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How to Set Up Google My Business Now to Avoid Pain Later

If I had a bitcoin for every minute I’ve spent chasing down passwords, two factor authentication codes, and former employees who set up accounts at one time I’d be… well, I’d be riding the highs and lows of the crypto rollercoaster.

But I’d still be well off.

Google My Business is one of the most powerful free tools that a business can use for being discoverable on Google search and maps, and besides email it’s most often the first Google tool that a business will use.

If you search “Set Up Google My Business” you’ll find some amazing tutorials and step by step directions on how to set up a Google My Business listing. What I’ve found, though, is that they all collectively breeze over the first and most important step – choosing which email address to create your business account with.

I say this because the email address used to create your business account is an easy decision to gloss over, but one that can have dire consequences later on. Using the wrong email address to set up your account can come back to bite you months or even years down the road.

So please, make this decision with intent.

3 Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before Setting Up Your Google My Business Account

These three simple questions will help you determine which email address you should use to set up Google tools for your business.

1. What email service do you use?

If you already use Gmail as your email service, then you can simply log in with a Google account and begin setting up your business account. Your only decision here is which Gmail address you’ll use.

If you’re using a different email service, you’re going to have to create a new Gmail address to use Google My Business and other Google business tools. In this case, you’ll need to determine what that Gmail address should be.

2. Who is going to monitor activity on this account right now?

Consider who requires access to Google My Business, Google Analytics, Google Ads, and/or Google Tag Manager. Maybe a communications manager deals with all these things and they’re the only person who needs access. Or maybe you have a team of people filling these roles and each individual will need to log in from time to time.

You need to know who’ll require access to this account to update business hours, photos, promos, and respond to customer reviews on a day-to-day or weekly basis. Is this all one person, or will more than one individual need access to the account?

3. Who is going to need access to this account and this information in the future?

This is the most important question.

The way your organization functions right now might not be the way it functions in the future. Are you eventually going to want to use an agency, marketing employee, or an assistant to login and update business hours or reply to reviews? 

If you’re the only one who will ever need access to this account, then go ahead and use your personal email. But if other people will need access down the road, you probably don’t want them logging in and having access to the CEO’s email and calendar.

In the same vein, it’s also not a great idea to use the single email address of someone at a company, like firstname.last@businessname.com. If you use a personal email address and that person leaves the position, you’re in a bit of a mess. It’s more difficult to forward email or change the information on the account, and again their account is tied to the email, calendar, and Google Drive as well.

How to Properly Set Up Google My Business to Save Future Pain

Here is our recommended framework for choosing which email address you should use to set up your Google business tools:

  • You are an organization with multiple employees:
    • And your organization uses Gmail as your email service:
      • Consider using your general inquiry email address as your managing account
        • info@businessname.com or contact@businessname.com email address
    • Your organization doesn’t use Gmail as your email service:
  • You own and operate the company:
    • You use Gmail as your email service AND you will be the only one ever needing access to the Google tools
      • Consider using your business Gmail account
    • You don’t use Gmail as your email service
      • Consider setting up a specific Gmail address to manage your Google accounts
        • businessname@gmail.com
After you have Google My Business mastered, you may start dipping your toes into Google’s other business tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Google Tag Manager. Now that you’ve thoroughly thought through which email address to use, you can confidently set up your other Google properties with this account. Don’t go linking Google Ads here and Analytics there all willy-nilly. You’ve come too far to go back to that dark place.

Please. I beg you. For my peace of mind. Go towards the light.

– Sabrina Heywood Account Planner, Digital Strategist