Business Moving to Temporary Address

[Scott Rawlins]

I have an interesting situation I haven't encountered before and need a little help with this one. A client is currently constructing a new building. They will be moving into a temporary office until about September. Of course we will make this temporary move evident on their site and social media. But I'm not really sure how to handle citations or the G+ page. Do I leave them alone until the move is permanent? It is construction after all, so September could become December or later.

Thanks in advance for your input?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hmmm, tough one Scott.

I would not do citations for temp location. But the G+ L is the bigger Q in my mind. ANY time you change address it breaks NAP and causes problems. So I would hesitate doing it twice in a row.
However you don't want an incorrect address for months either.

Let me ping Darren and see what he thinks?

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Thanks Linda. Yeah, I didn't think changing it for temporary purposes would be a good idea. My initial thought was to leave everything as is and simply add a post, maybe even once week or so, to let patients know what's happening.

I look forward to hearing Darren's thoughts.

 

[whitespark]

Hey Scott,

As Linda noted, you don't want to touch the citations, but the Google+ listing is a problem.

You basically have two options:

1. Change the address on the G+ listing and risk losing all your rankings.
2. Leave the address and risk people showing up at the wrong location if they use Google to get the address

My guess is that the loss of rankings is worse than a few people showing up at the wrong address, so my advice is to keep the G+ address the old address until the move is official.

In the meantime, update everything else with the temporary address:

1. Website (but leave the old address in schema somehere on the page)
2. Add a "Temporary address" notice to the G+ description.
3. Add a mention of the temporary address to the meta description.
4. Add a G+ social post about the new temp location
5. Facebook and twitter posts about the new address

Hope this helps.

 

[Linda Buquet]

That's what I was thinking too Darren. Thanks for weighing in.

I would add one other important point. Coach staff on how to answer a call if a Google moderator calls to check the address. (And coach them how to tell a Google call from a Google scam.)

Since you are putting notice about the move right on the G+ page, they may catch it and question it.

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Thanks so much Darren and Linda. That was exactly what I was thinking I needed to do, except about leaving the address in schema.