I was recently asked a really good question that doesn't come up very often...
How do you change your address in a business Google account?
The first thing you'll have to do is make sure you have access to your Google My Business account so you can edit your business address.
Google doesn't simply allow you to change your business address, even though it's your business. To validate your move, they will mail you a postcard to the new address. The postcard will have a PIN that you'll need to enter into your my Business account.
Your new address will not appear until you've been verified; meanwhile the old address remains visible.
The address in your Google My Business account is linked to all your online accounts including Google Maps and Google AdWords. Naturally it's Google Maps that literally drives customers to your front door, while Google AdWords now uses geo-location targeting to surface ads to people within a relative distance of your store.
Thriving businesses that rely on AdWords and Maps can't afford the temporary disconnect that will occur during the address switchover, so timing here is critical.
You should change the address in your Google My Business account as soon as you are able to receive mail at the new store address. You won't get the Google postcard for about two weeks after you change the address. In the meantime, your address change will simply stay queued in your account.
That's the secret actually... Your address change request will remain queued until you enter the verification PIN. That means you can request the address change a month ahead of time if needed. Like I said, just make sure your post office carrier knows to deliver mail to the new address.
The day before the new store opening, you should log into your account and verify your account with that PIN. Your address should appear within 24 hours, but it will probably happen sooner. The address change will also propagate through the rest of Google's services.
Changing your address in your Google account is only the beginning, and it was probably the easiest step. The next step is to do a Google search for your business name and find all the online directories that have your old address. You'll probably need to create an account with each of those directories before you can edit your address.
Start with changing the address on your Facebook account and any other social account that might have an address. Then edit your Yelp account. It will take time to work through editing your accounts in all the online directories, but you must do it.
Every online directory helps to bring people to you in some way or another, so even though this process will be tedious and annoying, you must do it to make sure customers find your new store.
Lastly: it might be obvious, but don't forget to change the address on your website too; in all instances: all your pages, headers, and footers... and images!
