Put the unit number in every address, move the map pin to your actual door, and add a photograph from the parking lot and one sentence of landmarks that lead to the entrance.

Found the centre, lost the shop

A customer looks up your business on their phone, taps for directions and arrives at the right shopping centre. Then they stop.

The address on your listing is the centre's street number, and the pin sits in the middle of the front parking lot. Your unit faces the back lane, sits upstairs or opens onto an inside corridor.

So they circle. Some phone to ask where you are. Some walk the length of the building twice and leave.

Nobody counts the ones who left. They show up only as a quiet afternoon.

What a first-time visitor needs to know

The last is the one that catches restaurants and clinics open into the evening. A mall that locks its main doors at six leaves evening customers pulling at locked doors unless the website names the one that stays open.

The address line

Google My Business has room for a unit number on its own address line. Use it, and write the number exactly as the centre does: Unit 112, Suite 205 or #3.

The Canadian habit of writing the unit before the street number with a hyphen, as in 112-15355, is correct, but some booking, delivery and map systems built for American addresses misread it. A separate unit line avoids the problem.

Then use the same form everywhere: the website footer, the contact page, invoices, email signatures and every directory listing.

Where the pin sits

Turn-by-turn directions end at the pin, not at the address. When the pin marks the centre's main sign, every driver is delivered to the wrong side of the building.

Google My Business lets the owner drag the pin to the right spot when editing the address. Put it on your door, not the middle of the roof.

For a unit inside an enclosed mall, place it at the entrance nearest to you, which is where you want people to park.

Photographs taken from the parking lot

Most listings carry photographs of the food, the products or the team. Very few show what a driver actually sees on arrival.

Take one from where people park, showing your storefront, your sign and the shops on either side. Add one of the corridor or stairway if your door cannot be seen from outside.

Upload them as exterior photographs on the listing, and use them on the website's contact page.

Street View may not help here, since it is mostly taken from public roads and seldom shows the back lot or the inside of a building.

A worked example

A poke shop opened last autumn in a corner unit at the back of a strip centre in a suburb, facing the rear parking lot, between a nail salon and a tax office.

The centre's sign on the main road listed the grocery store and the pharmacy. The listing showed the centre's street address with no unit, and the pin sat beside the grocery entrance at the front.

Lunch customers who had ordered by phone walked the front of the plaza looking for it. Staff took several calls a day from people standing in the wrong parking lot.

The fix took an afternoon: the unit on its own address line, the pin moved to the back door, a photograph of the storefront from the rear lot, and one line on the website, the menu and every pickup confirmation.

The line read: drive past the pharmacy and round to the back lot, next to the nail salon.

Landmarks rather than compass points

Directions that say the north side of the building are accurate and nearly useless. Few people know which way north is in a parking lot.

Name things they can see: the anchor store, the bank machine, the fountain, the escalator, the coloured awning. Say left and right from the way they arrive.

Then ask a friend who has never visited to use your directions and tell you where they hesitated. That is where the next sentence belongs.

Parking and the right entrance

Large centres have several lots, sometimes on different levels, and each leads to a different entrance. Name the lot and the door nearest to you.

If parking is paid, timed or validated, say so before people arrive, along with where to have a ticket stamped.

Mention the entrance without steps if there is one. People who need it plan the whole visit around that detail.

A finding-us section on the website

The contact page should answer every question in the list above, in that order, under a plain heading.

A map embedded on the page should show the pin on your door, not on the centre's address. A sentence of directions from the main road, two photographs and the parking note complete it.

Put the same one-line version in booking confirmations and order receipts, where people read it on the way over.

Every other place the address appears

Your address also lives in Bing Places, in Apple Maps Connect, on the Facebook page and in each directory that lists you. Each keeps its own copy, so check every one for the unit number.

The unit matters for mail as well. Without it, a verification postcard from Google can end up at the centre's management office or come back undelivered.

The counter-case

Some businesses in centres are easy to find. A unit facing the main road with its own sign, in a single row of shops, needs little more than a correct address.

A business whose customers are mostly regulars, or who never visit at all, loses less to a missing unit number.

Even then, adding the unit and checking the pin takes ten minutes and costs nothing.

For everyone else the advice stands: the unit number everywhere, the pin on the door, and a photograph and a landmark sentence that take people from the car to the counter.

Follow your own directions

  1. Look up your own listing on a phone.
  2. Tap directions and see where they end.
  3. Add the unit on its own address line.
  4. Drag the pin to your actual door.
  5. Photograph the storefront from the parking lot.
  6. Write one line naming landmarks and the lot.
  7. Match the address on every other listing.

Step two is the one few owners ever try. Following your own directions from the road shows the problem in a way no setting on the listing can.

Getting the listing verified in the first place is covered in a listing verified by postcard that never arrived.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the unit number go on Google?

On its own address line in Google My Business, written the way the centre's signs show it, such as Unit 112. Use the same form on every listing.

Why do directions take people to the wrong door?

Directions end at the map pin, not the address. If the pin marks the centre's main sign, drivers arrive on the wrong side of the building.

Can I move the pin myself?

Yes. When editing the address in Google My Business, the owner can drag the pin to the right spot. Put it on your door or the nearest entrance.

Which photographs help people find us?

One taken from where people park, showing your storefront, sign and neighbours, and one of the corridor or stairway if the door cannot be seen from outside.

What should the directions say?

Landmarks people can see, such as an anchor store or a bank, left and right from the way they arrive, and which lot and door to use.

Where else should I check the address?

Each map and directory keeps its own copy: Bing Places, Apple Maps Connect, Facebook and the rest. Check every one for the unit number, written the same way.

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.

Customers phoning from the parking lot?

Send us your listing and address. We will fix the unit, the pin and the directions on your site.

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