Are you thinking about moving your business to a new location? Is your lease up and you’re looking for something larger, more affordable, or with a better location? Moving your business from one place to another is about more than just packing up or contacting a business mover. Lancaster PA businesses consultants say your online presence must move with you too.
Plan to Update
A professional business mover will handle your physical move. But, you need to think about your online move. If you rely on local search, or mobile search, to bring visitors and customers to your location, then moving without having the plan to update your address or phone number can cost more than you save by moving. Here are some things to remember the next time you’re moving to a new location.
Change your Physical Address Online
This means Google Places, Bing Places, Yelp, Chamber of Commerce information, Yahoo Local, Health Grades, Angie’s List and more will need to be updated. This is pretty time intensive, but must be done. Imagine incorrect address and phone numbers sending potential customers to an empty storefront – that’s lost revenue! When you start sharing your new address, make sure you’re using the “normalized” address that Google, the post office, and other address entities recognize.
Try to Keep your Phone Number
If you are forced to get a new number because you changed towns, be sure you can keep your old number and have it forward to the new number. This can help redirect all your customers to your new location.
Update your Paid Search Campaigns
If you’re running paid advertising campaigns and you’re focusing on a local market – your physical address needs to be updated in your targeting or location extensions. Wrong addresses send customers to incorrect locations – that can be a painful loss for the business to absorb.
Update Citations
Beyond the local directory listings, it’s worth changing as many local citation websites as possible to the new address or phone number. Start by searching for your old address and making a note of any page in the top 20. Those are the places you need to change first.
