We Moved Office. Here’s Everything That Had to Change Online

Moving office feels like a physical job. You book the removalists, pack the boxes, sort out the keys and the internet connection, and on the first morning in the new place you put the kettle on and call it done.

Online, it is nowhere near done.

We recently moved our agency from Black Rock to Hampton, a few suburbs apart in Melbourne’s Bayside. You would think changing an address that close to home would be a five minute job. It was not, and that was with a website we built ourselves and know inside out.

I am writing this down because almost every small business owner I talk to underestimates this job, and the cost of getting it wrong is quiet. Nothing breaks. No error message appears. Customers just get sent to an empty shop, and search engines slowly lose confidence in where you actually are.

Here is what actually had to change, in the order I would do it again.

1. Google Business Profile first

Your Google Business Profile is the listing that shows up on Google Maps and in the box on the right of a search for your business name. For most local businesses it is the single most important place your address lives, because it is what people tap when they want directions.

Update it before anything else. Google may ask you to verify the new location, and that can take a few days, so starting here means the waiting happens while you do the rest.

Two small things caught my attention once ours updated. Google rewrote our address in its own format, shortening “Road” to “Rd” and joining the suite number with a slash. That is fine. Google is consistent with itself, and the details still match. The second thing was the map pin. Check that it sits on your actual building, not the middle of the street or the shopping strip next door. If it is wrong, drag it.

2. Your website, all of it

This is where most businesses stop too early. They change the address on the contact page and think the website is finished.

On our site the address appeared in far more places than I expected:

• The footer, which repeats on every page

• The contact page, including the map, the directions button and a line of text about parking

• The privacy policy, which lists a contact address

• A short “where we are” panel on several service pages

• Answers in a couple of frequently asked questions

• The hidden code that tells search engines who you are

That last one deserves its own explanation. Most professional websites carry a block of structured data, often called schema, that sits in the page code where visitors never see it. It tells Google and other search tools your business name, phone number, opening hours, street address and even the latitude and longitude of your front door. If that code still holds your old address, search engines are being told two different things at once.

All up, the change touched 129 files on our site. That is not because the site is unusually large. It is because a well built site repeats your business details deliberately, so every page can stand on its own.

My advice is simple. Search your whole website for the old street name and the old postcode, not just the obvious pages. If you have a developer, ask them to do the same search across the code, not just the visible text. If you are not sure what is sitting in your site’s code at all, a proper SEO audit will show you.

And check the small print around the address too. Our contact page told visitors where to park near the old office. That sentence was not technically an address, but it would have sent someone to the wrong street.

3. Social profiles

Next come the platforms where your business has a page.

Facebook took the new address cleanly, suite number and all.

LinkedIn company pages have a location section that is easy to forget because you rarely look at your own company page.

Instagram was the awkward one. Its city field only accepts places from Meta’s own list, and our suburb simply was not offered. After a few attempts the practical answer was to enter the full street address and postcode with Melbourne as the city. The street and postcode are what matter, and they match everywhere else.

That is a useful lesson in general. Perfect consistency is the goal, but where a platform will not let you be perfect, get the parts that identify you exactly right and do not lose sleep over the rest.

4. Directories and old listings

This is the slow, unglamorous part. Over the years most businesses end up listed on dozens of online directories, some added by you, many scraped automatically from somewhere else.

Search for your business name along with your old street name. Every listing that comes up is a place still pointing people to the old office. Some will let you claim and edit the listing. Others need an email to their support team.

While you are in there, look at the business name as well. We found several listings still using a name we stopped trading under years ago. If you are fixing the address anyway, fix everything else on the listing at the same time. You will not want to visit these sites twice.

5. The things that are not online

A few last places that are easy to miss:

• Email signatures for everyone in the business

• Invoice and quote templates

• Terms and conditions or contracts that state a business address

• Business cards, letterheads and signage

• Any supplier or accountant who posts you paperwork

Why consistency matters

Search engines and the newer AI answer tools build their picture of your business by comparing what different sources say about you. When your website, your Google listing and your directory listings all agree, that picture is clear. When they disagree, the tools have to guess, and a guess is never as good as certainty. Consistent business details are one of the foundations of local SEO, and getting them right costs nothing but time.

None of this is difficult. It is just tedious, and tedious jobs are the ones that get left half done. Set aside an afternoon, work through the list in order, and keep a note of every place you changed so the next move is easier.

Paul Sera is the founder of Next Gen Digital Agency, a website and search marketing agency in Hampton, Melbourne. ngitc.com.au