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To give someone access to your Google Business Profile, open your profile, go to the “Business Profile settings” and then “People and access”, select “Add”, enter their Google email address, and choose whether they are an owner or a manager. They get an invite, accept it, and they can then help run the listing under their own Google account. You never hand over your password. This is the safe way to let a staff member, a partner or an agency work on your profile while you keep control of it.
A Google Business Profile is the free listing Google shows for your business in Search and Maps. Access is managed properly through invitations, not shared logins, and getting that right protects you from a common and painful mistake.
Never just hand over your Google login
The single biggest error owners make here is giving someone their Google email and password so they can “jump in and fix it”.
Do not do that. Your Google account is tied to your email, your files and often your personal life, and handing it over gives a near-stranger the keys to all of it. Worse, if that person later changes the password or you fall out, you can lose access to your own listing and your own account at once. Google built the access system so that you never have to share a login. Use it.
Owner vs manager: which role to give
Google offers two levels of access, and the difference is about control, not day-to-day editing.
An owner has full control. Owners can edit everything, add and remove other users, and even remove other owners. The primary owner is the one account that cannot be removed by anyone else, and it is the account that holds the listing above all others. Keep this as your own account.
A manager can do almost all the daily work: edit the business details, post updates, reply to reviews, add photos and see the performance figures. What a manager cannot do is add or remove users, or remove the listing. This is the role to give staff, contractors and agencies. They get everything they need to run the profile, and none of the power to lock you out.
The rule of thumb: you stay the primary owner, and almost everyone else is a manager. Only add a second owner for someone you would trust with the business itself, such as a co-owner.
How to add someone, step by step
The process takes a couple of minutes, and you do it from your own profile while signed in as the owner.
First, open your Business Profile. Search your business name on Google while signed in, or open it in Google Maps, so your management controls show.
Second, find “Business Profile settings”, then “People and access”. This is where every person with access to the listing is listed.
Third, select “Add” and enter the Google email address of the person you want to add. It has to be a Google account, so if they use a work email that is not set up with Google, they will need one that is.
Fourth, choose their access level, owner or manager, and send the invite. They receive an email, accept it, and their access goes live. Until they accept, the invite sits as pending, and you can cancel it if you added the wrong address.
How to remove someone’s access
Removing access is as quick as adding it, and it is worth doing the moment someone no longer needs the profile.
Go back to “People and access”, select the person, and choose to remove them. Their access ends straight away. Do this whenever a staff member leaves, a contract with an agency ends, or you simply no longer want someone in there. A former employee or an old marketing company left with manager access is a risk sitting quietly on your listing.
One limit to know: you cannot remove the primary owner, and if you are not an owner yourself, you cannot remove anyone. That is why owning your own listing, rather than letting an agency hold the primary ownership, is so important.
Why owning the primary account is the whole game
Here is the trap plenty of businesses fall into. An agency or a web person sets up the listing, keeps themselves as the primary owner, and adds the business as a manager. It works fine, right up until the relationship ends and the business discovers it does not actually control its own profile.
When you let someone work on your profile, you should be the primary owner and they should be a manager. If a listing was set up for you and you are only a manager on it, ask to be made an owner while the relationship is good. It is a two-minute change for whoever holds it now, and it means the listing stays yours no matter who comes and goes.
Giving access the safe way, in short
Add people as managers from inside your profile, keep primary ownership on your own account, and remove access the day someone no longer needs it. Never share your login. Handled this way, you can bring in all the help you want, a staff member, a partner, an agency, without ever risking control of the listing that brings in your calls.
If you would rather skip the guesswork and have someone get your profile working properly, that is exactly what we do. Get in touch with Pear Tree Media, tell us about your business, and we will audit your listing, tell you straight where it stands, and get the phone ringing.
