The new Bing Places for car dealerships could be exactly what you need to bring more customers to your door. This dashboard makes a lot of sense.
Bing just rolled out a revamped Places dashboard, and they’re testing new product boxes in search results. Most dealers ignore Bing because they’re focused on Google, but that’s a mistake. Bing powers a chunk of search traffic, especially from older, higher-income buyers who use Windows computers and haven’t switched their default browser. The new Places features make it easier to manage your dealership listings and could boost your visibility when people search for cars in your area. If you’re only optimizing for Google My Business, you’re leaving money on the table.
Dealership search visibility is key in automotive marketing
Are all of your customers able to find your dealership with a simple online search? If all of your energy is focused on Google, you’re leaving out customers who use Bing. While not the most popular search engine, your automotive local SEO should have some focus on this search engine. Bing users are an entirely different audience from Google, and claiming your Bing business listing to be more visible to your customer base makes a lot of sense.
Why is the Bing audience different from Google?
Besides being an entirely different search engine, Bing is the default setting for some Windows PCs, and many users choose not to reset their default search engine. If they can find what they want with the default setup, why change it? Because of this, if you’re not putting some of your local car dealer marketing efforts into Bing, you’re missing out. Now that a new dashboard is available, it’s imperative that you take advantage of Bing Places for car dealerships to create a multi-platform SEO strategy that works and reaches all customers in your area. Within Bing, you are literally leaving money on the table.
How can you start using Bing Places for car dealerships?
Bing Places is actually for all businesses, and it could be a bit of an untapped resource of potential customers. There are a few easy steps to get started, ensuring you can bring your dealership marketing efforts to a new audience.
Verify eligibility
Nearly all local businesses are eligible to sign up for Bing Places for Business, but you first must determine your eligibility to use this new dashboard. There are three business categories used by Bing:
- Small businesses – single location
- Businesses with multiple locations
- Businesses without a physical store
Once you provide documentation and answer questions, you can move to the next step.
Sign into your Microsoft account
Go to bingplaces.com and sign in to your Microsoft account. If you don’t have one, you can easily sign up for one; they are free. Using an email and a phone number, you’ll soon have a Microsoft account to move this process along.
Claim your business listing
Similar to Google, Bing Places for car dealerships requires that you claim or create a business listing to use the new dashboard. You have two options for a single location: adding or claiming the listing manually or importing the details from your Google My Business listing. If you have multiple business locations, there’s a different process. For most car dealerships, this will be an easy import process.
Once you claim the listing, you’ll be asked for your business type and then fill in your NAP information including a ZIP code, to ensure your listing doesn’t already exist under a different account.
Categorize and describe your business
Choose a business type and add your information to ensure you have a Bing Places listing. Follow the various prompts and add your email, social media links, and directory profile links. You can also add up to 100 photos that can be used on your business listing.
Verify your business
The final step in setting up your Bing Places for car dealerships listing is to verify your listing. If you imported your information from Google, you’ll have to verify the information, but if you created the listing from scratch, this step isn’t necessary. After you hit the submit button, you’ll get a prompt to verify your business, and Bing will verify your business by using the phone number listed. If your business is too new and you don’t have a registered business phone line, you might have to verify by mail, which can take up to a week.
After this, your business should be listed on Bing, and you can use Bing Places for car dealerships to reach a whole new audience that would not see your marketing because they don’t use Google.
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