New Location? It May be Hurting Your Business…

You’ve made your moving list. You’ve checked it twice. But you didn’t realize one of the most important items with moving didn’t even make the list – letting your Internet marketing team know.

New Location Article 11-13-14

Changes to a business’ address can have adverse effects on your Google rankings. One of the ways that Google attributes authority to a local business is by counting the number of occurrences when the business’ name, address, and phone number appear online. Google and the other search engines cross-reference your name-address-phone number (NAP) information across a variety of websites as a validation that you are a legitimate business. Any variation or inaccuracy does not get counted toward this authority and can actually hurt.

If your website shows your new address at 123 Noveau Lane but CitySearch.com and your Google Local page list your old address at 456 Oldhat Street, Google won’t consider these as the same business. In fact when Google’s bots are compiling information they may consider your old address as a competitor to you. Your rankings may drop or your business might not show up at all in geo-targeted searches.

It is important to make sure that you are consistent on your website with the spelling of your business’ name as well as other websites like Facebook and directories like Yelp, Merchant Circle and FourSquare. If your business uses a DBA name, stick to it! A small disclaimer can be on your site about your legal name, but don’t feel the need to list that other places or in addition to your widely recognized business name.

To make the most of your Internet marketing services let your team know when you’re planning a move, phone number change, or even adding a location. This includes introducing 1-800 phone numbers or opening a satellite office. Your Internet marketing team will update all of your citations accordingly and make sure Google has the most-up-to-date information making your business changes seamless.