On the morning of May 1, Google said that local search on mobile devices is growing faster than mobile search overall – 50 percent year over year. An in response (partly, anyway), Google has been adding new features tot he Knowledge Panel and Google My Business (GMB) on a regular basis.
Google announced a new GMB API, a new agency dashboard and new agency partner program. This API enables agencies to mange additional categories of content, such as merchant descriptions and Posts for multilocation brands and small businesses at scale.
The agency dashboard was developed in collaboration with a couple of Google’s agency partners. The promise of this new dashboard is to be fast. It enables:
- A single registered account on GMB to manage an unlimited number of locations.
- User Groups to manage internal teams and control access to locations.
- Easier product workflows to manage listings.
Early access to the new GMB tools and features is being given to registered agencies, and will have a dedicated partner manager and other benefits. There will even be a new partner directory.
According to Google, multiple criteria were involved when it came to evaluating potential agency partners for the new program. There’s no specific “number of locations under management” requirement, but the search engine company wants to initially focus on agencies that are growing.
If you wish to sign up for the agency partner program, you can do so by going here.
The dashboard will become available within the next three weeks.