Your customers are online – are you?
We know time is in short supply when you are busy running your business. That’s why at Bing we are always looking for ways to simplify your experience of getting your business online and managing your business reputation on the web. The launch of Bing Places for business is the first of many steps in our effort to provide you with all the tools you need to easily and quickly find local customers online.
Whether you are new to Bing Places for Business or if you had already claimed your listing on BBP, please review the scenarios below for applicability to your business.
1.) If you’re new to Bing Places for Business, e.g. your business was never claimed, go and claim your listing now.
2.) If you already have a business listing verified, rest assured that your data will be migrated from Bing Business Portal to the new web experience under Bing Places for Business over the next 3-4 days.
a. Note: where you used to have to email in a spreadsheet for bulk uploads, you will now be able to perform that upload through the web interface.
3.) If you had a listing under Bing Business Portal, but never completed the verification process, you will need to do so before your listing will appear to potential customers.
4.) Finally, remember customers have a lot of options when searching online. Put your best foot forward by uploading detailed information about your business e.g. days and hours of operation, payments accepted, parking information and pictures to engage those customers.
Just use the same username/password to access your existing information at http://bing.com/places.
Also as part of our drive to simplify the experience we are retiring a few business promotion and management services that were being previously offered. Starting today we will no longer provide the option of creating deals, coupons, QR codes and mobile sites as well as removing the ability to create and print collateral for your business.
Finally, as we said at the outset – this is only the first step. Our goal is to make it easier to claim, enhance and promote businesses on Bing.
Stay tuned for exciting updates in the coming months.
- Ginny Sandhu, Senior Product Manager, Bing