Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly Google My Business (GMB), is a free, easy-to-use tool that helps local customers find you more easily. Your Google Business Profile shows up in Google Search and Map results and allows customers to call you, visit your website, read your posts, get directions, and leave reviews. It’s a critical part of local SEO. However, when it’s not up to date, it can lead to a poor customer experience and impact how people engage with your business.
While Google has done a good job of making GBP user-friendly, adding Google business locations can still be confusing. Here’s what you need to know about adding locations to your profile and managing multiple business listings.
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Google My Business: Multiple Locations
If you want to add locations to your GBP, you first have to set up and verify your main business location. If you haven’t done this yet, check out our post on Google My Business optimization to learn how to set up a new Google Business Profile.
Once it’s verified, you can begin adding additional locations to your Google Business profile.
How To Add a Second Location to Google My Business
Have less than ten locations you need to add to your Google Business Profile? Follow this process for each location you want to add. If you’re opening ten or more locations at a time and want to add business locations in bulk, go to the next section.
Sign in to your Google Business Account and scroll down the left-hand menu until you see ‘Businesses.’ Click on ‘Businesses’ to see a list of the business profiles you have access to.
At the top right of the table, click ‘Add business’ to open a drop-down menu. To add one location to Google Business Profile, click ‘Add single business.’
You’ll now enter the Google Business Profile setup. It should be similar to the process you followed to create your initial business profile.
Type in your business name at the first prompt.
Select your business category, and click ‘Next.’
Choose ‘Yes’ to indicate you have a physical location; click ‘Next.’
Enter your new location’s address exactly as it appears on your website or elsewhere. You want your name, address, and phone number (NAP) to be consistent across your website, Google Business Profile, and local directories and citations. This demonstrates that you’re a reputable business.
Follow the remaining prompts to complete your setup. Once you’re done, your new location will appear under ‘Businesses,’ but the status will show as unverified.
Google requires verification before publishing new information. It has multiple verification methods, and the ones available to you may depend on your industry or other factors. You can verify via phone or text, email, video record, live video call, or postcard.
If you choose to verify via phone, you’ll need access to the phone connected to your business listing. This option may not work for you if you aren’t present at the location.
If you choose to verify via postcard and aren’t physically able to retrieve the postcard yourself, make someone at the physical location aware so they keep an eye out and contact you when it arrives.
Once your new location is verified, consider providing a store manager or other stakeholder access to the Google Business Profile. They can then help manage hours, update business information, answer questions, and create posts to keep your profile current and accurate.
How To Bulk Add Multiple Locations to Google My Business (10+)
Google allows businesses to bulk add ten or more locations to their Google Business Profile at once. To do this, you’ll need to sign in to your Google Business Account and scroll down the left-hand menu until you see ‘Businesses.’ Click on ‘Businesses’ to see a list of the business profiles you have access to.
At the top right of the table, click ‘Add business’ to open a drop-down menu. Click ‘Import businesses’ to access the spreadsheet template.
Google provides you with a template, a sample spreadsheet, and a reference spreadsheet to make the process easier and reduce errors. These spreadsheets can be downloaded as Excel sheets or as .csv files, which you can open in Google Sheets or Numbers.
If this is your first time working with this spreadsheet, I recommend downloading the sample spreadsheet so you can familiarize yourself with how Google wants the information input. This way, you can start gathering all your info and check in with various locations if you aren’t sure about their amenities.
The spreadsheet template is deliberately comprehensive. Because of this, some columns won’t apply to your business. Leave those blank when filling in your spreadsheet.
To create the most accurate Google Business Profiles, you’ll want to use the Attributes Reference spreadsheet to identify the appropriate attributes for each location. While it’s easier to skip this step, filling out the different amenities and options will allow you to create a more complete profile that highlights the information potential customers want to know.
Input all required information, including the name, address, phone number, website, and business address of your different locations. Make sure to optimize your GMB profile with a great description in the ‘From the business’ column. To make sure your description isn’t too long, create it in a doc first and check the number of characters. You want to keep your optimized description under 750 characters.
Quick note: The Google template allows for international locations. For US locations, ‘Locality’ refers to the city and ‘Administrative area’ to the state.
Once you’ve completed the spreadsheet, return to the ‘Import Businesses’ pop-up and click ‘Select file.’
Locate your file on your computer, and click ‘Open.’
Google will now attempt to read your file and add your locations to your account. If successful, you can move on to verifying your new locations. If Google can’t read your spreadsheet, you’ll need to troubleshoot it. Make sure your data is presented like that in the sample spreadsheet and that you didn’t add any extraneous columns.
Once Google has accepted your spreadsheet and uploaded your locations, it’s time to bulk verify your new profiles.
Bulk Verify Your New Locations
Select ‘Verifications’ from the left-hand menu.
If you’re adding multiple business locations for a chain, select ‘Chain.’ If your locations function under different brand names, select ‘Different brands.’
Google will now link you to a verification form to fill out. Have your spreadsheet nearby since you’ll need to share the addresses of your new locations and contact info for each.
Processing time varies, but completing the verification process generally takes about a week. Once your locations are verified, they’ll start appearing in Search and Maps results.
Create Business Groups to Help Manage Locations
To make it easy to manage multiple locations and provide access to other stakeholders, you can create business groups based on location. For example, if you have a nationwide chain with multiple regional managers, you can create groups for each of your regions and provide access to their regional managers so they can keep the profiles up-to-date.
To create a business group, log in and click ‘Create group.’
You’ll then be prompted to name your group.
Once you’ve created the group, you can select which locations you want to include in the group and add a manager. There’s no limit to the number of groups you can have, but you should still be strategic about how you create your groups since they allow for bulk editing.
Quick Tip: Provide a set process or best practices to individuals with access to your Google My Business to ensure adherence to brand guidelines.
Learn More About Google Tools for SEO
Google provides multiple tools to help you increase your business’s online visibility. Monitor your website’s search performance with Google Search Console, see what visitors do when they get to your site with Google Analytics, and drive foot traffic to your stores with Google Business Profile. Learn how to get the most from these Google Tools and more — check out our free resources now.
