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Why You Need A Virtual Company Address?

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Do you need a virtual office address for your business? A virtual office address, sometimes called a virtual office, business address, company address or similar.

...and is an online presence that allows you to create a professional image without having to pay for a premises. It’s also a great way to save money by avoiding overhead costs like rent, utilities, and insurance.

If you’re running a business from your home, a virtual address can be a valuable tool in helping to promote your business. To help, we've listed below five points to consider when thinking of having a virtual address.

Create the Right Impression

A virtual Address - the best decision for your WFH businessIf you’re looking to make a right impression, then you should consider using a virtual address for your business. Having an actual commercial address (not your home – see below – and not a PO BOX) will help build credibility and establish you as a legitimate business owner.

Having a virtual address means you can use a professional, commercial address on your business cards, website or any marketing material helps create the right impression.

In addition to creating the right impression, a commercial address is particularly important when it comes to customers and potential customers going online to find your business…

Your Online Presence

It’s no surprise to say that more and more consumers use online to search for products, services & business. A June 2022 report from Ofcom shows that 94% of households have access to the internet and 88% of adults use their smartphones to access the internert1 making it increasingly important that your business has the right online presence.

Online, a virtual address becomes a hugely powerful marketing tool for your business. Instead of your address being a series of numbers, street name & postcode on a leaflet, business card or even a printed directory, it can be viewed, visualised, even visited virtually. People can, rightly or wrongly, form an opinion of a business or service based upon where it is based and what it looks like. That is not to say that your home address cannot or should not be used, but the question might be, does my home or a home address reflect my business, what it does and the image I want to create?

Plus, one of the big draw backs of using your home address is, exactly that, it is your home address…

Privacy/Protect Your Home Address

There is a substantial number of online business directories. Some good, some bad, but all will have data and more than likely data on your business. In a world of SEO, they are an effective tool for businesses, but this also means there is a lot of unregulated information about your business in the public domain. For example, Paramount Digital currently list over 100 online business directories in the UK they have identified to help with their clients SEO2 and that is just the ones they CHOOSE to use!

100 online business directoriesSome of the information on these listings are created by the business owner, some are paid-for listings, but the majority will be free, unregulated directories that will pull, scrape & copy information about businesses to build their database. This means, that if you choose to use your home address for your business, these databases will be sharing your home address to anyone and everyone.

Understandably, that is a situation that might not appeal to you – it could be simple privacy, security or a number of other reasons including you simply want to create a divide between work and home. A virtual address enables you to continue to run your business from your kitchen table, spare room, garage or shed without the need to reveal your home address to potential clients, service providers, customers, or anyone else.

Save Money

Running a business from home offers a number of benefits and high on that list will be the cost savings. If you don’t need an office, workshop, studio, retail space, then why pay for it. Add in the often-hidden costs of heating, lighting, security, maintenance, waste/recycling and other services, and the savings can be huge.

As we’ve seen above a virtual address adds value to a work-from-home business. A virtual address enables you to continue with a home run business whilst tapping into the benefits of having a commercial, professional address.

It should be no surprise that a virtual address is a very low-cost service and much cheaper thanSave money with a virtual address renting/occupying a physical space. Prices will vary but most will cost around a £-a-day or somewhere close to that. The key with a virtual address is to understand what is offered, what benefits you get and look out for any ‘extra’ or hidden costs.

Whilst price is important – especially as your home address has zero cost to use - deciding where to have your virtual address based may be based upon the benefits you get.

 Access to Support

Most virtual address services will be part of a bigger picture and therefore should be able to offer you additional benefits and support. Perhaps it’s a serviced office provider like here at Workspace or, Allia Future Business Centre, Eco-Innovation Centre, Brightfield Business Hub, or it’s simply virtual address, almost PO BOX like service. In all cases check to see what else they offer. Do you get access to the other services just like the ‘physical’ tenants, do they offer additional services, events, business support that suit your needs? Do you get access to any tenant groups and forums like physical tenants do?

So, what to do if you want a virtual address for your business.

Understanding what a virtual address is the first step to deciding whether it is right for you. If after reading our 5 key points you want to find out more about virtual address services, or perhaps we haven’t answered a specific question you have, get in touch with us and we’ll do our best to help. The easiest way to contact us is visit our virtual address page where you can email us. You can call us on 01733 390707, or we love having visitors at Workspace so you can book an appointment and come and see how virtual addresses for businesses work at Workspace House.

 

Sources and further reading:

1 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/238361/online-nation-2022-report.pdf

2 https://paramountdigital.co.uk/seo-agency/uk-business-directories/

Further reading: https://www.gov.uk/set-up-business