How to list your startup on Bing Places for Business
TL;DR
Bing Places for Business is Microsoft's free tool for adding or claiming a business listing in Bing local search results and Bing Maps. If your company already has a verified Google Business Profile, you can import it in a few clicks and Bing verifies the listing automatically. It suits startups with a real address or a service area.
What is Bing Places for Business?
Bing Places for Business is the dashboard where owners control the local listing Bing shows for their company: name, address, phone, website, hours, category and photos. Microsoft calls it a free Bing service for local, small and chain businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. Bing builds each listing from many data sources, and a claimed, verified listing gives you a say over what searchers see.
Every listing needs a physical address open to customers or a service area where your team visits clients. Bing needs a valid address for verification even when you hide it, and it rejects PO boxes.
The domain authority of 51 belongs to the host domain. Your gain is a correct, verified listing in Bing search and Maps.
Who should submit to Bing Places for Business?
- Startups with an office, shop, studio or clinic that customers visit.
- Service businesses that travel to clients: hide the address and add up to 20 service areas.
- Founders with a Google Business Profile, since the import saves retyping.
- Skip it if your startup is online only with no address to verify: the rules cover storefronts and service areas.
How much does Bing Places for Business cost?
Bing Places for Business is free. Creating an account, adding or claiming a listing, verification, the Google import and up to 100 photos cost nothing. Search ads on Bing are a separate paid product from Microsoft Advertising.
How do you share your startup on Bing Places for Business?
- Go to Bing Places for Business and sign in with a Microsoft account, work account, Google or Facebook account.
- Fast option: choose Import from your Google Business Profile, pick a weekly, biweekly or monthly sync, sign in to Google and import the listings Bing detects. A verified Google profile makes the Bing listing verified automatically.
- Manual option: search for your business by country, name and location. Claim it if it exists, or select Create a new business and fill in the details.
- Verify the listing with a six-digit PIN sent by phone, text, email or postcard. Some methods are not available everywhere, and a postcard takes 5 to 6 days and up to 12 business days.
- Wait for the publish cycle: 7 to 12 days in North America and up to 2 weeks elsewhere. Every edit resets the publish date, so hold back changes until the listing is live.
Tips to get more out of Bing Places for Business
- Copy your name, address and phone exactly from your website and Google profile. Bing checks details against other sources and drops changes that do not match.
- Keep search terms out of the business name. Bing rejects keyword stuffing in names.
- Edit imported listings in Google. Bing blocks direct edits to listings linked to a Google Business Profile, so update Google and let the sync carry the change.
- Log in at least twice a year. Bing can prefer other sources once your Bing Places data is more than 6 months old.
Our verdict
Bing Places for Business takes ten minutes for any startup with a verified Google Business Profile and costs nothing, so it belongs on every local listing checklist. Import, verify, then leave the listing alone until it goes live.
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