- Introduction to Virtual Office Addresses
- Benefits of Having a Virtual Office Address
- Step-by-Step Process to Obtain Your Virtual Office Address
Q. How do I set up a virtual office address?
A. Select a provider and choose your preferred location. Complete any necessary agreements and provide the required documentation. Once set up, you can start using your virtual office address on business documents, websites, and marketing materials.
When the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a shift to remote and hybrid work in 2020, most CEOs initially perceived it as a passing phase. For some, it was an experiment that would end when things got back to normal.
Interestingly, that was not the case.
The pandemic gave many small and medium-sized businesses enough time to realize and acknowledge that they may not need a physical office to operate after all.
For context, as of May 2020, about 49 million U.S. employees were working exclusively remotely. No office days? No problem.
At the time, most businesses were using cloud-based communication platforms to coordinate and collaborate with their teams and also to process customers’ needs.
Some took a hybrid approach: when there’s a need for one-on-one collaborations, the staff pop into the office, do what needs to be done, and head back to remote operations.
Most business owners were happy with this arrangement, and so were their employees. It was more cost-effective for business owners. Moreover, nearly 50 million U.S. employees indicated in a Pew Research survey that working from home greatly improved their work-life balance.
It was a win-win situation for everyone involved, so much so that even in the post-pandemic era, the “experiment” did not stop.
It became part of the normal. Most SMEs with remote-capable operations struck a balance with hybrid work right at the intersection of fully remote work and fully onsite work.
As of 2024, four years since the pandemic, 37.8 million U.S. employees with remote-capable jobs had settled into a hybrid work model. It’s clearly looking like the numbers will continue shoot up, as 90% of employers plan to initiate some sort of hybrid model in the future.
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Introduction to Virtual Office Addresses
With the boom in hybrid work models also came the boom with virtual office addresses.
While businesses were saving a lot by forgoing physical office rentals and the costs associated with managing them, there was also an absolute need to maintain a professional and credible business presence and image.
Virtual office services helped businesses maintain that image while also being instrumental in improving their operational efficiency in many ways.
More interestingly, virtual office addresses also created a level playing field for self-employed professionals, entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and freelancers to boost their professionalism and make them solid competition for well-established businesses.
Today, thousands of small and medium-sized businesses and self-employed individuals are using virtual office addresses to extend their reach and easily coordinate operations around the country.
If you are reading this, you are most likely wondering if a virtual address would do you any good and how you could set one up when needed.
Keep reading for more insights on all that and more!
The Benefits of a Virtual Office Address
There are many benefits to having a virtual office address, especially if you are running a solo, small, or medium-scale operation. However, we’ll compress all that into three broad benefits.
Enhances Business Credibility and Professional Image
Suppose you are looking for an accounting consultancy to help you review your financials and set your records straight. Your team members have a few suggestions, and you are starting to sift through them to pick a suitable one.
However, you found that some of the suggested consultancies within your budget:
- Do not have an address
- Seem to have a residential address
- Are situated in a prestigious business district
Which of them would you go for?
We are no psychics, but we can confidently say that you would most likely place your focus on those who fall in category C.
Suppose there is a need to: How would you send your records to those without an address? You also don’t want a child, a nosy neighbor, or a non-professional handling or going through your records when you send them to a residential address.
These perceptions hold true in similar scenarios across various industries.
Having a business address says that you mean business; you are professional enough to handle all relevant tasks thrown at you.
Even without prior interactions with you, a potential client would immediately rank you as a more credible option among competitors who are lacking in that regard.
The thing is, you don’t have to go through the whole nine yards of renting physical office space to get a business address that bolsters your professionalism and credibility.
A virtual office address does that for you in a heartbeat, at a small fraction of what you would have ordinarily spent.
Cost Savings and Flexibility
Talking about affordability, having a virtual office address is undoubtedly more cost-effective than renting a traditional office space.
Even in states like Nevada, where office spaces are considerably cheaper, you’d still spend about $2,000 per month to rent a small office suitable for 1-4 employees. That amount doesn’t account for property expenses, building services, utilities, and other office infrastructure.
Meanwhile, with renowned virtual office address providers like Alliance Virtual Offices, you could get a New York office address for as low as $46 per month. Bear in mind that affordable office spaces in New York cost upwards of $10,000.
At a glance and further on with in-depth research, you’d find that a virtual office address would save you thousands of dollars annually.
Moreover, a virtual office address offers more flexibility than a traditional office ever will. Physical offices often want to bind you to a 12-month contract, whether that’s suitable for you or not.
On the other hand, you could get a shorter lease contract with Alliance Virtual Offices virtual office address services with add-ons that help you run all your operations efficiently.
Additionally, a virtual office address allows you to scale up or down with additional services on a need basis. Hence, you don’t incur unnecessary expenses for things you don’t need.
Capture Local SEO from Wherever
If there is anything there is to know about local SEO, it is that “near me” searches are gold mines that local businesses can exploit to stay far ahead of their competitors.
For context, as of 2023, 77% of consumers use Google to search for local business information, and there are 1.5 billion “near me” searches per month!
Businesses that benefit the most from these searches are those that maximize their online presence through local SEO. It solidly positions them to significantly direct awareness, sales, and traffic to their business.
With virtual office address services, you can have a business address anywhere in the country. Then, use it to tweak your online presence to capture local consumers, which will make you a formidable competitor for businesses that are actually housed in the locality.
It is even much better when you concentrate your efforts in your locality.
The important thing is that you can now establish an incredible online presence where you need it the most and still be able to address some of the local consumers’ needs from a thousand miles away.
Choosing the Right Virtual Office Address Provider
Just as hybrid and remote work led to the proliferation of virtual office addresses, there was also a commensurate increase in the number of virtual office space providers.
Unsurprisingly, not all of them are up to the task.
Some have provided businesses with addresses that ended up ruining their reputations. Others are simply too inefficient to understand the legalities guiding the provision of virtual office addresses and affiliated services.
Therefore, it is of utmost importance that you do your due diligence when choosing a virtual office address provider.
Below are some key considerations to remember when choosing a provider.
Assess Their Services
For every virtual office address provider under consideration, you should check the following:
- Location options: Some service providers have less than 100 locations, while the more reputable ones have more than 1,000 locations across the U.S. and the globe. The important questions are:
- Do they have locations in your target regions?
- Are the virtual office addresses in business districts that matter in your market?
- Do the providers vet and validate all their addresses?
- Can you use the virtual office address on your website and business cards?
- Can you use it to open a commercial bank account?
These questions should guide you on how to assess locations offered by the provider.
- Additional services: What are the add-ons to the virtual office address services? For instance, some providers end their services at mail receipt. They can help receive and scan your mail to you, but they do not offer mail forwarding or local pickup when you’d rather someone else not handle your confidential mail. To ensure that you are running your operations more efficiently, reputable virtual office address service providers also offer the following:
- Live receptionist services
- At least 8 hours of private meeting room or office access
- Mail forwarding
- On-demand workspaces
- On-demand office amenities
- Lobby receptionists
- 411-listed virtual phone number
You can access these additional services when you need them, allowing you the flexibility to efficiently enhance your operations as needed.
- Pricing: If you are considering getting a virtual office address, you are also probably considering cost savings. Things are a bit tricky when it comes to considering the pricing of a virtual office address provider. Going for the most expensive might not get you all the necessities. Going for the cheapest might not be the wisest business decision you ever made, as they mostly only offer PO boxes and questionable addresses.
To confirm that a provider is offering you a reasonable price, you should evaluate their pricing against the services they provide—use the elements in the considerations above as pointers for your evaluation. Ensure you are not cutting costs to the point of forgoing a vital service.
Go for providers that offer premium services at affordable rates without hidden charges.
Go for a Provider that Addresses Your Specific Needs
Your needs as a small business owner or an entrepreneur would definitely differ from that of a freelancer.
Some providers, like Alliance Virtual Offices, are thorough and comprehensive enough to offer services to clients from all walks of life.
Alliance Virtual Offices is also among the very few providers able to provide credible virtual office addresses that satisfy LLC compliance and requirements across local, state, and federal government levels.
Some other providers have services that target freelancers or clients in specific niches.
If you are keen on getting the most out of your virtual office address provider, you should go for one that can cater to all your needs or, at the very least, personalize their services to better align with your business needs.
Check the provider’s services as well as the conversations you have had with them against the business needs you consider priority. Ask them as many questions as you can to ascertain that they are up to the task.
At the end of it all, confirm that they have an efficient customer support service that will always attend to you. Alliance Virtual Offices assigns a support agent to each client to ensure their needs are always met—even if that means service customizations.
Evaluate Customer Reviews
Both digital and offline marketers would tell you that word-of-mouth and referrals are still some of the most powerful tools for businesses.
They work because, to a great extent, the potential client believes that the person drawing them in does not have a vested interest in the given business. Therefore, whatever they are saying about the business is most likely to be true or, at least, unbiased.
Word-of-mouth could also work in reverse, laying out everything that makes a business the worst to patronize.
In this case, the provider’s customers’ reviews, in a sense, serve as word-of-mouth and referrals.
The provider has done their part by telling you about all they can do for you. It is time to go and learn from the customers what they can actually do and how they treat their customers.
Search for their reviews across reputable platforms like Consumer Affairs and Trust Pilot, where customer reviews are independently validated to eliminate bots and paid reviews.
Things to bear in mind when assessing a provider’s reputation via customer reviews are:
- Is the business truly reliable and professional?
- How do they address the bad reviews? Understandably, businesses will always receive bad reviews from certain customers; what’s important is how the business addresses such reviews.
- Overall, do they have up to 4 stars?
- What percentage of the reviewers gave them 5 stars? 70% is reasonable. Over 80% is perfect.
Lastly, if you know a business owner, a freelancer, or any other entity that is using the provider’s virtual office address services, you could ask them for their review of the provider’s operations.
Setting Up Your Virtual Office Address: A Step-by-Step Guide
As long as you are running a legitimate business, a virtual office address is not the hardest thing to set up.
Let’s take a look at how you can set up your virtual office address and maximize it.
Initial Setup Process
Typically, after you have chosen a provider, you can navigate through their website to pick a virtual office address that is most suitable for you and pay for it.
For example, if you have Alliance Virtual Offices as your virtual office address provider, you will take the following steps:
- Pick your preferred virtual office location through this portal.
- Choose a plan and include the additional services you need. Alliance Virtual Offices plans are:
- Platinum, which is the standard plan. It basically comes with a business address and mail processing services.
- Platinum Plus offers all that Platinum offers, plus access to meeting rooms for up to 16 hours per month. Some locations, as indicated in the location’s terms, may offer fewer hours.
- Input your information to sign up with Alliance Virtual Offices.
- Proceed to checkout and follow the prompts to pay for your virtual office address. Apply a promo code if you have one. You will receive an email confirming that your virtual office address is ready.
- Upload your ID and form 1583 if you have chosen a U.S. virtual office address. This form, issued by the U.S. Postal Service, allows us to manage your mail from the selected address.
You can now proceed to register or change your business address with the state and USPS. You can also update your address where necessary.
Registering Your Virtual Office Address
Typically, all you need to acquire your virtual office address on the Alliance Virtual Offices website are:
- Your first name
- Last name
- Email address (preferably your work email)
- Phone number
- Company name
However, once you have acquired your virtual office address, you need to register it with the state as your business address so that you can use it for all other legal processes. This is especially the case for LLCs.
The process for registering your virtual office address is the same as registering for a physical office address.
The process, however, varies slightly across states. It usually boils down to filling in and submitting your ‘change of business address’ form online or by mail.
For instance, the state of California requires that you fill out the FTB 3533-B form and send it to the Franchise Tax Board, PO Box 942840, Sacramento, CA, 94240-0002.
Meanwhile, if your business is in New York, you can simply head over to the NY Department of Tax and Finance’s website, navigate to “Your Tax Account,” and click on “Update your business or personal address.” From there, you will be directed to fill out the DTF-96 Form online.
Typical information needed for the form includes:
- Your federal tax ID number
- Business name
- Old mailing/business address and old PMB no.
- New business location
- New mailing address and new PMB no.
- Your signature, job title, and telephone number.
How to Integrate New Virtual Office Address into Business Operations
Now that you have your virtual office address, you should proceed to integrate it across all your business operations and relevant customer touchpoints.
This means that you should:
- Update your address in all your marketing materials, both online and offline
- Inform your customers and partners of your new address
- You should update your address on all online platforms
- Include it as part of your Google business profile to capture local SEO.
- Update it on platforms that provide business listings in your niche
- Update it on reputable independent business review platforms.
- Update it to your mailing address so you can start receiving your business mail and letters from your chosen virtual office address.
Generally, you should evaluate your business to determine the touch points where it is crucial for you to insert your business address—and insert it.
Maximizing Your Virtual Office Address
To get the most out of your virtual office address, you should look towards making use of as many of the specialized services that your provider offers. Most of these services are designed to help you achieve the most operational efficiency, while saving costs.
Mail Forwarding
Why stop at using your office address to receive your mail and having it scanned when it can actually be forwarded to you?
Lots of providers limit their mailing services to receiving your mail at your virtual office address, which is then scanned and sent to your email.
Some providers offer mail pickup, cataloging and stacking your mail so that you can come pick it up at your convenience.
Reputable virtual office address providers offer the above options and also include mail forwarding as part of their additional services. This means that your mail gets forwarded to you wherever you are, and third parties don’t tamper with your sensitive mail.
Virtual Phone Numbers
Suppose you picked a virtual office address in another city and have listed it on Google to capture their local SEO. Then, it also makes sense that you should get a 411-listed virtual phone number for that city.
Potential clients might be puzzled and eventually put off if a business that claims to be near them operates with the area code of another city. A virtual phone number will clear that up.
Besides that, your virtual phone number can serve as your dedicated business number—away from your personal line. You can also create extensions for your employees if needed.
Meeting Rooms, Private Office Spaces, and Coworking Spaces
Skip the chaos and informality of cafes, restaurants, and hotel rooms.
Take advantage of the meeting rooms offered by your provider at your virtual business address to treat your clients to proper discourse in a very professional environment.
Well-grounded providers would also offer you access to lobby receptionists to attend to your guests, business center services, and some other resources that would make your private office space and meeting room feel as credible and as professional as possible.
Access to the coworking spaces at the said address also means your employees have somewhere to meet for physical collaborations, and you should take advantage of that, too.
Live Receptionists for Customer Support
For just $125 per month, you can get a professional, certified live receptionist who will work with your script and business phone number to attend to your customers across all your virtual office addresses.
That saves you the cost of hiring and situating a receptionist, relieves you of the burden of handling mundane customer support issues alongside critical business operations, and ensures your customers are properly and professionally attended to at all times.
Set Up Your Virtual Office Address with Alliance Virtual Offices
The business landscapes across industries are increasingly and fiercely competitive, all thanks to technology and ever-changing consumer behavior.
Consequently, it is critically important for businesses to be closer to their target consumers and establish accessible physical touchpoints near them.
Most importantly, and given that most markets are saturated, consumers are also demanding more credibility and professionalism from small and medium-scale business owners, independent contractors, consultancies, entrepreneurs, and freelancers.
Further reading:
- Blueprint to Success: Crafting Your Comprehensive Business Plan
- Virtual Mailing Address for Your Business
- Choosing Your Business Address Wisely: A Comprehensive Comparison of Virtual Office Providers
- Get a Virtual Address for LLC Registration
Fortunately, virtual office addresses are helping these professionals and businesses establish solid footing in their target markets and capture significant chunks of the market size.
At least, that’s the case with businesses and professionals who set up their virtual office addresses with Alliance Virtual Offices. We have our customer reviews to show for it.
For over 16 years, we’ve been in the business of establishing well-vetted virtual office spaces and addresses in prestigious business districts across the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Latin America, and Asia. And for over 16 years, our ratings have remained largely stellar.
Contact us today to set up a virtual office address that will bolster your business operations and keep you in good standing with the federal and state governments, banks, USPS, and regulatory agencies.
