Change Google Business Profile Address - Best Way To Proceed?

[Matt-Tutt]

Apologies for the wordy title. A small solicitor client I work with has recently moved about 20 miles from their current location, I'd say further away from their main target city (but that's ok).
They have a GMB listing setup that still has the old address. The listing has 11 reviews so not a huge amount but they've put quite a bit of effort into this recently, so obviously I want to retain any local rankings they have.

The issue is they don't really serve clients at their new location, as the office is in the solicitor's garden, and so whilst they do all work in that office together they prefer not to meet clients there.

So I'm wondering - what is the best way to proceed here? Should they switch to a hidden address, serving clients in a service area, after updating to the new address?

With their business they mainly serve clients remotely anyway so the lack of a proper office is not really an issue for them.

Appreciate any tips here - thanks!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

So I'm wondering - what is the best way to proceed here? Should they switch to a hidden address, serving clients in a service area, after updating to the new address?

Yep!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Keep in mind that changing the address, and hiding your address, have the potential to impact rankings. If the address move is moving further away from your customers then it will likely have a negative impact since proximity to searcher is such a strong ranking factor.

 

[JS Girard]

To add on what Colan just said, up until a few weeks ago, hiding the address had fairly minimal impact if at all (unless you combined it with a move, which triggers a bug), but right now, it's impossible to tell when hiding the address will suddenly cause Google to spazz out completely.