What is a business address? A business address is the place where someone makes a business call while in touch with someone else. A business address is a part of the company’s network, which may or may not be located within its headquarters.
For example, if the company has a customer who is a sales person then it is likely that the business address is at the address of the person who makes the call.
While some would like the idea of protecting their identity, it’s important for most types of business to have a public mailing address established.
Types of mailing addresses may include:
- Sole proprietor addresses: This could be a home address, mailbox address, or even a virtual office.
- Registered office addresss: A virtual office or physical office address.
- SAIL addresses: This means “single alternative inspection location address”. This is for businesses where management is scattered around multiple locations, even internationally.
- Shipping addresses: This sometimes can just be a PO box, depending in the scale of your shipping needs.
The main issue at hand is whether you want to publish any forementioned addresses for the general public to see. A few reasons may include:
Your SEO presence
Google adds legitimate businesses to search results and maps to help customers find what they’re after. If your business is reliant on foot traffic or some sort of physical discovery, you would need to have it crawlable by search engine bots.
In addition, having your business address displayed publicly will show that you are serious about being available to the general public (or other business entities in the case of being a b2b startup).
Separating personal and professional presence
If you don’t want public records to default to your residential address, it’s a good idea to have some point of reference for customers to contact you without exposing sensitive details.
Having a place to meet
Even with remote work being a trend, the original purpose of having a physical space is to have people meet up and share ideas. This can be both a place for customers to consult with your or to reunite with employees to ensure eveyone is on-task.
Wrapping Up
There are a variety of reasons to have a legitimate business address in place to help your startup succeed. If anything, you can just register a private mailbox to make sure mail is going somewhere and to keep cyberstalkers off your back.