6 Ways To Improve Bing Places for Your Small Business

Improving visibility in one’s local area is more crucial than ever. Around 90% of consumers have used the internet to find a nearby business in the past year, so having a strong online presence in local search results is essential.

However, entrepreneurs tend to obsess over their positions in Google’s search results. Even though Google My Business receives much more monthly searches, Bing Places should not be ignored.

Consider that although Bing doesn’t have the most significant chunk, 9% of search volume can generate a large number of possible business referrals. Moreover, Bing is preinstalled on all Microsoft devices, so it’s likely that a lot of people use it as their primary search engine.

In this article, we’ll share a few basic tips to improve Bing Places listings and learn how to reach the audience you might be passing up.

1. Get Your Business Listed on Bing Places

You may already have a company listing on Bing even though you’ve never used the search engine before. If that’s the case, you’re free to claim the listing and make any changes you see fit. So, you might be asking: “How do I add a location to Bing Maps?” You just need to follow these steps:

1. Get on Bing and do a search for your company’s name. If there is a matching result, it will be displayed on the right-hand area of the search results page.

2. To claim this business listing as your own and make changes, click the “Manage this business” button.

3. Following this, you will be shown the most reliable methods of proving your ownership of the company you’re claiming.

If the company you’re looking for doesn’t currently have a listing, you can easily create one by making an account. There’s no need to worry if you aren’t the official proprietor of the business. You just need to be an authorized representative.

2. Provide Crucial Details Regarding Your Business

It’s important to fill out all sections of your profile if you want to be seen by prospective customers. When creating your business profile on Bing Places, you can choose to forgo some steps. If you have done this, remember to update it with your company’s information at a later time. Here are the crucial steps for updating your Bing profile:

Your business’s primary contact details should be shown consistently across all key platforms, including Bing Places. A company’s NAP details, which stands for name, address, and phone number, as well as its web address, are the bare minimum for contact information.

Including all relevant details about your company helps you present it in the best light. Include images of your business and its offerings, as well as its operating hours, services, and contact information.

Since algorithm updates are expected of search engines, the safest bet is to provide as much high-quality, relevant content as you can. After you have claimed your Bing Places listing and set it up, you will see an “Advanced Information” section. Links to your additional social media profiles, such as LinkedIn and Instagram, can be added here. You can also indicate that these platforms are “not relevant” to your business if you do not use them.

3. Include Updated Photos

Are you aware that Bing Places relies more heavily on photos compared to Google My Business? Just try looking up the same local business using Google and then switching to Bing to see the difference for yourself. When searching for a company, you may have noticed that Bing provides a more extensive collection of images. Bing allows users to upload up to 100 photos but including a minimum of 10 high-quality ones is crucial.

Bing suggests having at least two images of the exterior, as well as photos of the inside, individual services, awards, and events. Make sure to give your images appropriate names for search engine optimization using relevant keywords. Various keyword research tools can help you find these terms to use. You can then upload these photos to your small business Bing Places profile.

Your Bing Places listing’s image management shouldn’t be a one-time thing after you’ve initially set it up. Always keep adding new pictures and removing old ones as the year progresses. When updating your photos, follow the same rules:

• If you have relocated, remodeled, or redecorated your building, be sure to update the interior and exterior photos.
• Add pictures of any new products or services.
• Include photos from any events you’ve attended or awards you’ve won.

Think about making this a regular thing you do once a month, three times a year, or annually. If you change offers every month, you should check your images to determine if something needs to be updated.

4. Offer a Special Discount or Deal

Listings that include discounts or deals (which we will refer to as “offers”) tend to attract more buyers. Offers for discounted or free products and services can be posted on your company’s Bing Places profile. These typically last for 90 days.

Add your best deals on a monthly or quarterly schedule, depending on how long they last. Free and discount offers are two of the offer types that can be added. As soon as you select a type, you’ll be guided through several steps that allow you to customize your offer. Your options will vary, but we will explain the general process below:

1. Log in to your Bing Places profile and go to the listing dashboard.

2. Choose “Add deal or discount” under “Offers.”

3. Pick “Free” or “Discount” from the “Type of deal” drop-down menu. Fill out any required fields that appear (if applicable). Once you’re ready to proceed, click the “Next” button.

4. When you’ve finished adding conditions, hit “Next” to move on.

5. Make any necessary revisions to your offer on the last screen. Indicate how long the offer will last (up to 90 days) and include a link to the landing page if it has one. The title, discount code, and availability (in-store vs. online) of the offer can all be customized as needed. To make your changes public, click the “Save” button.

5. Read Feedback and Address Every Review

Feedback from customers is crucial for any company, as it helps establish its reliability and standing in the market. But how do you get reviews on Bing? Since Bing does not provide its own review tool, it pulls reviews from third-party sites like Facebook, Yelp!, and TripAdvisor to help users make decisions. This is why it’s crucial to manage your online reputation and address all reviews, positive and negative, immediately.

Keep an eye on the feedback you’ve been given as often as you can and respond as needed. If you need to respond to criticism, we recommend doing it diplomatically. While it is your prerogative to pick and choose your audience and turn away troublesome customers, remember that losing your cool in the face of criticism might have a negative impact on your business’s reputation.

Additionally, do your best to address the reviewer’s concern. Engaging in an online argument can harm your image but disregarding negative feedback can be just as damaging. Making an effort to reach a mutually beneficial resolution demonstrates your commitment to satisfying the demands of your clientele and may even result in the removal of a negative review.

6. Perform Regular Audits of Your Listing

Most people believe that local search engine optimization listing management, such as Bing Places and Google My Business, is a one-and-done task. Create a mechanism to regularly analyze local SEO channels to ensure you aren’t overlooking any of these vital components of your strategy. To facilitate this, you may create a checklist for auditing and set up calendar reminders.

Some items to include on your checklist are:

• Do all my listings across different platforms have the same, up-to-date information?

• Do I have updated, high-quality photos?

• When Since I last updated my listing, have any new options become available?

• Am I making the most of the suggestions made on this blog to improve my listing?

Wrapping Up

There aren’t many hurdles to getting started with Bing Places, making it a valuable tool for local SEO. Although it’s easy to look at market share and conclude that Google is unbeatable, Bing still processes millions of daily search queries and accommodates search users on a variety of devices, which might translate to customers for your company.