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In this article:\nIs a delivery service right for your restaurant?\nWhat you’ll need\nHow to use third-party services\nSafety precautions\nDelivery best practices\nThe COVID-19 pandemic had one, arguably positive outcome: Due to mandatory shutdowns of restaurant dining rooms and lobbies and customers opting to order out and remain in their homes, the restaurant industry, including small, local joints, was forced to finally adapt to a carry-out and delivery model in order to survive. \nToday, pretty much everyone expects online ordering, delivery, and/or carry-out options for every restaurant, including food carts, trucks, pop-ups, and truly small one-person shops. \nThroughout this article, we’ll talk about the different measures you may need to take when starting a new delivery service and some different options to get started. \nIs a delivery service right for your restaurant?\nFirst, you need to determine if your restaurant can benefit from offering delivery and take out services, especially if you’ve never done this before. \nLet's go over the pros and cons to ensure that you will be making a profit by offering delivery services. \nPros of restaurant delivery service\nThe benefits of offering delivery service include:\nMaintain or increase revenue as more people ordering food from home\nPotential to reach more and new customers as a new avenue of ordering from your restaurant opens up\nLess space needed to operate in (during any future shutdowns, you don’t need to keep your front checkout counter running or dining room open)\nPotential to get more orders out the door than you would be able to seat people in your restaurant\nmale restaurant delivery driver\n\nCons of restaurant delivery services\nThere are some downsides to offering restaurant delivery services that you need to weigh, depending on your location and restaurant type:\nIf you’re in a high-demand area, it may be difficult to meet customer expectations with acceptable delivery times\nThe prices you need to offer in order to offset the costs of delivery services may be unappealing to customers, which might hurt overall sales\nYou’ll have less control over a customer’s experience as your driver (or 3rd-party delivery courier) faces traffic delays or the food arrives with poor presentation due to travel\nIncreased costs associated with paying any employees that have to drive their own vehicles for delivery (mileage compensation)\nIf you’re using a third-party delivery service, you’ll have smaller profit margins and less control over how long it takes to get food delivered\nWhat you’ll need to start offering restaurant delivery services\nIn order to start offering delivery services from your restaurant, there are a few things you’ll need to make sure you have in place. \nOnline/Over-the-phone ordering capabilities\nFirst, you’ll need the ability to actually take and fulfill orders. It won’t be difficult to switch your strategy to start offering over-the-phone orders (assuming you have enough staff and phone lines to keep up with demand), but there may be a little more effort required to offering online ordering. \nWe recommend offering online ordering if possible because you’ll have more opportunities to receive more business. This is how most people prefer to order delivery services in today’s market. \nCheck to see if your current POS (point-of-sale) system offers online ordering capabilities or partner with a third-party like Grubhub or DoorDash that will do this for you (more on this later). \nHigh-speed internet\nIf you are offering online ordering, you’ll need a good internet connection in order to receive and fulfill orders. \nDrivers\nYou might consider transitioning any non-food-prep staff to working as delivery drivers. You’ll want to make sure you have enough staff members on hand who are willing and can take on this responsibility. \nMethod of transportation\nBeyond just the willingness to deliver food, your staff should have a good mode of transportation. Unless you have company vehicles, your employees will likely have to use their own vehicles to deliver food. Consider any mileage compensation you may have to offer in order to make this transition worthwhile. \nBags/takeout carriers for travel\nIf you’ve never offered delivery services before, you’ll probably need to order some additional materials to help delivery operations run smoothly. You’ll want takeout containers that will retain heat as best as possible as well as bags or carriers for your employees to use when delivering the food. Reusable, heat-insulating bags are best here.\nConsider dedicated parking stalls and entry points for takeout / pickup\nIf you have the option, you might create a dedicated access door with a specific register and staff to support carry-out/app-delivery orders. Also think about adding or designating more limited-waiting parking stalls for curbside/takeout orders.\nHow to start delivering food using third-party services\nIf the above sounds like a big lift, the easiest way to implement online ordering and delivery sources with little change to your current operations is to use a third-party service, like one of the following:\n\nDoorDash\n\n\nGrubhub\n\n\nUberEats\n\nThese guys are the pros of running online ordering and delivery and can help you quickly get your restaurant ready to start delivering to your customers. But be aware of the cost.\nFor most third-party services, you’ll have a process that looks similar to the following steps:\nSign your restaurant up and create an account. You’ll need to verify or activate your restaurant by providing necessary details like business name, phone number, hours, etc. \nWhen you have an account, you’ll need to confirm your menu items and pricing in the dashboard of your third-party service. \nVerify your bank account and tax ID information. This is important for making sure you get paid and the third-party service gets their commission.\nUpdate your store hours on your dashboard.\nFinish activating your account and start taking orders!\nDepending on the service you use, you may also be provided with a tablet or other device to take and fulfill orders.\nOne caution we will state of using one of these services during any potential future lockdowns is that drivers in your area may be overwhelmed with the influx of online orders. This could result in longer wait times (and fewer orders from these services due to the increased wait times). \nTo help offset the downsides of using a third-party service, we recommend implementing your own internal delivery service as well. The more options you have to get your customers their order, the better your restaurant can perform during times of crisis. \nSafety and hygiene practices for restaurant delivery\nSafety and hygiene practices are always important in the restaurant industry, but they are critical during times of heightened awareness of disease transmission.\nTips for enforcing safety among your employees and customers:\nScreen all employees when they arrive at work to ensure they aren’t exhibiting any flu-like symptoms, and haven’t come into contact with people exhibiting symptoms\nEncourage no-contact delivery by allowing customers to pay online or over-the-phone and having your employees drop the food off at their door and notify them via the app or their smart doorbell (this is now the default for most carriers)\nHave constant reminders for handwashing, sanitizing surfaces, and proper hygiene behaviors for your employees\nEnsure each driver has hand sanitizer and/or gloves to use during deliveries\nKeep disinfectant products stocked up\nBe sure to inform your customers that you are taking every precaution necessary to help ensure the safe handling of their food. Help give them the peace of mind they need to make the decision to order from your restaurant. \nBest practices for restaurant food delivery\nBeyond the necessary safety precautions to take, there are some basic best practices for food delivery that you should keep in mind to help operations run smoothly:\nSimplify your delivery/carry-out menu. Keep the number of items in your delivery menu limited to help run efficient food prep and delivery operations. \nStart promoting delivery right away. You want your customers to know that you are now offering delivery and take out options. Add this to your restaurant’s website, Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, and other online business listings, and promote locally targeted social media or Google ads to help get the word out. \nConsider your pricing structure. You may need to make some changes to your pricing to help offset increased costs of delivery, whether that is adding a delivery fee or increasing the cost of each item you offer. Be transparent with your customers about your pricing and the reasons for any changes. With increased demand, customers will most likely understand the need for you to boost your prices a little.\nSet accurate expectations for delivery times. Now is not the time to overpromise. You must set accurate expectations of when a customers’ food will get to them if you want your delivery services to run well. 

How to get your restaurant started with delivery or carry-out

In this article:\nWhy use OpenTable\nHow to add your restaurant to OpenTable\nAbout optional OpenTable services\nOpenTable leads the industry in online restaurant reservations. On average, this trusted platform seats 128 million people per month in restaurants worldwide. \nTo take advantage of the opportunities OpenTable can provide your restaurant, you need to add your listing to their website. \nWhy use OpenTable for your restaurant\nOpenTable helps local consumers find top-rated restaurants near them. When someone is looking for a new place to dine, this is a common place they will go to look. \nHere are some of the cool benefits that OpenTable can provide to your restaurant:\nReserve more seats and increase revenue with their marketing platform\nImprove customer relationships and gather online ratings\nFull-service solution helps you market, manage, and operate your restaurant\nFree online training for OpenTable services with professionals in the restaurant industry\nOpenTable partners with Yelp, Google, and other directories to allow customers to book reservations from these sites\nRestaurants pay OpenTable a monthly subscription fee for their full-service plan, which includes electronic reservation software, customer support, and unlimited upgrades, along with a one-time installation fee that covers on-site installation of the software and training for employees. \nAnother option (which is also included with their full-service plan) is to only use the reservation capabilities. For this, they charge a $1.00-$2.50 fee per seat booked on OpenTable (and other online directories) or $0.25 per seat booked through your website (via OpenTable’s software). But for most restaurants, it only takes three reservations to break even on the monthly costs of this plan. (Please confirm current pricing.)\nYou don’t have to take advantage of all of OpenTable’s products and services to create your listing, but it’s nice to know that these capabilities are available to you—and if you need a little extra help with marketing, they have some great tools!\nHow to create or claim your restaurant’s OpenTable profile\nIn this section, we’ll take you through each step of adding your restaurant to OpenTable. There are two options for doing this: suggest your restaurant to OpenTable or submit your restaurant’s information to OpenTable through their form. \nOption 1 – Suggest your restaurant to OpenTable\nWith this option, you can suggest your restaurant to be added to OpenTable’s directory. \nThis form\n is intended for customers to add their favorite restaurants to OpenTable, and your restaurant can be your favorite!\nJust add the following information and hit submit:\nRestaurant name\nRestaurant city and state\nRestaurant zip (optional)\nWhy this restaurant should be on OpenTable (optional)\nAt the end of the form it asks, “May we share this info with the restaurant?” If you check yes, OpenTable will try to pass this form onto you to show that customers are interested in your restaurant. Feel free to check “no” on this to keep them from sending you your own information. \nOption 2 – Submit your restaurant to OpenTable through their website\nGo to OpenTable’s \nsite for restaurateurs\n and click “Get Started” to fill out their \nform\n, or call their customer support line at (866) 951-7154.\nYou’ll need to provide the following information:\nFirst and last name\nRestaurant name\nEmail address\nPhone number\nRestaurant city, state, zip, and country\nAfter you’ve completed the form and submitted it, OpenTable will contact you via email or phone to provide more information about their services. You don’t need to opt-in to their services in order to get listed in their directory. \nOpenTable will list any restaurant in their directory for free, but if you want to have full access to make changes to your restaurant’s profile and use OpenTable’s online reservation tools, you’ll have to subscribe to their services. \nIn order to update your listing information without paying for OpenTable’s services, you can email \nsupport@opentable.com\n.\nOptional OpenTable features\nOpenTable has three main products they offer to restaurants that join their network. Here’s a little more information about them so you can decide if you’d like to try them out. \n1. Electronic Reservation Book\nThe most common product on OpenTable is its Electronic Reservation Book (ERB). This tool handles all reservations online and in-store, allowing you to see your floor plan to better manage seating arrangements for customers. \n2. Connect Service\nThis solution allows you to connect your online booking capabilities to different platforms, like Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more. You can accept and track reservations across these different websites through a mobile app or on your desktop computer. \n3. GuestCenter Plan\nThis is OpenTable’s full-service package. They provide reservation management along with shift summaries for employees, multiple table management, and the ability to create guest profiles. You can also integrate it with your POS system and get real-time analytics and reporting. \nGet set up on OpenTable and see how it can benefit your restaurant!

How to add your restaurant to OpenTable

In this article:\nWhy you need to respond to Google reviews\nHow to respond to Google reviews\nStrategy for replying to negative online reviews\nWord of mouth has moved online.\nYou’ve probably heard that phrase (or something like it) countless times over the past several years. \nEspecially\n if you own or manage a local business. You know better than most how the rules of the game have changed. Where word of mouth used to be a vague sense of how the community felt about your business, it’s now boiled down to whether your customers give you 1-5 stars and how you respond to Google reviews, Yelp reviews, and more.\nAs a business owner, it’s understandable to feel powerless and frustrated by review sites and longing for the “good old days.”\nDon’t get trapped by that line of thinking.\nWhenever we talk to business owners about the new age of online review sites, we like to ask them all the same question: “How often do you respond to your reviews?” The typical response ranges from “We’re pretty good at responding, but only to complaints,” to “You can respond to reviews?” We almost never get the answer we’re hoping to hear: \n“Always.”\nResponding to Google Reviews\nPosting responses to your Google reviews, both positive and negative, can go a long way to build customer loyalty and boost your online reputation. We’ll get into exactly how and why this practice is so important later on in the article, but let’s start with a quick overview on how to respond to Google reviews.\nClaim your Google my Business listing (if you haven’t already)\nYou can’t respond to a Google review unless you’ve first claimed your business listing. At last count, only 44% of Google listings have been claimed, which leaves a lot of your competition already a step behind. Plus, research shows that businesses that claim their listings on multiple online business reviews sites make more money!\nIf you’ve already claimed your listing, feel free to jump to the next step. If you haven’t, don’t worry, it’s free and easy. Click here to learn \nhow to claim your Google my Business listing\n.\nOnce you’ve claimed your business, you have a few options available to respond to reviews. We’ll walk you through each of them. \nYou might also like: \nHow to set up Google customer reviews for your business\n.\nHow to Respond to Google reviews from Google’s Business Dashboard\n1) Log into your account at business.google.com\nIf you have more than one location, select the location you’d like to manage.\n(Image)\n\n2) Click on Reviews in the left-hand navigation\n(Image)\n\n3) Click the Reply button under the review you’re responding to\n(Image)\n\n4) Write your response and click Post Reply\nHow to respond to Google reviews from Google Search or Maps results\n1) Search for your business\nMake sure you’re logged into the Google account you use to manage your Google business listing\n(Image)\n\n2) Scroll to your reviews and click to view them all\n(Image)\n\n3) Click Reply under the review you’d like to respond to\n(Image)\n\n4) Write your response and click Submit\nShould I respond to Google reviews?\nYes. The game has changed. Your business’s online reputation matters now more than ever. 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. Most consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. But there’s a bright side to this new world of local business marketing that too few businesses take full advantage of. \nYou now have a voice in the conversation. In the past, business owners had little to no visibility into what people said about them, and they certainly didn’t have a seat at the table. These days, that’s all changed with review sites like Google My Business, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more. \nWin loyalty by showing customers you care\nWhereas before word of mouth was something vague and undefined, it’s now exists in an interactive online space. If a customer has a bad experience with your business and vents their frustration in a bad Google review, you now have the opportunity to engage that customer personally to mend the situation. \nThis not only gives you the chance to win back upset customers, but it also gives you a platform to show future customers that you care.\nMake a good first impression\nDon’t limit yourself to responding only to resolve issues and complaints. As mentioned earlier, you should respond to \nall \nyour Google reviews. Even the positive ones. Think of it like this: if a satisfied customer took a moment to share their positive experience with you in person, you wouldn’t respond with just a smile and a nod, right?\nTreat your Google reviews like you would any in-person review. A list of Google reviews complete with engaged responses from a business goes a \nlong \nway to set your business apart and make a curious searcher feel welcome and invited before they ever set foot in your place of business.\nIncrease revenue by boosting your online reputation\nBut you don’t just have to take us at our word on this. Studies have shown that when businesses start responding to online reviews, they receive an increase both in the total number of reviews received and their overall rating.\nWe’re not suggesting that responding to reviews will result in an immediate flood of hundreds of new 5-star reviews, of course. But according to research from Cornell, even incremental changes in your business’s online rating can affect your revenue by up to 39% for better or worse. \nIf you find yourself ready to respond to reviews but unsure what to say, read our helpful guide on \nhow to respond to negative reviews\n. The most important thing, though, is to stay consistent and be prompt. Don’t let your reviews sit for weeks or even days without responding.\nWord of mouth has moved online. Don’t leave yourself out of the conversation.

How to respond to Google reviews

In this article:\nWhy every restaurant needs an online menu\nKey features of an effective online menu\nUsing your online menu as a marketing tool\nImproving local SEO with your online menu\nUpselling with your online menu\nIn today’s increasingly online world, even the diviest of dive restaurants needs a robust online presence. Even if you pretend not to care about online reviews, people \nare\n leaving them for you—whether you have \nclaimed your online business profiles\n or not.\nIn addition, the first contact a lot of your customers are going to have with your restaurant is online, because over 9 out of 10 people search local businesses online before they visit them.\nYou need to but your best food \n(sic)\n forward, and your menu is the embodiment of your philosophy and business model. But simply throwing up a .pdf (or—gasp—an image) of your menu isn’t going to cut it. \nLet’s go over the reasons why.\nPeople want to know what to expect from your restaurant before they visit\nSome people enjoy surprises, but the vast majority of people searching for local places to eat want to know what they’re in for before they’ll spend a dime.\nYour menu, when properly constructed, designed, and made searchable, is the easiest way for customers to get an idea of what type of food you serve, how innovative or traditional you are in your approach to cuisine, and what variety of items they might be able to find.\nPotential customers are searching for specific menu items online\nRestaurants and food searches are the epitome of instant gratification. Sure, when people search for local businesses online, a significant portion of those searches result in purchases within the next 24 hours.\nHowever, when someone is searching “Vietnamese food near me,” chances are they are ready to eat RIGHT NOW and if you don’t show up well in that specific search, you’ll be out of luck.\nBut that’s not all. While tons of people search using the “(type of cuisine)+near me” search string, a significant portion of those searches are much more specific, as in the actual dish. \nThis can be as general as something like “noodles near me” or it can be as specific as “Pork cao lầu near me.” \nIf your menu is “non-searchable,” or in other words, if Google’s (or whatever other search engine customers use to try to find you) “spiders” can’t read your online menu and find specific search term results, you won’t ever show up in the top results when people search for your type of cuisine or those specific menu items online.\nThis is why you shouldn’t use a .pdf or image to post your menu online. There are ways to make .pdfs searchable by search engines, but it’s fiddly to do and the results are still marginal even if you take the time to do it. It’s better to build a proper HTML version of your menu.\nEven a simple, plain webpage with a detailed menu included as plain test will be more valuable to your business than a flowery, but unreadable and unsearchable image or .pdf menu.\nYour menu is useful, relevant content for marketing and SEO\nAs noted above, a searchable .pdf version of your menu is better than nothing, but you will rank higher in search engines if you build your menu with easily searchable text.\nSEO stands for “search engine optimization” and getting your menu in the proper format to be searched and ranked by search engines is the first step in improving your local SEO.\nRead more: \nLocal SEO: 15 free tips for better search rankings\nYour menu is part of “next level” info to complete Google and Yelp business profiles\nWhen people search local restaurants, the first thing they often look at are your Google and Yelp reviews, which often show up in the top search results.\nIf a search for local Mexican restaurants turns up your listing and your main competitor’s listing, the “next level” info and detail you include in your business profile on these review sites will be the determining factor.\nIf your competitor has a 4-star rating, lots of fresh reviews, complete info about the facilities and ambiance, \nhigh quality photography\n, \nand\n a full, search-engine-friendly menu—and you have a similar listing but \ndon’t\n include your menu—guess who is likely to get more customers’ business? \nThat’s correct… not you.\nGo deeper: \nThe top 5 things every small business should include in their Google Business listing\nIf you’re set up for online ordering, your menu is your primary sales and upsell tool\nWe’ve talked about how a search-engine-friendly menu can bring you more customers. Now let’s talk briefly about how a properly built menu can help you get more orders from those customers.\nIf you are set up for online ordering and/or delivery, you need to pay careful attention to how your online menu is constructed. Clear descriptions are a must, and professional photos of each item will take you to the next level. You can even add special offers or sale items depending on your online ordering platform.\nAbove all, double check at least weekly to ensure your online menu is 100% correct, or you’ll lose sales and repeat customers.\nEven if you have to build a specific menu for your online customers that is less complete but more reliable than your in-house menu, make sure people can actually purchase everything they find online.\nA good online menu can stand in for your in-house waitstaff and hint to your remote diners, “Are you ready for dessert?” or “I love our pear salad with that entree.”\nHere’s a good article on \noptimizing your online menu for online ordering\n.\nA great business profile on all the relevant review sites, including a robust and beautiful (and fully searchable) menu, will go a long way toward improving your online presence and attract more customers.\nSources:\n
\nhttps://blog.typsy.com/why-your-restaurant-menu-needs-to-be-onlineand-how-to-maximize-it\n

Why (and how) you need to put your restaurant’s menu online

In this article:\nMost businesses don’t claim their listings on popular review sites\nThey’re missing out on opportunities to attract and engage customers\nClaiming your business listings is free and surprisingly simple\nSomeone posted an online review about your business. Now what?\nAs we explained in other articles, we highly recommend responding to every review—positive, neutral, and negative. You can’t do that unless you first claim your \nonline business listings\n on popular review sites like Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor.\nYou also can’t control how your business information appears if you don’t claim your listings, and worse yet—what if someone else claims your page? Plus, your listings will still exist whether or not you claim them. It just makes sense to claim what’s yours.\nman leaving online review on laptop for claim your business listings\nPlus, research shows that businesses that claim their listings on multiple online business reviews sites make more money!\nThe bad news about online review sites: \nOnly 33% of of all Yelp listings and 44% of Google listings have been claimed, and only 23% of businesses keep their listings on these sites current. \nThe good news about online review sites: \nClaiming your listings is free and easy. Claiming your listings already puts you ahead of most local businesses who ignore their online presence.\nLet’s walk through some of the basics for claiming your listings. \n1. Start with the claiming your listings on the biggest online review sites\nBefore claiming a page on every review site under the sun, it’s good to prioritize. For most local businesses, it’s most important to \nclaim your business on Google\n and \nYelp\n. It’s not hard to see why:\nGoogle:\nNearly half of Google’s 3.5 billion daily searches are local.\nThe search engine serves 2 billion active search devices every month.\nAbout 20% of Google searches are related to location (e.g. Google Maps). \nYelp:\nNearly 180 million people access Yelp reviews on desktop or mobile. \nCustomers have posted a whopping 163 million reviews on Yelp. \nIt’s not just for restaurants: People use Yelp to shop for products, find professional services, search for a salon nearby, and much more. \nStart by claiming your pages on these two behemoths. From there, \nclaim your business on Facebook\n, which ranks #3 nationally for local business traffic, and then move on to industry-specific sites like \nTripAdvisor\n (hospitality), and \nOpenTable\n (restaurants). \n2. Claim your business listings\nReady to claim your listings? It’s always free, but every site has its own unique process. Below, we’ve listed our step-by-step guides for claiming your pages on some of the major sites:\nGoogle My Business\nYelp\nFacebook\nTripAdvisor\nOpenTable\nFoursquare\nRefer to our \nfree business listings\n article for many more!

Start here to claim your free business listings on review sites like Google and Yelp

In this article:\nHow to claim and create your Bing business listing (2 ways)\nWhat you should do next\nBing currently holds around 3% of the market share for search engines, which may not seem like a lot. But when you consider the billions of people that do internet searches every day, that means that Bing still gets hundreds of millions of searches daily.\nDon’t limit the opportunities for your business by leaving your Bing listing unclaimed. Follow the simple steps below to get your business added to and claimed on Bing. \nHow to create and claim your Bing Places business listing\nLet’s get to it!\nStep 1: Log in to Bing\nThe first thing you need to do is create a Bing account, or sign in with your Google account (we recommend the latter as it will speed up the process). \nLogging in with Google will allow you to important any existing Google My Business listings that you own directly onto Bing without going through their verification process. Pretty sweet, right?\nGo to bingplaces.com to sign in or sign up. \n(Image)\n\nSign in with Google, if you are able to, otherwise, select one of the other options for signing in: Facebook, Microsoft, Work Account, or create one. \n(Image)\n\nWhen you get signed in, Bing will prompt you to finish setting up your profile, feel free to finish this by adding your phone number and email or just click save and move on. \n(Image)\n\nWhen you click save on your profile information, Bing will take you to a screen that allows you to import your business from Google or claim and add your business manually. Follow the steps below for each of these options. \nStep 2 (Option 1): Import your Google My Business listing to Bing\nIf you don’t own a Google My Business listing, or don’t have a Google account, then skip this step and go to Step 2 (Option 2). \nIf you do own your business’s Google My Business listing, this is the faster way of claiming your business listing on Bing. Click “Import from Google My Business Now.” \n(Image)\n\nA new window will then pop up from Bing and prompt you to continue to Google My Business. This window shows what you should do once you get to Google. \n(Image)\n\nMake sure you select the Google account that is associated with your Google My Business listing. \n(Image)\n\nClick “Allow” on the next screen to grant Bing access to your Google My Business listing. \n(Image)\n\nYou’ll then be brought back to Bing and prompted to “Continue.”\n(Image)\n\nBing will then show you that your business has successfully been imported into their directory. Your listing may show “Not verified” because Bing places each listing under review before publishing them. \n(Image)\n\nWhen you click “Go to dashboard” there will be a little sliding bar that shows you when your listing will be published. \n(Image)\n\nIn your dashboard, be sure to “Sync with Google My Business” so that whenever you update your Google list, your Bing listing will automatically get those updates too. \n(Image)\n\nYour Bing business listing is now done! Just wait for the review process to complete and your Bing listing will go live. \nStep 2 (Option 2): Manually claim or add a new Bing Places account for your business\nIf you don’t own your Google My Business listing or have access to the Google account that does, then select “Claim or add your business manually.”\n(Image)\n\nNext, fill out the information in the form provided: business type, country, and phone number OR business name and location. \n(Image)\n\nBing will do a search for your business in their directory. If it is in their directory, you’ll see your business listed and be given the option to claim your listing. If your business has ever had a name change or other information change, it may be outdated, so look for the best match and click “Claim and edit details.” \nIf you do see your business, we urge you to claim and edit it so you don’t create duplicate listings. \nIf none of the businesses displayed are yours, then click “My business is not listed in the search results.”\n(Image)\n\nBoth options will redirect you to the same form, but if you select a pre-existing business listing, then the information will already be filled out for you. So make edits to the existing information or add your new business information to your Bing listing. \nFirst, add your business name, phone number, and address (make sure these are the same that you use across all your online listings). \nIf you have a website, be sure to add that here too. \n(Image)\n\nNext, select the best category segment and category for your business. You can add multiple categories, and once you have these added, you will need to select a primary category. \nAdd your business description and click “Next.”\n(Image)\n\nNext, you will need to indicate whether or not Bing should show your address to customers. If you have a physical storefront where customers can come in to see you, then you should select “Yes.” This will help you show up better in Bing’s search results. \nIf you have a service area business where you go to your customer and are using a satellite office or employee’s home for your address, you should select “No” to hide the address. \n(Image)\n\nThen you will need to enter contact information for your business. This will have an email address option, so make sure you enter an email that customers can reach you with. \nYou can also enter information for the following social accounts:\nFacebook\nTwitter\nYelp\nTripAdvisor\n(Image)\n\nThen be sure to add plenty of photos to your Bing listing. Photos of your location, logo, and branding will be helpful for customers to recognize and find you. If you sell products or serve food, images of those would also be great to include here. \n(Image)\n\nNext, add your hours so customers will know when you are open and available. \n(Image)\n\nThe last section of your listing is for menus and pricing. If your business is a restaurant, be sure to include a link to your menu and online ordering if applicable. \nOnce that is done, click “Submit” to complete your Bing listing. Proceed to Step 3 to verify your listing.\n \n(Image)\n\nStep 3: Verify your business listing on Bing Places\nBing provides four options for verifying businesses in their directory: phone verification (by text or phone call), email, and mail. Phone verification will only be an option for your business if it was already listed on Bing and your address didn’t change. \nEmail will only be an option if you have are updating an existing listing and have an email on the domain of the listing’s website. For example, support@solo.co. \nProceed through each option to see how you can verify your business listing on Bing. \n1. Phone call\nWith this option, Bing will place an automated call to the phone number on your listing. They will provide a code that you will need to enter once you click “Verify now” and receive the call. \n(Image)\n\n2. SMS/text\nYou’ll only be able to do this option if you have the ability to receive text messages for your office line. Click “Verify now” to receive a text message to verify your Bing listing. \n(Image)\n\n3. Email\nEnter in an email address you have access to that is on your website’s domain. Then click “Verify now” to get an email to verify your Bing listing. \n(Image)\n\n4. Mail\nIf you are unable to complete any of the previous methods for verification, you’ll need to have Bing send you a piece of mail with a verification code. This can take 5-6 business days to reach you. \nBing will send the code by mail to the address you listed, so make sure you can receive mail at your address before doing this. \nWhen you receive the code, just log back into your Bing Places account and enter it on your business listing to finish your verification. \n(Image)\n\nFinished claiming your Bing business listing? Here’s what you should do next\nNow that your listing is complete on Bing, there’s a lot more that you can do to improve your online visibility. But don’t get intimidated—we have a couple of great guides with some free tips to help you improve your local search engine rankings. \nLocal SEO: 15 free tips for better search rankings\n\n25 free business listing websites every small or local business should be on\n\n

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