Is your practice moving to a new office location?
To decrease the likelihood of confused patients or minimize a drop in your search results, it’s important to remember to update your new address information on your website and across the web as quickly as possible after your move.
Here is a step-by-step guide to what you should do if your practice is relocating its office.
1. Update your website
Search for all the areas on your website that your old address may be listed and then update with your new address. These typically include your:
- Location and or contact pages. Be sure to add photos of your new office and update your driving directions.
- Website footer and header. Update if your address is listed there.
- Website meta data and mark up. Once updated, run your website through Google’s Rich Snippets testing tool to make sure it shows your updated address information.
2. Mark the old business as closed
If you are moving to a new office, it’s likely that there was a previous business that occupied that location before you.
- Find out who that is and make sure you flag the old business as closed.
- Submit the edit in MapMaker to mark the business closed. Include comments in your edit stating that this business has recently closed and a new business moved in. This will speed up the time it takes Google to approve listing edits.
- Be sure to flag any duplicate listings. Duplicate listings in Google Maps are common. You might also find several previous businesses using your new address. Be sure to edit all.
3. Update your Google My Business listing
Log-in to your Google My Business account and update with your new address. Google may ask you to re-verify your information by sending a new postcard to your new office location.
4. Embed map on your website
Once your address is updated on your Google My Business page, embed a map of your new location on your website.
5. Update major data providers, banks and phone companies
Start with searching for your business on your state’s Secretary of State website and verify the address they list is your new one. There are also major data providers who feed name, address and phone (NAP) information to various sites across the web. Its important to notify these data “aggregators” of your new address so that your listings are properly updated.
6. Update online health directories
That includes your profile on HealthGrades , Vitals, WebMD and more.
Moving isn’t easy and there is quite a bit of work to get your address information updated properly. Need help? Contact Practis today!