Adding me to your Google Business Profile
The main thing I do in here is watch for new reviews and keep the review count on your website current, so your site never says 41 reviews when you have 68. You add me from inside your own account, in about three minutes. I ask to be a Manager and never an Owner, so the profile stays yours and you can take my access back in a couple of clicks.
What I actually do in there
Reviews, first and mostly. Your review count sits on your website, usually in the header and on your home page, because it is the fastest piece of proof you have. That number goes stale the moment somebody leaves review number 69. I watch the profile for new ones and update the site so the count is right. It also means I see a bad review the week it lands instead of you finding it a month later.
Keeping the profile and the site saying the same thing. Same business name, same phone number, same hours, same address. Google compares the two. When they disagree it stops trusting either one, and you slide down the map results for no reason you can see.
Pointing the profile at the new site on launch day. The website link on your profile has to change over when the site goes live, or Google keeps sending people to the old one.
Adding me as a Manager
Five steps. You can do all of it from your phone. Google's instruction is to verify the business before adding anybody else, so if you are not verified yet, skip down to the next section first.
Sign in as the person who owns the profile
It has to be the Google account that claimed and verified the business. If somebody in the office set it up on their own Gmail years ago, this has to happen from that login. Being an employee is not enough, and neither is having the password to the shop email.
Then find your profile. Search your business name and your town on Google, or search my business on Google, or look yourself up on Google Maps. In the Google Maps app, tap Business at the bottom right.
Open More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access
More is the menu on your own profile, not on the public listing a customer sees. On a phone the buttons are small and close together, so take your time. If the words on your screen do not match these, send me a screenshot. Google renames these menus more often than it should.
Your Business ProfileMoreBusiness Profile settingsPeople and access
Your name, OwnerPENDINGPeople and access lists everyone on the profile. Add sits at the top left. Invitations nobody has accepted yet collect underneath, under PENDING. Select Add and enter my email address
My email is
jake@localcraftdigital.com. Check it against this page before you send it, because the invitation goes to that address and nowhere else. A typo either bounces or lands in a stranger's inbox.Google requires that I use my own account rather than yours, and the reason is the good one: nobody has to share a password. It also has to be a real individual Google account. A Google Group address will not work, Google blocks those outright.
Under Access, choose Manager
Manager is the exact word on the screen. It is the smallest role that can do the review and content work you hired me for, which is why it is the one I ask for.
Do not pick Owner. Nothing about my job needs it, and handing it over means handing over the power to remove you.
AccessPeople and accessAddAccess
OwnerManagerTwo choices and only two. Manager is the one to pick. Owner is the level that can remove people and delete the profile, and I have no use for it. Select Invite, then send me a text
The invitation shows up under PENDING on that same People and access page until I accept it. You can call it back any time from there with Cancel invitation. Google emails you when I accept.
Google does not publish how long an invitation stays good, so I am not going to guess at a number for you. Text me when you send it and I will accept it the same day.
If you do not have a profile yet, or it is not verified
Google's own instruction is to verify the business first, then add somebody like me. So this part comes before the five steps above, not after, and it is the part that takes real time. Budget up to five business days for the review, and two to three weeks if Google puts you on the postcard. Tell me where you are with it and I will plan the launch around it instead of chasing you.
A listing already exists but nobody has claimed it. This is the common one. Google generates listings on its own from other sources, so your business may already be sitting on Maps without you ever putting it there. Claim that listing. Do not create a second one, because two profiles for one business is a mess to undo.
Search your business name and townYour businessClaim this business
Nothing exists at all. Go to business.google.com/add, select Add your business to Google, fill in your details, then follow whatever verification it offers you. Get the address right the first time. Changing it later can send you back through verification.
One thing that can stop you cold. Google only gives Business Profiles to businesses that meet customers face to face, either somewhere they can come to you or at their own address. A purely online business does not qualify. Nearly every client I build for is fine here, but if you sell only over the internet, tell me before you start filling forms.
Verification, and why you do not get to pick
Google decides which verification methods you are offered. You cannot choose. It depends on your type of business, your region, your hours, and what Google already knows about you, and sometimes it asks for more than one. Any article telling you to select postcard verification was written before this changed.
What can show up: a phone call or text, an email, a live video call with a Google rep, a video you record yourself, and mail. Google says it recommends the video option to anyone eligible for it, and it beats waiting two weeks on a postcard.
Four things that catch people out:
- Phone or text. An auto attendant, a phone tree or an answering service will not catch the code. You need a line you can pick up yourself, or a number that receives texts.
- The recorded video is live only. You record it inside the Business Profile on a phone, in one take, at least thirty seconds, no edits and no cuts. You cannot film it earlier and upload it. It has to show three things: where you are, that the business is real, and that you are the one running it.
- The postcard has two traps. While you wait, do not edit your business name, address or category, because that voids the code in the mail. And do not request a second code, because that kills the first one and restarts the clock. Most arrive within fourteen days and the code expires after thirty.
- Get verified can come back. If that button reappears later, Google could not fully confirm something. Try again, and try a different method if you are offered one. Editing your business details can trigger a fresh check on its own.
If you work out of a truck instead of a shop
Google calls this a service area business, and its own examples are plumbers and cleaning services, so most of my clients are one. The rules are different enough to be worth their own section.
Take your address off the profile. If customers do not come to you, the address should not be public, and Google says so plainly. Go to Edit profile, Location, then next to Business location select Edit and turn off showing the address. Then next to Service area select Edit and enter the places you actually work.
The limits on service areas. Up to twenty areas, named by city or postal code. You can no longer set a radius, and if an old radius is on your profile it cannot be edited, you have to replace it with named areas. Google's guidance is to stay inside roughly two hours of driving from your base. Changes can take up to forty eight hours to appear. And you get one profile for the whole area you cover, not one per town.
If people also come to you, say a shop that both serves walk ins and runs trucks, list the address and the service area both, and set your hours for when somebody is there.
When it does not go smoothly
Somebody else already has your listing. An old web guy, a former employee, a franchise office, a Gmail account nobody can get into. If you have a storefront, go to business.google.com/add, enter the name and address, pick your business from the list, and Google tells you someone else may manage it. Select Request Access and submit the form. Whoever holds it has three days to answer. If they approve, it is yours. If they deny it, you get an email and can appeal. If they never answer, you may be offered the chance to claim it yourself from your confirmation email, under View request. Google is careful to say that option is not always available, so I will not promise it to you. If you are a service area business, see the section above instead.
You cannot remember which Google account it is on. Happens constantly and it is not a stupid question. Use Google's account recovery to get back into the account that claimed the business. Recovering an old login is almost always faster than requesting ownership back from yourself.
There are two listings for you. Google's rule is one profile per business, and duplicates stop showing on Search and Maps, so this costs you customers. If you created the extra one by mistake, remove that one, and be certain which one you are removing, because deleting a profile takes its reviews, photos and managers with it. If both are real listings that should be one, report a suggestion on Google Maps to have them merged. Merging combines the reviews, but replies to those reviews can be lost, so tell me before you do it. If two genuinely different businesses got merged into one, that is a support case rather than a form.
Two real businesses at one address is allowed. Google permits it when they are genuinely separate, use different names, and have signage that shows both. Shared offices, practitioners inside a larger business and rebranded locations all have a path.
The profile is suspended or disabled. Use Google's appeals tool. Sign in with the account attached to the profile, select it, and the tool shows you the reason and the policy it says you broke. Submit the appeal and attach evidence if you have it. Business registration papers, a license, a tax certificate or a utility bill all work, as long as the name and address match the profile. Two traps: if you open the evidence form you have sixty minutes to submit it or it will not attach, and do not create a replacement profile while an appeal is running. That makes things worse.
Something changed on the profile and neither of us did it. Google now calls, texts and messages verified business numbers on its own to collect information, and it can use the answers to update your profile. You can see what it collected and delete it under Edit profile, then Collected info. If a detail looks wrong and you know you did not touch it, look there before you assume somebody got in.
Nothing has happened yet. Edits usually appear in about ten minutes, but Google allows itself up to thirty days in some cases, and an edit to your business details can take three days to change what shows in search results. A brand new business can take a month to start ranking at all. Give it a day before you decide something is broken.
If you find different instructions online
Google changed a lot here and most of the internet has not caught up. Four things you will read that are simply no longer true:
- Sign in to Google My Business. That dashboard is gone. You manage the profile on Google Search and Google Maps.
- Select postcard verification. You do not select anything. Google decides what it offers you.
- Add them as a Site manager. That role no longer exists. The picker offers Owner and Manager, and nothing else.
- Open Business Profile Manager. That tool is now for chains editing many locations at once. With one location it is not where you go.
One more, in case you run into it: a brand profile is a separate new thing Google has opened to a handful of online retailers, and it has its own help pages that do not apply to you. If you ever see a Profiles switcher, that is what it is. It is not your Business Profile and it does not replace it.
Every screen name on this page was checked against Google's own help pages again on September 3, 2026. Google moves these menus around without telling anyone, so if a word on your screen does not match a word here, send me the screenshot. I would rather fix the page than have you hunting.
The official references are Google's guides to adding or claiming a Business Profile, completing verification, and adding owners and managers.
Stuck anywhere in this?
Text or call me at (314) 246-9224, or email hello@localcraftdigital.com. I will stay on the phone and do it with you, and it takes about five minutes. This page is here to save you a call, not to refuse one.