Best Practices - Change of Address

[Vitor]

Hello guys, this is my first post here! I hope I learned a lot, I'm currently "eating" the forum!

I I manage the GMB for a client and it will change the company address elsewhere. What is the best practice in this case?

1 - Delete the old place?
2 - Close the old place?
3 - Keep the profile and just change my address?

In this case we have the internet quotes base here in Brazil with the old address should be completely updated, correct? (So I found it easier to start all over again)
Note: Currently the current profile it HAS traffic and closes her business there.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Vitor and welcome. Glad you are eating up the forum.

Answers to your Qs in reverse order

3 - Keep the profile and just change my address?
YES! Age of listings is a ranking factor and also that's what Google tells you to do, so it's best practice. But see #2...

2 - Close the old place?
No you should not close it. BUT if Google feels it was a big enough move, they will close it and create a new listing. (If that happens, come back as there may be another step you need to take.)

1 - Delete the old place?
FYI you can't ever delete a listing from Google maps or search. If you are talking about deleting in your GMB dashboard, that just deletes it from your account so you no longer have control over it. But it will stay live on Google.

Then just update as many existing citations as you can and also maybe do some new ones if they don't have many.

Hope this helps!

 

[Vitor]

Thank you very much Linda Buquet!
I have heard from several people so many different options that I was confused. But if Google itself recommends a change of address by the current and existing profile, I will do so. What will give me work is change all the citatios that already exist on the Internet (we build it) it sometimes gets out of control!
On the new place, I got to ask sending the code, so I will not even activate this new profile and just delete it from my dashboard correct?

 

[James Watt]

Hi Vitor, welcome to the forum!

If you created a new listing for the new address but it's not been verified yet (no postcard code entered into the dashboard) then yes, you can safely delete that new listing from your dashboard.

If you'd like more detail to add to Linda's suggestion, Joy Hawkins (one of the other top contributors here) wrote a comprehensive guide for doing exactly what you're talking about.

As far as citations go, yeah, it can get messy. You can either handle it yourself (whitespark's citation finder can help you find all the citations you can update) or you can use a service like advice local or Whitespark to have someone do it for you.

Good luck!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks James. Good additional advice!

I would not loose too much sleep over citations. They are important still, but not as much as they used to be. So change the majors and ones you can, but don't worry too much about the little directories that scrape the listing & don't offer a way to let you make changes.

 

[Vitor]

James and Linda, thanks very much again, I will follow carefully that 9 steps from Joy Hawkins tutorial and will not activate the new listing.
I got a lot of questions about GMB so excuse me for any stupid questions!But I promise search the forum before posting!
Here in Brazil we have poor quality of information on Local SEO and there is a sea of unexploited opportunities here.

 

[James Watt]

Definitely! As a word of warning though, not all of Google's features roll out worldwide at the same time. I know that local search looks a bit different even for Australia and Europe than it does in the US. I can't tell you what's going to be different in Brazil, but just keep in mind that some features and advice you see here you can't use yet. Map Maker for example, is in Brazil, but there are many countries it hasn't opened in yet.

 

[Vitor]

James, here we do the basic and already get ranking, I'm on top 5 for 3 clients and even use a Pbn yet. but, people here (owners of business) dont know about SEO, and, sometimes, dont believe or dont want pay for before see the results, this is my major issue with get some clients. But, I still want learn more cause I know the competition will increase soon here in Brazil, and I nedd to be better. Do you know some good deep course about local or google local to recomend? My english is not 100% yet, but this will not be a wall do learn more.
Thanks!

 

[James Watt]

Hi Vitor,

My story might be somewhat interesting to you then. I've got something like 8 years in marketing consulting, and I recently decided to get serious about local.

I started out asking the same questions as you, looking for good resources and that sort of thing, but at this point I'm thinking it moves too quickly for it to be packaged well. I started following every single thing that gets posted here maybe 9 months ago, and started following the Google My Business help forum. I need to get back to reading everything there too, but time crunch can make it a little tough. But I kept my eyes out for problems and expert suggestions, tried to run through to solve the problems myself and come to the same conclusions, and now here I am. I know I still have a lot to learn, but getting involved has been an invaluable education, and plus, now I have people I can reach out to when I have questions, and I can't even tell you how much of a relief that's been.

The Google help forums have a lot of different languages. One of the top contributors is active both in the German and English language versions (I should do that too, get some more German practice in) but I bet you there's a Portuguese help forum as well, you should check it out.

I'd suggest lurking in the Google My Business forum to keep an eye on local specific questions, and the google webmaster forum to learn more about technical SEO.

Also, you mentioned PBNs... that strategy is grey hat at best these days. Backlink building is a critical part of local SEO, but those links need to be real links, otherwise you're putting your clients at risk of a penalty.

Good luck! Client building can be the hardest part, but for getting your technical chops at least, there's an amazing community and an amazing amount of resources out there, even if there isn't much in the way of books.

One book I'd recommend though, check this one out. It's quick, a relatively easy/entertaining read, and there's a lot of gems here and there.