’s not hard to manage multiple Google Business accounts if have the right information and proper approach.
Ways to manage multiple Google Business accounts
Whether you are managing multiple listings of a large enterprise, or your agency is doing the same for several companies, you are in the same boat. With multiple accounts to handle, it can be a nightmare if you have to log in and out for every single listing. That’s why there are ways and tools to do it more efficiently without wasting time.
Using the Location group to manage multiple listings
To make the entire process easy, Google is allowing you to manage multiple business locations from one master account. Once called “business account” today we know as a “location group” account in Google My Business listing. It allows you to add many listings to one main account and handle them from there. Even more, it’s possible to add and share various user accounts so someone else, like a manager, can access and do it for you.
Why is this a good practice?
Of course, you can always log in separately and manage your accounts this way. But imagine you have dozens or hundreds of listing you need to promote on a daily level. It can turn into real labor. Not to mention how time-consuming it can be. In the long term, it can cause you plenty of problems. If some of the managers leave or someone loses the login information, you will need to waste even more time to get the account privileges back. With all your accounts under one roof, not only it’s easier to manage but the search engine results will go in your favor.
Benefits of managing multiple accounts from one place
The situations that are most convenient for this type of management:
- Sharing tasks with co-workers
- Handling several brands or one brand in more regions
- Hiring an agency to manage it for you
- Running ad campaigns
The steps to share access are quite simple:
- You need to create location groups on your main account
- You can transfer targeted listing into that group
- Add users with certain privileges so they can manage descriptions, citations, information, etc.
- Assign future listing’s access to selected users
How to add account managers?
As a genuine owner of the main account, you are the only one who can add or remove user accounts. In the same manner, you are the only one who can add privileges to the users. Also known as the level of access to your various listings. How do you do it?
- In the menu, there is an option “Users”
- Within, you can click “Invite new users” and fill the email address field.
- The next step is to assign a privilege by selecting between “Owner”, “Manager”, and “Site Manager”.
- Finally, you click “Invite”
With the invitation accepted, users will instantly have access to the specified account.
Adding listings in bulk
It’s possible for large companies to keep the same level of simplicity no matter how many accounts/locations/listings they have. Google enabled bulk upload and verification feature so you can easily handle hundreds of business listings. This method is preferable if you have more than 10 accounts to deal with. Also, it’s not for businesses that offer services or for agencies that manage multiple clients.
Just like with an ordinary Google My Business account, you are setting up the main profile. With the exception that this time you need to use the “Import locations” option. After that, you will acquire a template to fill in with all the information about each of your listings. Once everything is inside the proper fields you will upload the file using “Select file to import”. That’s it. If there are any errors, Google will let you know so you can fix them. Be aware though, that you will need to fix those errors manually. Now, all that is left to do is to verify your listings.
To do this, you will need the next information about each listing:
- Business name
- Business countries or regions
- Contact name
- Contact phone
- Business manager email
- Google account manager email
Finally, you need to make sure that your NAPW (name, address, phone number, website) data is correct.
For agencies that manage multiple clients
For these circumstances, you will need to directly register your agency on Google My Business. Similar to the “bulk”, all your listings should be grouped under location groups. Or business accounts, if you prefer. The thing is, once you are a registered agency, you will have plenty of features unlocked. This will definitely enable you to do a more efficient job.
What’s included with benefits of registration:
- Agency oriented Google support
- Better management structure
- Making groups or teams within the agency
- Enhanced agency dashboard
To start registration, you can visit business.google.com/agencysignup, enter your web address, and follow the instructions. Once you complete, you can immediately start creating and managing your teams and listings on the dashboard. Once again, you can add permissions, set teams, assign listings, and group everything according to your needs.
It might look hard, at first, when you try to manage multiple Google Business accounts, but it’s not. Most of the time, it’s only about learning the interface and efficiently handling the grouping. Verification can be a bit of a hassle, but it’s one time mostly. After some practice, and with the right guidance, you will be able to manage hundreds, if not thousands, of accounts in a short amount of time.
