Author | Chatmeter TeamDate Posted | December 21, 2018

New and Improved Local Search Marketing Tool; Bing Business Portal

Bing has recently been working on changing the way in which their Business listings are claimed and presented. What was originally the “Local Listing Center” is now being converted to the “Bing Business Portal” (BBP). This is good news for local business owners because Bing is making changes to make listings on their site more efficient for local businesses.

With the New Bing Business Portal companies will be able to:

  • Enhance and Manage your listing: Now Bing allows you to dress up your listing by adding photos, videos, hours of operation, payment types, and more.
  • Add Links to your listing: Any relevant links can be added to your Bing Business Portal such as your business website, Facebook Page, and Twitter.
  • Create Deals and Offers: You can add any deals and promotions to your Bing Business Portal such as coupon offers or rebates.
  • Create Menu linked to your listing: Restaurants and small businesses with different services can now post menus of their foods and different services with price options.

Claim and Verify your Bing Listing

You can also claim you listing in a more efficient way than before. In order to claim a business listing Bing used to send a postcard to the address listed with a code, which allows you to log on, enter, and claim your listing. Now Bing gives you the option to claim via phone. This is done much like claiming a listing on Google. Bing will call the number listed on the site for verification and verbally give an access code that can be entered on the phone keypad. After that it does not take long for Bing to accept the verification and show your claimed listing in searches. This is much quicker than previously done as the postcard took a few days to be received. Now you can claim your listing immediately and at your convenience.

All businesses that were already in the Local Listing Center have been transferred to the Bing Business Portal format. If you are not sure if your business is listed under Bing, or want to claim your listing visit http://www.bing.com/businessportal

It is always a good idea to make sure your listings are claimed across various search engines as it controls the information that comes up in searches about your business as well as makes your listing more trusted to online viewers. Though Google is the widest used search engine, people are increasingly using other outlets to find information so claim your listings anywhere and everywhere that you can to enhance your local search marketing efforts!