Adding a manager to your Google Business Profile lets someone you trust update hours, photos, posts, and reviews without logging into your personal Google account. You never share a password. The invite takes a few minutes, it is free, and you stay the owner.
This is also how Growth customers give SmashWebs access so we can handle Google Business Profile setup for you. Hands-on listing work is included on Growth only, our highest plan.
What a Manager Can (and Cannot) Do
Google gives people on a listing one of two roles: owner or manager. Owners have full control, including adding or removing people and deleting the profile. Managers can do the daily work: edit the name, category, hours, phone, website, services, photos, and posts, and reply to reviews. They cannot add other users or remove the listing.
For an agency, a staff member, or SmashWebs, choose Manager. Keep primary owner on the Google account you use for the practice. If someone asks you to transfer ownership or to send your Google password, stop. That is not how this is supposed to work.
Only an owner can add people. If you signed in and do not see People and access, you are probably on a manager login, or you have not claimed the listing yet. Claim and verify the profile first. Our Google Business Profile optimization guide walks through that.
How to Add a Manager to Your Google Business Profile
Use the Google account that already owns the listing. The email you invite must belong to a Google account (Gmail, or any address that has signed up for Google).
Go to business.google.com and sign in. Open the listing you want to share. You can also search your business name on Google, open the profile, and choose Manage profile.
Select More (the three-dot menu), then Business Profile settings, then People and access. That screen lists everyone who can already manage the listing, plus any pending invites.
Select Add. Enter the email address exactly as they gave it to you. Under Access, choose Manager, not Owner. Then select Invite.
Google emails the invite. Once they accept, they can work on the listing from their own Google account, and you get a confirmation email. You can cancel a pending invite from the same People and access page.
Ask them to search for mail from googlemybusiness-noreply@google.com, including spam. Confirm the address is tied to a Google account. Google Groups cannot be added as owners or managers. If the address is wrong, cancel the pending invite and send a new one.
Inviting SmashWebs (Growth Only)
On Growth, SmashWebs can set up and maintain the listing for you: categories, services, description, photos, and the weekly work that keeps a profile current. That concierge setup is not part of Starter or Professional.
Professional still includes connecting Google from your dashboard so you can see reviews and search data in SmashWebs. Connecting Google is not the same as making us a manager. Connection lets us read the numbers. Manager access lets us edit the listing inside Google.
Open a support ticket in SmashWebs, or email support@smashwebs.com, and ask for the Google Business Profile manager email. We reply with the exact Google account to invite. Do not guess an address.
Follow the steps above. Paste the address we sent, set access to Manager, and send the invite. Stay the primary owner.
Reply on the same ticket. We accept from our side and start the setup. If you do not have a listing yet, say so: we will tell you whether to claim an existing one or create it first.
Hands-on Google Business Profile setup is a Growth feature. If you are on Starter or Professional, you can still add your own staff or another vendor with the steps above. To have SmashWebs do the listing work, upgrade to Growth.
After They Accept
New managers sometimes wait up to seven days before Google allows a few sensitive actions (deleting a profile, removing other people). Everyday edits usually work as soon as they accept. You can remove a manager later from the same People and access screen. Their old posts and review replies stay on the listing.
Manager access is one piece of local visibility. A complete profile and a habit of asking for reviews still do most of the ranking work. Pair this with the fields that actually matter on your listing and Google Search Console, so you can see which searches bring people to the website that listing points to.