Now, before jumping into how to claim your Bing business listing and your Yahoo! business listing, it might be a good idea to examine how search engines actually gather data about your business, especially for the purposes of local search . . .
All the major search engines rely on third-party data providers for nearly all the data that shows up in their local business listings. These data providers include aggregation houses such as Acxiom and InfoUSA, common Internet Yellow Page type sites such as Superpages and Merchant Circle, and social media review sites such as Yelp and iBegin. With such a complex ecosystem of local business data, it’s important to claim your listings to consolidate all this fragmented business information under a profile that is under your own control.
Claiming your listing is also the best preventive measure against your listing being hijacked by an unscrupulous competitor, misrepresented with inaccurate information, or merged with a competitor’s data. It’s also the very first step in being able to actually optimize your business listing by hand – and the best way to ensure that your business does well

How to Claim Your Bing and Yahoo! Listings
It’s fairly easy to create your business listing at Bing and Yahoo! Just sign up as a user at each of the respective business centers. Then, either search for your business by name and address, or add the business location by following the relevant instructions.
While you’re filling out the required business information, ensure that you’re using the Doing Business As (DBA) for your business and that you’re maintaining a consistent format for your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP). It’s important that you fill out this information as accurately as possible so search engines can find your business in the third-party business data they draw on and associate it accurately with your business profile. Complete your profile as comprehensively as possible:
• Provide a keyword-rich business description.
• Complete all the fields for business information, such as hours of operation, payments accepted, services offered, certifications, awards, parking availability, etc.
• Upload or link to the maximum allowable number of business images and videos.
• When you are ready to verify your information, you will be either contacted via:
• Phone with a secret pin code to verify your identity, or
• Postcard mailed to your business location.
• Once you have verified your information, you now control your local business listings and optimize your online listings.

Best Practices in Claiming Business Listings
There a few best practices to ensure that you fully leverage your free Bing business listings and that you take fall advantage of your free Yahoo! business listings, for example:
• Do not create duplicate business listings when claiming an existing unverified listing.
• Create only one listing for every physical brick-and-mortar location you have.
• Follow the listing guidelines for each of the major search engine local business centers.
• Do not use call-tracking phone numbers as part of your listing.
• When possible, use a local phone number rather than a toll-free number for additional ranking power.

Get the Most Out of Your Local Bing Business Listing and Local Yahoo! Business Listing
You may think that all this sounds like a lot of bother. It may be, but it’s also absolutely critical. For local search is rapidly becoming the most important element in SEO and marketing for businesses with a local presence. Just consider . . .
• “96% of PC owners conduct local searches”
• “46% of all Google searches are local”
• “64% of local customers use search engines and directories as their main way to find local business”
• “50% of local mobile searches look for business information”
• “A whopping 78% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase”
While these figures apply chiefly to Google, the same phenomenon obtains for both Bing and Yahoo! If you want local customers to find your business, you simply have to have your business in these local listings. The key ingredient here for local businesses that want to increase traffic to their websites and through their doors is local SEO – which is way different from ranking high in the SERPS for a general search term.
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