How to Create Bing Local Listing for Local SEO

Looking to learn how to create a Bing Local business listing on Bing Places? Hopefully you’ve already created a Google Business listing at this point. This post covers:

• Where to create a Bing local listing
• Adding Business Info to your Bing Listing
• Images for Bing Business Listings
• Bing Business Listing Verification

Getting started creating a Bing local business listing

Head over to https://www.bingplaces.com/ to get started. After signing up or signing in, you start with a search to find out if your business already exists. Do a search and add your business if no business with your information is found:   Click the “create new business” button to get started adding your business info:

Adding Business Info to your Bing Listing

Now you can get started adding the business info!   As you go, the completion status will update. You want to build out this profile with as much information as possible:   Choose relevant categories next. Add categories that make the most sense for your business and choose the most relevant one as the primary category:   Add contact info and social media channels next:   Click show business hours and add your standard operating hours. Once you fill in the first day, the others will pre-populate with the same hours when you change them from open to closed, saving a bit of time if you have the same hours every or most days. You can also add specific hours for certain days if you like.

Images for Bing Business Listings

Add photos, as many as you can. Also, before uploading the photos, rename the filenames to something with keywords, using hyphens to separate words. An example for Kaizen Inbound would be something like inbound-marketing-charlotte.jpg. Mix it up with different relevant words in file names and mention any other products or services as well. Again, make sure to use the maximum amount of photo slots that are allowed:

Bing Business Listing Verification

After the images, you will get to a screen that allows you to begin the verification process. If this is a new business listing, you will most likely need to verify by post address with the address you provided for the business listing information.

According to Bing:

“Phone verification is currently not being offered in the following cases:

1. Phone number was provided by the user and not existing in Bing already.
2. When address of a verified listing is modified, we need to validate the new address by sending a post card to the new address.”

With phone verification, you can get verified almost instantly with a quick verification code that is sent to your phone. Post address verification will probably take about a week to be delivered to the business location. Be on the lookout for it during this time!