Sharing your Google Business Profile with an SEO agency takes about five minutes. You go into your profile manager, add the agency as a user with Manager access, and they take it from there. That’s the short version. The longer version matters because the access level you choose, and how you manage it afterward, determines whether your listing actually improves or just sits there collecting reviews nobody responds to. At Peak Marketing, this is one of the first steps in almost every local SEO engagement, so we walk through it with new clients constantly.
Why an Agency Needs Access in the First Place
A Google Business Profile isn’t a static directory listing. It’s a live account that needs posts, photo uploads, review responses, service updates, and Q&A monitoring on an ongoing basis. An agency can give you advice about what to change, but advice doesn’t update a profile. Someone has to actually log in and make the edits, upload the images, and respond to the reviews as they come in. That means the agency needs a level of access that lets them work inside the account, not just look at reports about it.
The Three Access Levels You’ll Choose Between
Google splits Business Profile access into three roles, and picking the right one matters more than people expect.
- Owner: Full control, including the ability to remove other users, change the business category, and even delete the listing. This should stay with you or someone at your company.
- Manager: Can edit business information, respond to reviews, post updates, upload photos, and view insights. This is almost always the correct role for an SEO agency.
- Site Manager: A more limited role focused on posting and basic edits, without access to some of the account-level settings. Some agencies ask for this instead if the client wants to keep tighter control.
Handing over Owner access is rarely necessary and creates unnecessary risk if the agency relationship ever ends. Manager access gives an SEO team everything it needs to do the work without giving up control of your business identity.
Step-by-Step: Adding an Agency as a Manager
- Sign in to the Google account tied to your business at business.google.com.
- Select the business profile you want to share, or click into “Manage now” if you’re on the map listing itself.
- Click on the menu (usually shown as a gear icon or “Business Profile settings”) and find “Managers” or “People and access.”
- Click “Add” and enter the email address the agency gives you. Most agencies will provide a dedicated email tied to the account manager or team handling your listing, rather than a personal Gmail address.
- Choose “Manager” from the role dropdown.
- Send the invite. The agency will receive a notification and needs to accept it from their end before access becomes active.
If your business has multiple locations under one account, you can grant access at the individual location level or across the whole group, depending on how the agency is structured to work with you.
What If You Don’t Have a Google Business Profile Yet
Some businesses reach out to an agency before they’ve ever claimed their listing. In that case, the agency typically walks you through verification first, since Google requires proof that you’re authorized to manage the business, usually through a postcard, phone call, or email verification tied to the business address. Once verified, you become the Owner, and the process of adding the agency as a Manager works exactly the same way described above.
Common Mistakes That Slow Everything Down
The most frequent holdup isn’t technical. It’s businesses sending an invite to the wrong email address, or forgetting that the agency has to accept the invitation before anything happens on their end. Double-checking the email address against what the agency actually provided in writing avoids a surprising number of delayed starts.
Another mistake is granting access through a personal account that later gets deactivated or loses password access, which can lock everyone out of managing the listing at all. If your business profile was set up years ago by an employee who has since left, it’s worth confirming who currently holds Owner access before starting any new SEO work, since that person will need to grant permissions or transfer ownership.
A third issue shows up when businesses assume that sharing access is a one-time task with no ongoing involvement. It isn’t. You should still get monthly or quarterly updates from your agency about what’s been posted, how reviews are being handled, and whether your business information stays accurate, especially hours, phone numbers, and service areas that tend to drift out of date.
Revoking Access Later
If you switch agencies or bring the work in-house, removing a manager takes the same few steps in reverse: go back into “Managers” or “People and access,” find the agency’s email, and remove it. This is worth doing promptly once a relationship ends, both for basic account hygiene and because an old agency shouldn’t be able to post on your behalf after the engagement is over.
Getting the Handoff Right
The technical part of sharing a Google Business Profile is simple. The part that actually moves your local rankings is what happens after access is granted: consistent posting, fast review responses, accurate service listings, and photos that reflect the current state of your business rather than ones uploaded five years ago. Peak Marketing sets up this access as one of the first steps with new local SEO clients, then keeps the profile active on an ongoing basis rather than treating it as a box to check. If you’re getting ready to hand off your listing, having a clear sense of what the agency plans to do with that access is just as important as the invite itself.
