What's the best way for my business to handle a change of address?

[giannid]

What's the best way to handle the process of moving a business? I'm going to have the website developer do the onsite changes and I'll handle the stuff like the BBB profile and GMB. I was just wondering if there's a tool to use for all the other links out there floating around. I've used Moz local in the past but I'm wondering if there's a better do all tool. Obviously some of them are going to have to be done manually but trying to avoid that as much as possible.

Also, how long should I expect my rankings to be down? This move is being done for a local service based construction contractor. The move is going to be closer to the areas that he's trying to target so I'm hoping it will help rankings. It's a bout a 20 mile move.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Hi @giannid

There are quite a few tools out on the market for changing the address across multiple listings. Moz is a good one. You could also use a service like BrightLocal or Whitespark.

The move you're talking about - I get the feeling this is a service area business, is that right? He's moving house or his office? The service area defined could also help with the visibility in the local packs.

There are lots of things that impact a listing's ranking. So estimating "down time" is pretty tricky.

 

[giannid]

Yes this is a service area business that is run out of a home.

I see they're are a lot of changes that have happened lately with GMB and I haven't really kept up with them. Seems like they're many more features that I need to get familiar with. I'm looking for a guide with all the new features that explains how to use them. Anything I should be looking at?

In my local area, it seems like most of the first page organic rankings are disappearing from the smaller, service based companies. We've all been talking about what Google has been doing lately as giving paid advertising priority and I see it happening more and more everyday. These drop in rankings are happening in relatively low populated areas that don't have a lot of competition, ones that should be easy to rank in. I keep an eye on things locally for some local business and have noticed rankings falling for ones that have been on the top for years. Seems like the map pack is your best chance of ranking without spending a ton of money on adwords

 

[JoshuaMackens]

You need a business listing service, not Moz Local. Moz Local is for data aggregators. Also, their service has changed quite a bit and I personally wouldn't recommend them for data aggregators or anything else currently. That's just me though.

Again, you need a business listing service that will go through most of your business listings and get the address changed.

If you do it all in one swipe, I wouldn't expect any "downtime".

 

[giannid]

You need a business listing service, not Moz Local. Moz Local is for data aggregators. Also, their service has changed quite a bit and I personally wouldn't recommend them for data aggregators or anything else currently. That's just me though.

Again, you need a business listing service that will go through most of your business listings and get the address changed.

If you do it all in one swipe, I wouldn't expect any "downtime".

What business listing service do you recommend? I actually thought something like Moz local was what I wanted. Guess I was wrong.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

BrightLocal is a good listing management tool, IMO. I wouldn't recommend Yext or Moz currently.

No tool is going to update all citations, however. You'll still have to do a manual audit. I also wouldn't waste time stressing about updating every single listing across the web either. There are just too many, and the impact from quite a few of them is negligible.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Some of the ones I've heard others recommend is BrightLocal and WhiteSpark. If you need a more managed service, Local Listing Ninja (disclosure: this is my service) might be better for you.

Are you an agency or a business owner? If you're an agency, how familiar with business listings are you?

 

[Conor Treacy]

Brightlocal is what we use quite a bit, however one some of our service based busienss listings that we know they will be changing out photos or offers/promotions etc, Yext is very handy for this. If it's just a citation listing, Brightlocal is great, but if you have moving parts weekly/monthly, Yext has been great.

 

[giannid]

I'm a business owner who's been doing my own local online marketing for awhile. I'm pretty familiar with business listings. Most of the ones I have, I've created myself.