In preparation for an event that I’m attending this week, I decided to look up how to get to the meeting facility. But no matter how many ways I typed the address into Google Maps, nothing came up. Figuring that I must be typing the address in the wrong format, I did some web searches and found a few companies in the same building. When I copied and pasted their info into the maps page, I got the same result: “Address not found”. Finally, I tried the search with Yahoo Local and managed to locate the building.

Since I needed to travel to this specific building, I had no choice but to commit the time required to deal with their stupid address. But in most cases, prospective customers are easily flustered by this type of obstacle. Being unfindable on popular mapping tools can certainly hurt sales for places like stores and restaurants.

With this in mind, I offer just one tip: when you’re thinking of opening a new location for your business, always make sure the address shows up on the popular mapping websites. Otherwise, you may be setting yourself up for failure when your new location has a weird address that nobody can find. Sure, you can take steps to help them find you or petition the local government to fix broken street names, but wouldn’t it be easier to just avoid these traps in the first place?