Bing Places: The Free Business Listing Most Local Businesses Have Never Touched

Bing Places: The Free Business Listing Most Local Businesses Have Never Touched

You've got your Google Business Profile claimed, your hours updated, maybe a few photos added. Good. But there's another listing sitting unclaimed right now that feeds Microsoft Copilot, Bing Maps, and every Windows PC with Cortana baked in — and it takes about 10 minutes to set up.

Most local businesses have never touched it.

Bing Is Smaller Than Google. It's Still Not Small.

Bing holds roughly 6-8% of US search market share. That sounds modest until you run the numbers. In a market of a few hundred million searches per day, that's tens of millions of daily queries — including local searches like "roof repair near me" and "best restaurant in Clearwater."

And Bing's footprint expanded in 2023 when Microsoft built Copilot on top of it. When someone asks Copilot to recommend a local plumber, electrician, or cleaning company, it pulls from Bing Places data. Same with ChatGPT when it uses Bing for web search. The pool of AI-powered queries that could surface your business has grown significantly — and Bing Places is the source it checks first.

If you're not listed, you don't exist in that ecosystem.

What Bing Places Actually Is

Bing Places for Business is Microsoft's version of Google Business Profile. It's free, it shows your business in Bing Maps and Bing local search results, and it feeds your information into Copilot's local recommendations.

The profile includes:

• Business name, address, phone number
• Category and services
• Hours, including seasonal or holiday hours
• Photos
• Website link

One underrated feature: you can import your Google Business Profile directly into Bing Places. If your GBP is already complete, you can pull that data over in a few clicks instead of filling everything out from scratch. Bing re-syncs with your GBP periodically, which means your listings stay consistent without extra effort.

Why So Many Listings Are Unclaimed

The honest reason is that Google gets the attention and Bing gets skipped. For years, the gap in market share was wide enough that most SEO checklists mentioned Bing Places in passing, if at all.

That's changed. Windows 11 defaults to Bing for search. Microsoft Edge is the second-most-used browser in the US. Copilot is installed on hundreds of millions of Windows devices. Every one of those touchpoints uses Bing Places as its local data source.

The businesses that claimed their Bing listings years ago now have a head start on competitors who are starting from scratch.

How to Claim Yours

Go to bingplaces.com and sign in with a Microsoft account. You can create a free one if you don't have one.

From there, you'll either find your business already in Bing's database (it often auto-generates partial listings from public data) or you'll add it manually. If a listing exists, you claim it and verify ownership. Verification usually happens by phone, SMS, or email.

Once you're in, fill out every field. Bing's local algorithm favors complete profiles the same way Google's does. Category selection matters here too — pick the most specific primary category that describes what you actually do, then add secondary categories for any services you want to show up for.

Upload at least 5-10 photos. Exterior, interior, team, work samples. The same logic applies as on Google: businesses with photos get more clicks than those without.

The Copilot Piece Worth Understanding

When someone opens Copilot and types "who are the best window cleaners in Holiday FL," Copilot pulls from Bing's local index. That includes your Bing Places data and reviews. If your listing is unclaimed or sparse, you're competing against businesses that took 10 minutes to set theirs up properly.

This matters more in niches where trust is high-stakes — contractors, cleaners, healthcare, legal services. Copilot tends to surface businesses with complete profiles, good reviews, and consistent NAP (name, address, phone) data across the web.

Reviews are pulled from Yelp and Tripadvisor on Bing, not from a native review system like Google has. That means your Yelp presence actually matters for Bing visibility. If you've been ignoring Yelp, it's worth making sure your listing there is accurate at minimum.

10 Minutes Well Spent

None of this takes significant time. Claim the listing, import from GBP if you have one, upload photos, fill in your hours, and you're done. You've just expanded your footprint to cover Bing search, Bing Maps, and the Copilot AI ecosystem in one shot.

Most of your competitors in Pinellas and Pasco haven't done it yet.

---

On Point helps local businesses show up where customers are looking — Google, Bing, Apple Maps, AI search, and beyond. If you want a free audit of where your business currently stands across the local search ecosystem, reach out here.

On Point

Web design, SEO & AI chatbots for local businesses in Pinellas & Pasco County, FL.