Is there any advantage, besides a single sign in, to having all clients connected to our GMB account?

[Jen Currier]

Hello LSF Community and Friends!

In light of the recent blog from Google sharing that they disabled more than 600k accounts for violations in 2020 alone, I am curious if we should be changing the way we currently manage GMB listings for our clients. Our current process entails adding us as a Manager and making all edits to the clients account under our Google account.

Understanding a suspension from Google can be done at either the listing or Account level is not new to me but here I am - suddenly questioning if we are truly following best practices. I can't help but wonder Is there any advantage, besides a single sign in, to having all clients connected to our account? Would removing them and just using their accounts for access address these risks? I am not worried about what we do, but about customers making changes themselves even if we have advised them not to.

Thank you in advance for your assistance with helping me understand this.

-Jen

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Jen Currier, the current setup you have is solid. As long as your clients are the primary owners of their pages, there's little risk to them. I wouldn't say that removing your Google account, or not using it to make edits, would help your clients.

For many years my setup has been: manager-level or non-primary-owner-level access if possible, or I sign into clients' Google accounts if they prefer. I tell them the pros and cons of each, and we go with what they prefer. That system has worked well.

What's not good, of course, is to create clients' GMB pages for them in your account(s) and to make them managers (at most). Some SEO agencies do that, and it's a bad practice, but it sounds as though you don't do that.

I wouldn't worry about clients' making changes to their own pages. That's just a matter of coaching them up on the dos and don'ts, and then letting them follow good SOPs or mess themselves up at their own expense. Long-term, it's better for clients. Can they stray off the road and make changes they shouldn't? Sure, but that's already the case if they've got manager-level access to their own GMB pages. By the way, I've never seen a situation in which a client's deeds or misdeeds in his or her Google account resulted in my account being affected in any way. Maybe that's just luck, but the point is I doubt there's any risk to your account in having the amount of overlap you currently have with your clients.

 

[Jen Currier]

@Jen Currier, the current setup you have is solid. As long as your clients are the primary owners of their pages, there's little risk to them. I wouldn't say that removing your Google account, or not using it to make edits, would help your clients.

For many years my setup has been: manager-level or non-primary-owner-level access if possible, or I sign into clients' Google accounts if they prefer. I tell them the pros and cons of each, and we go with what they prefer. That system has worked well.

What's not good, of course, is to create clients' GMB pages for them in your account(s) and to make them managers (at most). Some SEO agencies do that, and it's a bad practice, but it sounds as though you don't do that.

I wouldn't worry about clients' making changes to their own pages. That's just a matter of coaching them up on the dos and don'ts, and then letting them follow good SOPs or mess themselves up at their own expense. Long-term, it's better for clients. Can they stray off the road and make changes they shouldn't? Sure, but that's already the case if they've got manager-level access to their own GMB pages. By the way, I've never seen a situation in which a client's deeds or misdeeds in his or her Google account resulted in my account being affected in any way. Maybe that's just luck, but the point is I doubt there's any risk to your account in having the amount of overlap you currently have with your clients.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this, Phil! @Phil Rozek I appreciate you confirming this more than I can convey. I started my Local SEO journey after Eric Ward shared how brilliant you were with me back in 2014. I have followed your strategies and recommendations since and have always enjoyed learning from you. I will share this with my team and we will continue to manage GMB in the same manner we have. We are all about making sure the client owns all of their digital properties with us as an added user. This helps to solidify that there are no changes needed. I hope this finds you having a good week.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Thanks, @Jen Currier! You're far too nice. (Perhaps the other Phil Rozek is the brilliant one.) I'm glad you've found my info to be of some use, though.

It was an honor to learn, some time ago, that Eric Ward read my stuff from time to time. RIP.

Again, you've got a good setup, in that it maintains clients' ownership over their listings, but allows you to parachute in when needed, while not doing anything that looks strange to Google (to the extent that matters).

Doing well here, and I hope you are, too.