See How to Claim & Optimize Bing for Business Directory Listings for Local SEO in its original habitat on The Greensboro SEO Pro Official Site or read the entire post below
Bing Places is one of the top 10 most important citation sources for Local SEO. It is the Bing version of Google My Business.
- Whitespark puts them number five on their list of citation sources for the US.
- They are one of Moz Local's Direct Network partners.
- We put them at number seven on our list of best local citation sources.
Finding Listings
Go to Bing.com/maps. Search your business name. If you're listed, Bing will try to autocomplete the search. If you have duplicates or other brands with similar names, you'll see multiple options. A knowledge panel will come up once you complete the search or choose one of the autocomplete options. Click the "Share" button to get a URL you can save for your records. Their shortened links come out like: https://binged.it/2QGlIKT Their full URLs come out like: https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=15b69d6c-99ef-4667-91c7-144def15dc1e&cp=36.055318~-79.839285&lvl=16&imgid=8ea09960-8946-42e7-b042-a4dd88f95f23&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027 They carries a lot of unneeded info like zoom level and other rubbish. You can reduce it down to: https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=66f2685c-4e16-4bd3-a022-dc8b6370e92f When recording profile URLs, we prefer this version... for now. Our preferred version used to look like: https://www.bing.com/local/details.aspx?lid=YN873x13802778289626544111 Now, the content at that URL looks anemic. Depending on your competition level, this may not matter to you. It may be enough to find your business, claim, optimize, and move on. But if you're looking to drive links to your Bing listing, you'll need a URL that sticks. We aren't sure whether their binged.it links are permanent or not. They are generated when you click the share link. Multiple short links can point to the same business. Short links can also include multiple listings. We know that some last for years; we can't vouch for them all though. In any case, we can worry about collecting citations links later. If you've found your business on Bing, it's time to claim it. If not, it's time to create it.Manually Claim Listings
Taking ownership of your business listings offers several advantages. But it can be a tedious process. Generally, top-tier platforms like Bing are the most annoying. This is especially true if you've changed names, numbers, and/or locations often. Depending on your goals, automated solutions like Yext may be tempting. However: We have seen Yext fail to suppress duplicates on multiple occasions. Given Bing's spot as one of the top search engines, it's crucial that your presence there is 100% accurate. So take control of all profiles. This may be easier if you don't have any yet.Create New
Didn't find your business on Bing? In our experience, if autocomplete doesn't reveal your business, Bing doesn't have it listed. That's okay though. Bing makes it fairly easy to create a new business profile. Their local business platform is called Bing Places. Get started at Bingplaces.com. Click the "New User" button. This will begin a profile creation wizard. You can either sync your profile with your Google My Business listing or create it from scratch. If your business's Google My Business profile is already optimized, you can import your info. It will be pre-fill your business info and verify it automatically. There is probably nothing wrong with this option. Still, we choose the manual path. In our estimation, verifying directly with Bing sounds more future proof. Moreover, we opt for postcard verification over phone verification. Once verified, proceed to the Edit business menu screen. Optimize everything.- Basic Info
- Category Information
- Additional Business Details
- Contact Details
- Photos of Your Business
- Working Hours
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