How Bing Places for Business Lets You Attract More Customers
Introduction
Small businesses can gain many benefits by creating their listing on Bing Places. This free service increases your exposure in Bing searches, resulting in more customers able to find your business through organic search. As Bing business listings are search-optimized, you’ll rank higher in Bing searches, reaching a wider variety of audiences. Lastly, a thorough and correct listing will help spread the word further about what your business offers.
Listing your business with Bing Places gives you the opportunity to connect to audiences who might use Bing as their primary search engine, besides those who use Bing as a secondary search engine. If you need more reason to list with Bing Places, consider that Bing is the second most-used search platform worldwide, with most Bing users (85%) based in the US. Nearly half of this demographic use Bing alone or jointly with Google. The average household income of Bing users is over $100k, who spend up to 35% more than Google shoppers. Bing PPC ads cost is approximately 30% lower than Google’s paid ads, while the average customer acquisition cost of Bing Shopping is around 40% lower than Google Shopping.
For local search rankings, you can also integrate Bing Places with Bing Ads to increase your brand recognition further. Even without Bing ads, you’ll rank higher in organic searches, exposing you to people who might not be Google users. Bing Places for Business is a simple, cost-free method for attracting additional customers through their Bing.com search results, Bing Maps’ search results, and customer reviews.
Setting Up Bing Places
When you set up a listing on Bing Places for Business, you can be more visible in Bing online searches. Not unlike Google Business pages, Bing Places for Business lets you manage your listings. It also allows generation and management of client reviews and comments.
To increase your prospects for Bing’s search rankings, make sure your site is optimized for Bing searches before creating your listing. That is to say, your web content must be high-quality and include keywords that searchers are apt to use while searching Bing for businesses in your industry. After creating optimized content and keywords on your site, use the Bing Webmaster Tools website to submit your home page URL to Bing for indexing. Then you’re ready to begin creating your Bing business listing.
1. Log in to your Microsoft Account
To get started with Bing Places, just go to bingplaces.com and either log in with your Microsoft account or sign up for a new account using an email address or phone number. The prompts will show you the steps in completing and verifying your new business profile.
2. Claim or Set Up Your Listing
Bing Places offers two ways for a single-location business to acquire a listing. The business can add or claim its listing manually, or import its information from its listing on Google My Business. Remember that Bing Places requires a separate process for companies with over 10 locations, so make sure you’ve chosen the right business size option.
Next, select the most appropriate business type describing your business. There’s a choice for small enterprises having no physical address, which is also suitable for local entrepreneurs without a physical place for clients to visit them.
Before adding a listing, verify there’s not already one you need to claim. You can search by your company’s phone number or its name with a ZIP code. If it’s already listed, your business will appear on the map. If your business isn’t in this search, you need to add a new listing.
When manually adding your business, complete the fields with your company data. Make sure to enter the identical address and contact information you’ve placed in other online business directories. If your business already has a Google Business Profile, which is ideal if you have one as well, it’s easy to transfer your listing data from there into Bing Places. In choosing this method, you follow the simple steps to log into Google and accept Bing’s access to your Google Business information.
For a business name having over 10 locations, there’s a different process for adding listings. Enter your business chain’s name, its website, and number of chains. You can add your company information on the following screen to confirm its locations.
3. Specify a Category and Description
In this step, you’ll specify your type of business. If unsure, you can pick the last choice from the business segment list and enter in your category. Next, include your address or hide the address if you don’t want to show a physical location. Continue going through prompts for adding your email address, social links, your business directory links (such as Yelp), and up to 100 photos for featuring on your listing.
4. Finalize By Business Confirmation
Once you hit “Submit,” you’ll be prompted to business confirmation. If your business phone is the same as the one you registered, and Bing can verify it on their end, you’ll be able to claim your listing through phone or text message.
However, if you have a new business or it’s not yet registered as a business line, you might need to do the verification by mail, which can take up to seven days. After your business has been verified, it could take an additional one to two weeks for your listing to show in Bing searches.
Tools to Manage Your Bing Business Listing
By adding your business to multiple online directories, such as Bing, Google, and Yelp, you can effectively boost your search rankings. This way also allows prospective and present customers another method for discovering and engaging with you. But managing your listings in multiple directories can be labor-intensive and time-consuming.
The following tools are ideal for time-saving management of your online business listings, including those on Bing.
BrightLocal — With BrightLocal, you can track and oversee your listings and mentions on thousands of sites for a $29 monthly subscription.
Hibu — The Hibu marketing pros do your Bing setup and administration for you, as well as optimize your business listing, assist you in gaining more positive customer reviews, and oversee your reputation online. Their services start at $300 monthly.
Podium — As your company’s positive reviews increase in your listings, your rankings and customer interest will likely grow simultaneously. With Podium, you can generate more online reviews for your Bing, Google, and Yelp business listings to promote your business.
Semrush — With Semrush, you can optimize keyword descriptions of your business listings on Bing and other platforms, in your product and service listing, in your “about” details, and for your images. Having proper keywords will increase your odds of being discovered online.
Conclusion
Make your brand more visible through Bing Places for Business, allowing you to reach over a billion monthly viewers for increasing your revenue. As with a Google My Business listing, Bing Places can assist locals to find your listing online, creating more awareness and in-person profits while boosting web traffic. This free and simple-to-use tool can empower your business, giving you a 360-win, with nothing to lose.