Moving office? Here’s an SEO checklist to ensure your website traffic doesn’t suffer

Moving offices can be extremely stressful, particularly if it’s a long distance change. Ensuring your organic visibility is protected throughout your office move is a key priority which should not be overlooked.

Our essential recommendations are hugely impactful to organic performance – especially on a local level – and they can all be implemented easily. 

1.Google My Business

Every business should have a verified and well-optimised Google Business profile. This profile provides key contact information such as your contact telephone number, address and website URL. It’s essential to ensure all these details are accurate, especially after an office move.

If your new office is shared with another business, ensure your address and points of contact are completely correct using as much detail as possible.

If, for example, you share an office block with two companies, be sure to include ‘Floor 2′ in your address to differentiate between you. For business park sites, use, for example, ‘Unit 10’ to make sure your customers can easily find you and Google knows your exact location.

2. NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number)

NAP is a common term that is frequently used in local SEO and points to three important elements of your business – your name, address and phone number.

NAP needs to be consistent for Google to understand your website and your points of contact. This can be a  common issue when moving offices as you may need a new telephone number to publish on your site, Google Business and existing citations.

As an example:

Example Solicitors

Example Solicitors LLP

Example Solicitors, LLP

All three business names are different and can damage your local signals and visibility. A similar issue will occur with your contact telephone numbers if your business has one telephone number listed incorrectly, as you’ll either be directing users to a line that is out of service or alternatively another business entirely.

These are all contributing factors that play a role in your business appearing for the right terms in the right location, so make sure everything is correct after completing your office move.

3. Citations

Your business is most probably listed on a number of local/national directories and possibly some niche directories too. These citations will include your old business address and possibly display an incorrect phone number.

Once your office move is complete, check through the top directories your business has been listed in. The best way to execute this is to search online for your brand name and manually work through the directories. We recommend creating a spreadsheet too, just to keep everything in order.

4. Schema markup

Schema markup is a specific type of code that you put on your website to help search engines return more informative results for users. In this case, there are types of schema such as local business and organisation markup which contain your address, telephone numbers and other points of contact. This code also includes longitude and latitude details so it’s vital that these are amended to your new office location too.

If these have been deployed then we recommend changing these codes to reflect your new business details. Local business schema markup is a very effective schema type to leverage local visibility, therefore if there are any inaccurate details, this will most likely cause confusion for Google and can damage your local rankings.

It may be worthwhile to speak to your developers regarding schema markup. If this hasn’t been deployed yet, then they should do so. If structured data is live, then it’s important to amend as soon as possible.

5. Website amendments

Once your contract is finished at your previous office, it’s important to update your website with your new location details. The site-wide footer is a common place for these details to be located. Your NAP details need to be consistent across the board, therefore a change of business location on your website needs to be reflected in your Google My Business account and any relevant local directories.

Including a link to your Google My Business account from your website is also a beneficial way of enhancing your local signals and visibility. If you have already executed this, then please be aware that you may need to amend your Google My Business URL after the new details have been implemented into your Google Business profile:

Be sure to amend your contact page on your website to reflect your new business address too. If you don’t do so, you risk damaging your conversion rates.

6. General on-page optimisation

One last thing to consider after your office move is your optimisation, reviewing your target keywords and your location. This may be more applicable to long-distance moves and is also dependent on your industry or services, but it’s worth doing some keyword research and seeing if your new city or town has any search volume.

This allows your website to be optimised around your new location if you’re trying to generate business at a local level. If you were moving offices from Reading to St Albans, you could implement:

Page title changes:

IT support services in Reading, Berkshire | IT Life

IT support services in St Albans, Hertfordshire | IT Life

Header tag changes:

IT support services operating in Reading and across Berkshire

IT support services operating in St Albans and across Hertfordshire

If applicable, it’s worth reviewing your site copy to reflect any reference of your old business location to maximise your chances of ranking well in your new location.

By making these changes to your website and other platforms, you will ensure your organic visibility is protected throughout the office move.