An Announcement Page for a Move to New Premises

The trip to an empty unit

A business moves across town. The owner posts the news on Facebook, tapes a sign in the old window and tells regular customers at the counter.

Then someone who has not been in for a year searches the business name, finds the old address on the website and drives there.

The unit is empty, the sign has fallen down, and the old number rings out.

Customers who hear that a business has moved check its website: whether the move has happened yet, where to, and from which day. Most sites answer with a footer address that may or may not have changed.

One page that answers those questions properly, linked from the home page, saves those wasted trips and the goodwill they cost.

What the page needs to say

• The new address in full, with the unit number and the entrance to use.
• The dates: last day at the old premises, first day at the new.
• Any days closed in between for packing and setting up.
• Parking and access, including loading space and the nearest bus stop.
• A map with directions from the nearest main road.
• The phone number, and whether it is changing.
• Work in progress: orders, repairs or holds, and where to collect them.

The second is the one most often written badly. "Moving next month" means nothing to someone reading it three weeks later, and "open from Monday" changes meaning every week the page stays up.

Dates that stay true

Write real dates with weekdays: last day at the old address Saturday, September 12; open at the new one Tuesday, September 15. Nobody has to guess what soon meant.

Say what happens in between. If the business closes for two days while everything is moved, say so, and how to reach someone during them.

Update the page as the move happens. Before it, the page announces what is coming; on the first morning at the new premises, the headline says the move is done.

Directions for a first visit

The address is only the start. Industrial parks, strip malls and buildings with several doors defeat a customer who has an address and nothing else.

Describe the approach as you would on the phone: the cross street, the neighbour everyone knows, the colour of the building, which door. A photograph of the entrance does more than a paragraph.

Say where to park, whether it is free, and whether a truck or trailer fits.

Then embed a map, and check that the pin lands on your door rather than in the middle of a large lot.

The old phone number

The number is printed on business cards, vehicles, invoices and directory listings that will outlive the move by years. Keeping it, if the phone company can move it with you, is worth real effort.

If it has to change, say how long the old number will forward or play a message giving the new one, and show both on the page until then.

Check email addresses too. A move is when mailboxes tied to the old internet provider tend to be switched off along with the line.

A worked example

A butter tart bakery sells tarts by the half dozen and the dozen from a small storefront, takes pre-orders for holiday trays, and supplies a few cafes nearby.

This spring it moved to a larger shop with a proper kitchen, around the corner and down a side street. The owner announced it on Facebook and taped a sign in the old window.

For weeks, people turned up at the old storefront, including customers collecting pre-ordered trays for a family gathering. They had taken the address from the website, which still showed it in every footer.

The fix was a page headed with the new address and a photograph of the new shopfront taken from the corner, so nobody walked past the side street.

It gave the opening hours, the unchanged phone number, parking on the side street, and where to collect pre-orders placed before the move.

A banner on every page linked to it, and the footer, contact page, Google My Business listing and Facebook page all changed the same afternoon.

Linked from the home page, for months

A page nobody finds does nothing. Put a short notice above everything else on the home page, with a link to the moving page, and check that it shows on a phone without scrolling.

Leave it up longer than feels necessary. Customers who visit once or twice a year will still be learning about the move months later.

When the notice comes down, keep the page, or redirect its address to the contact page, so links shared on Facebook and in emails still lead somewhere useful.

Everywhere else the old address lives

The website is where customers check, so it should be right first. Then change every other place the old address appears, ideally the same day.

That means the Google My Business listing, edited rather than replaced so its reviews stay attached, then Bing Places, Apple Maps Connect, the Facebook page, directories and review sites.

Then the things that travel: quote and invoice templates, email signatures, receipts, printed price lists, and AdWords location extensions, which take their address from the listing.

The counter-case

A business whose customers never visit needs less. A contractor or consultant who works at clients' premises can update the footer and the listings and leave it there.

A move down the hall rarely needs a page of its own either; a line on the contact page and a sign by the old door will do.

But any business that customers drive to, drop things off at or collect things from should give the move a page, linked from the home page until the questions stop.

Before moving day

1. Write the page two or three weeks ahead.
2. Give real dates with weekdays, not "next month".
3. Photograph the new entrance from the street.
4. Add parking, loading and transit details.
5. Keep the phone number if it can move.
6. Link the page from the top of the home page.
7. Update every listing on the same day.

Step three takes ten minutes and saves the most trips. A customer who knows what the shopfront looks like finds the door first time, even when it sits round the corner on a side street.

Telling customers how to reach you through a disruption follows the same pattern as road construction outside the shop.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.