• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, May 2, 2018

The regular business version of Google My Business -- a free tool to help them manage their online presence across services like Maps and Search --  apparently wasn't enough to help search and advertising agencies with multiple clients who have hundreds of locations, so Alphabet's subsidiary launched a custom service and dashboard for agencies.

The service, announced Tuesday, supports not only agencies and their clients, but consumers who now rely on a mobile phone to look up directions and addresses of physical locations.

Mobile now drives 60% of all traffic to retail sites, according to data released from the Salesforce Shopping Index on Wednesday. And with that traffic, as a side note, mobile conversion rates grew 14% in the first quarter of 2018 compared with the year-ago quarter. Phones now account for 41% of all orders.

For the first time, agency reps who sign up for the service will have an option to manage an unlimited number of account locations. Previous versions of this dashboard offered the ability to manage up to 100 locations.

Features also include user groups to manage internal teams and control access to locations, improved search functions to find locations within an account and across groups, and a modified workflow that enables agency reps to send and receive invitations to better help manage listings.

Google expects the service to roll out within the next two to three weeks.

Along with the dashboard, Anita Yuen, product management director for Google My Business, wrote in a post that agencies in the program also become eligible for early access to new Google My Business features.

“In the last couple of years, we’ve invested in the Google My Business API, introducing features like Reviews, Menus, Insights and Posts to make it possible for agencies and platform partners to easily maintain and update Google listings for their end customers,” she wrote. “With our latest API update, we’re adding more features like offer posts and merchant description so partners can continue to offer Google My Business’ latest features to their customers.”

This year, Google also introduced the ability to share Posts, activate Messaging, or add a Booking button to Google listing.