Before you start setting up or optimizing your existing Google Products accounts, it’s critical to perform proper housekeeping so as to future-proof accounts’ ownership and access to the designated persons.
As strange as it sounds, one of the most time-consuming things when we undertake to support the growth of a hospitality brand is getting access to the business’s relevant Google Products*.
* As Google products, among others, we define the following:
- Google Analytics 4
- Google tag manager
- Google Ads
- Google Business Profile
- Search Console
As a hotel’s team member or external partner, it is your duty to properly setup and organize the hotel’s Google products ownership and access.
To future-proof the accounts’ access it is essential the hotel to have a dedicated Google account for accessing all Google Products.
When creating the Google Account, you have 3 options:
1. Use a new or existing gmail email address (e.g [email protected])
2. Use an existing email address from a third party such as hotmail or yahoo (e.g [email protected])
3. Use a new or an existing business email address (e.g [email protected])
Best practice
Do NOT use the email address of an employee (that most likely will not remain active forever) or the “generic” contact us email address that your hotel property uses (e.g [email protected], which can become a possible target for hacking).
Instead use a dedicated –timeless– email address (something like [email protected] or [email protected], the “.ga” part stands for Google Analytics / Google Ads and Yes, the email address can contain a dot “.”).
Let’s start!
Go to: https://www.google.com/account/about/ and click “Create an account”.
If you have already a business email address (option 3) or a third-party email address (option 2), you DON’T NEED to create a NEW gmail email address so as to access or create hotel’s Google products accounts.
Instead, you can “upgrade” your existing email address so as to behave as a Google account. To do that, click Use my current email address instead and continue with the setup process.
Please note that from time to time Google tests different signup flows but the steps that you have to follow and the fields that you have to fill are essentially the same. If you have any difficulty with the setup process, post your question to Hotelytix Facebook group.
The above steps look so simple -and many times unnecessary- and as a result, a lot of hotels tend to skip them.
Don’t do it.
I can list at least twenty (20) different “stories from hell” that I have encountered over the last several years, due to a team member that left the hotel, the hotel switching the agency / freelancer, or an unethical agency locking out the hotel from their accounts.
It is a critical and essential step to future-proof your hotel’s accounts now!
As a final step, assign a primary and a secondary (backup) person to be responsible for the login details to the Google Account (two in-house employees, an in-house employee + a freelancer, or an in-house employee + an agency).
To summarize
In today’s article we looked through:
- Why you need a dedicated Google account
- How to choose a timeless email address for your Google account
- Which persons to assign as the Google account “keymasters”
For any further clarifications / questions, you can join Hotelytix Facebook group
