A practice relocation is treated as a physical project: lease, fit-out, equipment, signage, informing patients. The online side is usually handled by changing the address on the contact page, which is the smallest part of the job.

Your address exists in more places than you think, and search engines treat inconsistency between them as a reason to trust you less.

Everywhere the old address lives

  • The contact page, obviously.
  • The footer, which appears on every page.
  • The structured data in your site's code, which is what search engines read.
  • Your Google Business Profile, which is where most patients will actually see it.
  • Any embedded map, which will keep pointing at the old building even after the text changes.
  • Directory listings, health portals and association pages.
  • Social media profiles and their "about" sections.
  • Old blog posts and announcements that mention the location.
  • Printed material that has been scanned and uploaded as a PDF.
  • Email signatures.

Do the Google listing first

For most Nigerian practices, more patients see the address in Google search results and Maps than ever visit the contact page. Update the Google Business Profile before anything else, and be aware that a change of address can trigger a re-verification, which takes time. Start it early rather than on moving day.

Do not create a new listing. Edit the existing one. A new listing abandons every review you have accumulated, and reviews are hard to rebuild.

Keep the old address working for a while

Patients who saw the old address months ago will still turn up there. Two things help:

  • A short, prominent notice on the homepage and contact page saying when you moved and where you are now. Leave it up for several months, not weeks.
  • A note at the old premises if the landlord permits it, and a redirect on any location-specific page rather than deleting it, so an old link does not land on an error page.

Consistency matters more than format

Search engines match your practice across the web partly by comparing name, address and phone number. If one listing says "No 12 Awolowo Road", another says "12, Awolowo Rd" and a third says "12 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi", that is three slightly different businesses as far as an algorithm is concerned.

Pick one exact format, write it down, and use that string everywhere without variation. Which format you choose matters far less than using it consistently.

Tell patients directly

Everything above is passive. It works on people who come looking. The patients who matter most are the ones on your existing list, and they should hear it from you: a message, an email, a note handed over at the last appointment before the move.

If your practice is planning a move, our local search work covers the listing and directory side, which is the part most likely to be missed.