Regardless of how large or small your business, your business address can be a help or a hindrance to your business.
Your professional image counts for a lot, especially when you are trying to attract new customers or coax a new B2B partner into trading with you. Having a solid business image can inspire your customers and potential new trading partners to have confidence in your business and your ability to deliver a trustworthy and professional service.
Pretty much 99% of potential new customers or B2B companies will check your business out on the internet before they make contact with you. This means looking at your business website for more information about your company, your products or services, your history, your track record and more.
Should your business website not include a physical business address or the address you use looks a little suspect, such as using a PO Box address or using a residential address (because you are running your business from your home office or spare bedroom) the first impression you make will not be a positive one.
Chances are that anyone checking out your business and seeing that you don't have a solid business address will raise doubts in their mind about your business integrity. This can mean them swiftly moving their search on to one of your competitors with a better profile and more credibility to deal with.
Why do I need a physical Business Address?
No matter whether you are running a business as a sole trader or as a limited company, you will need to supply a business address to HMRC when registering as a sole trader (and Companies House for a limited company). You need to give an address where your statutory mail can be delivered and also be recorded on the Public Register of Companies at Companies House (for a limited company).
Many solo entrepreneurs that are running a single person business operation from home may not actually need to go to the trouble of renting official office space, especially if they don't plan to take on any staff, or if they plan to outsource a lot of their daily tasks to remote freelancers.
It is worth considering what office set-up would suit your business, especially if you work from home or from a workshop or warehouse where there isn't a physical office present.
While running your business from home can really help to keep down your business overheads and help you to keep your business running on a lean infrastructure, there still remains a strong stigma associated with using your own home address for your business.
If you are providing services to other registered limited companies or larger corporations, many of these organisations will not even consider dealing with you based on the fact that you are operating from a residential address. Most will not even agree to a contract with anyone that isn't registered as a limited company. This isn't good news for sole traders, even if they are highly skilled individuals that would be perfectly capable of doing the job on their own without breaking a sweat.
How a professional business address can build trust and confidence
Having a professional physical address for your business can help to build confidence in your customer base. They will see that you have a real-life physical address that you are operating through and that you are not some fly-by-night operation that simply sets up a website to scam as many people out of money as they can before being discovered and then flee with all the money.
Potential new customers need to know that your business has a solid base and will be discouraged from buying from you if you cannot provide a legitimate contact address. No matter whether you operate a service-based business or you operate in the virtual world, being able to legitimise your business with a professional business address where your customers can contact you, will help to instil trust and confidence in your business.
Having a professional business address for your company will help to build trust and credibility, especially if your aim is to deal with other companies on a B2B platform.
Search Engine Optimisation advantages
We all know how competitive the business world is. We have to fight for elbow room in our niche sector and use all the tools we can to climb the SEO ladder to get our business to the top of the search engine rankings.
Should your business website have no business address listed, then you will have no chance of being discovered by any of the major search engines. This is even more relevant if your business operates on a local community level where your main customers are right on your own doorstep.
Let's say that you live in Gloucestershire and offer a local gardening and DIY service for your local region or county. Should anyone wanting help from a locally-based gardener search Google for 'Gardening services, Gloucestershire', the chances are that without a proper business address your gardening services will not appear at the top of the search results, or even appear on the first page.
What is also important to remember is that without a proper business address, your business will not show up on Google Maps. Lots of potential customers like to have a visual representation of where their local business search results are. If you don't have a pin in the map, your business will be invisible in the search results.
Your family privacy and safety
While it may seem like a very convenient option to simply use your home address for your business, especially if you are running it from home anyway, don't forget that taking this option can come loaded with lots of negative consequences.
Listing your home address online via your business website and your social media pages doesn't look very professional for one thing, but you may also be breaking your tenancy agreement if you rent your home and your landlord doesn't allow their tenants to list the property address for business purposes.
Many landlords will have to take out professional landlord insurance and quite often part of the agreement for cover is that the tenant isn't allowed to carry out any business on the property. Doing so regardless can mean any insurance claims the landlord may need to take for accidental damage can be invalidated.
This is one reason why having a separate address for your business can help to separate your business from your home address.
If you live with your family, then you also have to take into consideration the privacy and personal security of your family members as well as your own. Listing your home address as your business address will mean that you are opening up your home to being inundated with cold callers, phone calls and junk mail.
Would your partner appreciate the fact that strangers can turn up at your door at all times of the day, especially if you are home with young children? Not only is the intrusion into their personal life very disrupting, but it could be putting their safety at risk too from disgruntled customers or even rival business owners that resent your presence.
Are these risks worth taking when for just a few pounds per month you can avoid all of these privacy and safety issues by using professional business address service options such as those provided by Capital Offices in London.
What is a Business Address Service Provider?
When you use a professional business address service provider such as Capital Office, London, it means that you can get a very smart London-based business address for your company. Your business address sits at the heart of London's business district so you will be able to get instant credibility for your business by carrying an EC1 address on all of your business documentation and websites.
No matter if you are a single sole trader or have formed your own limited company, you can get a London-based business address no matter where you operate your business from.
What this also means is that you can benefit from having a central-London business address without paying the price tag that accompanies renting such prestigious properties.
Here is what your London business address will look like:
Your business or personal name,
Kemp House,
152 – 160 City Road,
London, EC1V 2NX
How do business address services work?
Once you have set up your business address service with us, depending on the address package you have chosen, you can benefit from our virtual mail forwarding address and have all of your business letters and parcels delivered to our offices in London.
You can then instruct us about how you would like us to handle your business post. You can choose for us to open and scan your mail so that you can read it online, or you can have us collect your mail together and then post it on to you to an address of your choosing at a frequency that suits you. This includes packages and parcels and also global addresses. Our mail handling services are trusted by thousands of business owners.
If you are in London or visit the city on a regular basis, you can even call into our offices in person to collect your business mail. We offer a flexible service that suits your needs. Your new business address can be activated instantly, which means that you can start to use it right away on your business documents and you can add it to your business website so that you can get your website ranked on all of the major search engines.
What about meeting my clients in person?
You may be worried about meeting with your customers, clients or potential business partners for important meetings or updates. Instead of having to invite them to meet at your home or in a noisy coffee shop somewhere, you can instead get free use of one of our professional unbranded meeting rooms at our central-London offices with our annual mail forwarding address package option.
We offer our executive meeting rooms for hire to our customers should you need to meet clients on a regular basis, but with our premium 12-month mail forwarding address service, you can benefit from 4 hours of free use of our professional meeting room throughout your contract.
By inviting your business clients to your 'place of work' in central-London with a professional atmosphere, you will be able to add even more credibility to your business.
London Office Address & Mail Forwarding Overview
Here is a brief overview of our business address and mail forwarding service. For more information and benefits see our service breakdown page.
- Forward, scan or collect post
- Free Meeting Room Use
- Global mail forwarding service
- Instant Account Activation
- Packets & Parcels signed for
- Prestigious EC1 Address
- Secure & Confidential
- Secure Payments
- Under 60 Second Sign up
- Unlimited Letters Included
So you can see that by using the professional business address and mail forwarding services provided by Capital Office, London, you will be boosting your company image and credibility so that your potential new clients, customers and B2B business partners will take your business seriously.
