Bing Places and Apple Business Connect: How to Claim Both

Claim both, in the same week you finish your Google Business Profile. Bing Places for Business is where you manage what Bing search and Bing Maps show about you, and it can copy your listing straight from Google. Apple's tool, long called Apple Business Connect and now part of a platform Apple calls Apple Business, is where you manage your place card on Apple Maps, which Apple says also shows up in Siri, Calendar, Messages and Spotlight searches. Bing calls its service free, and Apple says Apple Business is free to start, with place card editing included. The work is mostly typing in details you already have. The waiting is verification and publishing, which takes from a few days to about two weeks.

Why bother with listings beyond Google

Not everyone uses Google Maps. Someone on an iPhone who opens Apple Maps or asks Siri about a business nearby sees Apple's place card, not your Google profile. Apple's user guide says the place card "appears in many Apple apps, from Maps to Siri to Calendar, Messages, and Spotlight searches."
Your listing probably exists already. Bing's help pages say it pulls business information from Bing Places and "multiple third-party data sources, then merges them into your listing." If you never claimed it, the listing shows whatever those sources had, which may be an old number or old hours.
Bing checks you against the rest of the web. Bing says it verifies details from business owners by comparing them with information across search engines, websites and social media, and it recommends keeping your name, address, phone and website the same everywhere.
ChatGPT searches through outside providers. OpenAI's help page on how ChatGPT searches the web says ChatGPT search sometimes partners with other search providers, points to Microsoft's privacy statement for how those providers handle searches, and may share a general location with third-party providers for things like nearby business listings. It doesn't say which provider supplies the business listings. So a correct Bing listing is a sensible step, not a guarantee of showing up there.

Bing Places, step by step

Bing Places lets you sign in with a Microsoft account, a Google account, a Facebook account or a work account. Bing says the listings you claim are tied to the email you signed in with. Use an address the business will still have in five years, not an employee's personal account.

The quick route: import from Google

If your Google Business Profile is set up and verified, this is the fastest way in. Bing's help page on Google sync gives these steps:

In your Bing Places account, select Import from your Google Business Profile.
Choose whether to sync weekly, biweekly or monthly.
Sign in to the Google account that manages your profile.
Import the listings it finds.

If your business is already verified on Google, Bing verifies the imported listing automatically. Publishing then typically takes 7 to 12 days. A few things to know before you click:

The import can create a duplicate if Bing already has a listing for you.
Categories may not carry over exactly, so check them afterward.
A listing linked to Google can't be edited directly in the Bing dashboard. You change it on Google, and the change reaches Bing on the next sync.

The manual route

From Bing's guide to creating a listing:

Sign in to Bing Places for Business.
Search for your business name and location. If a listing exists and nobody has claimed it, claim it. If someone else has, Bing's help explains how to request access.
If nothing comes up, select Create a new business.
Fill in your name, address, phone and category, links to your website and social pages, and your hours. You can upload up to 100 photos.
Verify the listing. Bing sends a PIN by phone, mail, email or text, though not every option is offered to every business. Phone verification only appears if the existing listing already has your business number and nobody edited it. A postcard usually takes 5 to 6 business days within the US.

Changes go live only after verification. Bing says publishing typically takes 7 to 12 days in North America, and every edit you make resets the publish date. Enter everything once, then wait for it to show up before you change anything else.

If you go to your customers

Plumbers, locksmiths and other businesses that travel to customers can hide the address. Edit the listing, find the question "Are customers expected to visit your address?" in Basic details, and choose to show only your ZIP code and city. Bing's FAQ says you can add up to 20 service areas, and a PO box can't be used as your address.

If you moved

Don't edit the old listing to the new address. Bing recommends creating a new listing and marking the old one closed, because the old listing may still be tied to data sources for the previous address.

Apple Business Connect is now Apple Business

Apple's old Business Connect address now forwards to business.apple.com, and Apple's user guide calls the platform Apple Business. It also covers work devices and company email, which you can ignore here. The part you need is locations. If you already set up Business Connect with your personal Apple Account, Apple's guide says you can keep signing in with it, but only for the brand and location features.

Apple's guide to signing up lists these steps:

Go to business.apple.com and select Sign up.
Enter the name of your business, its location and its address. A website is optional, but Apple says adding one can speed up verification.
Enter your own legal name, create a password, add a phone number, and confirm the codes Apple sends by email and by phone.
Accept the terms.

Then verify the organization. Apple asks for two methods of verification and says it can take up to five business days. The options are a D-U-N-S number or an EIN, a TXT record added to your domain's DNS, an app in App Store Connect, or official documents such as a business license, a sales tax permit, a lease or a utility bill. You have 60 days to finish. If the organization isn't verified by then, Apple deletes it along with its data.

Add your location

From Apple's guide to adding a single location:

Go to Brands, then Locations, select Add Location, then Add single location.
Enter the name and the address. If the pin sits on the wrong building, drag the map. Hybrid or Satellite view helps you see the entrance.
Choose your primary category, enter your phone number and, if you want, your website and social pages.
Set your hours, then pick an existing brand or create one.
If your organization isn't verified yet, verify it and send the location for review.

If your business already appears on Apple Maps, Apple may offer verification by phone: it calls the number it has on record, and you enter a four-digit code. If another organization already manages your location, you can request a transfer and attach a document such as a business license or utility bill. Apple says that review can take up to five business days.

Fill in the place card

Once the location is approved, add photos and check your website link and your hours, including holiday hours. Apple Business also offers Showcases, for a seasonal offer or an event, and Custom Actions, which are buttons for booking or ordering. For most service businesses, a correct phone number and hours, plus a few real photos, matter more than either.

Keep Google, Bing and Apple saying the same thing

Your name, address or service area, phone number and hours should match exactly on all three and on your website. Holiday hours are where it usually slips. Bing's sync only copies Google to Bing, and only on the schedule you picked, so a monthly sync can miss a holiday change. Apple has to be updated separately.

Our guide to name, address and phone consistency covers how to find and fix old listings. The free LocalBusiness schema generator writes the matching code for your website, so search engines read the same details there too.

Check what your website tells them

Bing, Apple and Google all send people to your website from the listing. Our free website checker shows in under a minute whether your site has a tap-to-call number, links to your Google listing and loads fast on a phone.