Every local SEO article eventually tells you to claim your Bing listing, and every business owner reading it thinks the same thing: nobody uses Bing. It is a reasonable reaction. You do not use Bing. Nobody you know uses Bing. The whole thing has the feel of a box that consultants tick so they can say they ticked it.

The reaction is half right, which is why the advice never lands. Bing is undeniably small: TechRT's compilation of the platform's numbers puts it at around 5 percent of the global search market and roughly 7.5 percent in the United States, while still processing over 900 million searches a day and carrying more than 100 million daily active users. Both halves of that are true at once. It is a rounding error next to Google and it is an enormous number of searches, and the honest conclusion is not that Bing deserves your strategy. It deserves twenty minutes. That is the position Optuno takes with clients who ask.

The honest case, both sides of it

Take the argument against first, because it is the stronger one and you have already thought of it.

Bing is a small slice. Google handles roughly nine in ten searches worldwide. If you have one hour to spend on local search this month, spending it on Bing instead of your Google Business Profile would be a mistake, and any consultant who tells you otherwise is padding a deliverable. Nothing you do on Bing will matter as much as your primary category on Google.

Now the case for. A small share of an enormous number is still an enormous number, and 900 million searches a day is not a rounding error to a plumber in one town who needs eleven jobs a week. Bing skews to desktop, where its share is several times its overall figure, and desktop skews toward work hours and considered decisions. Bing is the default in Windows and Edge, which means a lot of people use it without choosing it, and those people still need dentists.

There is a second argument that has grown recently. Bing feeds Microsoft's Copilot, so the data Bing holds about your business increasingly turns up in AI answers rather than only in a blue-link results page.

Put together, the case is modest and real: not a channel, but a cheap piece of hygiene.

What Bing Places gives you

Bing Places is Microsoft's equivalent of a Google Business Profile. You claim your listing, and you control your name, address, phone, hours, categories, description, photos, and website link.

The thing worth knowing before you start, because it saves most of the work: Bing lets you import directly from Google. If your Google Business Profile is in good shape, you can pull it across rather than typing everything twice. This is the single reason the task takes twenty minutes rather than an afternoon, and it is also an argument for doing your Google work first and your Bing work second.

Like every other listing, Bing has probably already generated something for you from third-party data. So you are claiming rather than creating, and the listing that exists may carry details you would not recognise.

What you should not expect is traffic that changes your year. The listing exists so that the people who do use Bing find something accurate rather than something stale, and so that Microsoft's systems have your details right when they answer questions about you.

Setting it up

Go to Bing Places and sign in with a Microsoft account your business controls, not a personal one.

Search for your business. If a listing exists, claim it. If not, add it. Then take the import option if you have a Google Business Profile worth importing, since it carries your details across in one step and gives you something to edit rather than a blank form.

Verify the listing. Bing verifies by phone, email, or post depending on what it can confirm about you, and the phone route is usually the fastest. As with Apple, a wrong number on the listing breaks the phone route before it begins.

Then check what came across. Imports are not perfect. Confirm your hours, your categories, your phone, and your pin, and look at the description, since an import may bring nothing or may bring something you wrote in 2019.

Add photos while you are there. A listing with images looks like a business; a bare listing looks abandoned.

If you would rather see how your listings look across the wider web before you add another one, Optuno's free local SEO report gives you a snapshot of your rankings, listings, and reviews.

Keeping it from going stale

The real risk with Bing is not that it does nothing. It is that you set it up, forget it entirely, and three years later it is showing hours you changed twice since.

A stale listing is worse than no listing, because it actively misinforms the people who find it. If your Bing listing says you close at five and you close at seven, you have used your twenty minutes to build a small machine that turns customers away.

So put it in the same rotation as everything else. When your hours change, change them on Bing. When you move, move on Bing. Twice a year, look at the listing as a customer would and confirm it still says what you would say.

This is the same discipline that keeps every other listing honest, and it is why the citation and listings work covered in Optuno's guide to local SEO tools is worth having a system for rather than doing by memory.

Realistically, if you cannot commit to checking it twice a year, an accurate listing is still better than an unclaimed one, since unclaimed listings drift on their own. Just do not tell yourself it is finished.

Where it sits in the order of things

Here is the priority order, stated plainly, because the point of this article is not to sell you Bing.

Your Google Business Profile comes first, and it is not close. Categories, reviews, hours, photos, and accurate details there will do more for you than everything else on this page combined, which is the work covered in Optuno's guide to Google Business Profile optimization.

Apple Maps comes next for most US businesses, on the strength of iPhone share alone.

Bing comes after both, and it comes cheap because of the import. It is the definition of a task worth doing once, properly, and then leaving alone apart from a twice-yearly glance.

That is the whole recommendation. Twenty minutes, no illusions, and a listing that tells the truth to the people who use Microsoft's products by choice or by default. If you would rather have someone keep every listing accurate without you thinking about it, Optuno's plans cover listings management and local SEO, with no long-term contracts, no setup fees, and a dedicated contact.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bing Places worth it for a small business?
For twenty minutes, yes. Bing is small next to Google, at roughly 5 percent globally and about 7.5 percent in the US, but that still amounts to over 900 million searches a day. Do your Google work first, then claim Bing and leave it alone apart from occasional checks.

Can I import my Google Business Profile into Bing Places?
Yes, and you should. Bing offers a direct import that carries your details across in one step, which is what turns this from an afternoon of typing into a short task. Check what came through afterwards, since imports are not always complete.

How does Bing verify a business listing?
By phone, email, or post, depending on what Bing can confirm about you. Phone is usually the fastest route, which means the number on the listing needs to be right before you start.

Does a Bing listing help my Google rankings?
No. It is a separate platform and it does not influence Google. The reason to do it is that the people who use Bing find accurate information, and that Microsoft's systems, including Copilot, hold correct details about your business.

Is Bing Places free?
Yes. Claiming and managing a Bing Places listing costs nothing, and anyone charging a fee to maintain it is selling you something Microsoft gives away.

What if I set it up and never look at it again?
That is the common outcome and the main risk. A listing showing hours you changed two years ago actively turns customers away, so a twice-yearly check is the minimum that keeps it useful rather than harmful.