The playbook · en español
The short answer: all three listings are free, and the whole job fits in about a day. Google: set up your Business Profile at google.com/business. Bing: go to bing.com/forbusiness and click "Import from Google Business Profile" — one click copies everything over and keeps it synced weekly. Yelp: claim your page at biz.yelp.com. We did exactly this for our own business on July 26–27, 2026, skipped every paid offer on the way, and paid $0. This article is the exact play, in order, including the traps. When you're done, check what the machines can read — free, 60 seconds.
Here's the problem underneath all of this: your customers now ask AI — ChatGPT, Siri, Google's AI — who to choose. AI answers with one or two names. Most local businesses are invisible to it — not by choice, but by configuration. Every one of those gaps is fixable, and these three listings are the cheapest fixes that exist: each one is a structured, verified description of your business that a specific AI engine reads.
| Listing | Which AI reads it | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Gemini and Google's AI Mode — the AI layer over the search most of your customers already use | Free |
| Bing Places | Microsoft Copilot — and ChatGPT's search, which leans on Bing's index: a February 2025 study by Seer Interactive found ~87% of ChatGPT search citations matched Bing's top results | Free |
| Yelp | Alexa+, which draws on Yelp's local business data | Free |
One afternoon of setup, three AI engines that can suddenly see you. That's the trade. Now the play, platform by platform, in the order we did it.
Start here, because Bing will copy from it (step 2) — get Google right and you get Bing nearly free.
Go to google.com/business signed into the Google account you want running your business, and create (or claim) your profile. Three decisions matter more than all the rest:
Early in setup, Google asks what kind of business you are, and this is where we nearly went wrong. "Online retail" is for selling products online. If you sell services — even fully online ones — you want the service-business path: define a service area instead of a storefront, and if you work from home, hide your address. We run The AO Audit from home; our profile shows our service area, and our home address appears nowhere. Pick the wrong type here and your profile is the wrong shape for everything that follows.
Most owners fill in name, phone, hours — and stop. But the fields a machine leans on to decide whether you're the answer are the ones most profiles leave empty: the services list (add every real service, individually, in the words customers use) and the business description (say plainly what you do, for whom, and where — and if your business name uses initials, spell out what they stand for; a machine can't recommend what it can't parse).
After setup, Google assigns you a verification method — commonly a video for service-area businesses — and you don't get to choose it. Ours verified instantly, no video and no postcard, and the trust signals we believe earned that are their own story: how to get verified on Google Business Profile — and why ours verified instantly. Read it before you apply; the whole lever is what exists before you ask.
Once verified, your profile gives you a short review link to share with customers. Asking for Google reviews is allowed and worth doing systematically — here's how to ask for reviews AI can actually read. Hold that thought, though, because the same habit is prohibited on Yelp (step 3).
First, the address, because the internet is full of the dead one: Bing Places for Business lives at bing.com/forbusiness. The old bingplaces.com is dead — Bing moved the whole thing in October 2025. If a guide sends you to bingplaces.com, the rest of that guide is old too.
Now the part that makes this the easiest listing you'll ever create. On the Bing Places setup, there is a button: "Import from Google Business Profile." We clicked it. One click imported our entire Google listing — name, service area, services, description, the lot — verified it on the spot, and turned on a weekly auto-sync from Google. Total time: one click. One listing, and it covers Bing search and Bing Maps both.
Why the import is the whole strategy: it makes your Google Business Profile the single source of truth. From then on, "how do I update my Bing business listing?" answers itself — you update Google, and the weekly sync carries it to Bing. You never maintain two listings, and they can never drift apart and disagree — and disagreement between your own listings is exactly the kind of gap that makes a machine trust you less. You can edit the Bing listing directly at bing.com/forbusiness, but if sync is on, do your editing in Google and let Bing follow.
And the payoff for one minute of work: Bing feeds Microsoft Copilot, and it's the index ChatGPT's search leans on — a February 2025 study by Seer Interactive found ~87% of ChatGPT search citations matched Bing's top results. The least-glamorous listing on this page is the one wired into the chatbot everyone's actually using.
Go to biz.yelp.com and search for your business — Yelp may already have a page for you that you've never controlled. Claim it (or add your business if it's not there). Three things from our own setup:
1. The 6-service-area cap. Yelp lets you list at most 6 service areas. That cap forced us to actually prioritize: we picked the 6 places our customers really are, instead of the everywhere-blur we'd have typed into an unlimited field. Treat the constraint as a feature — choose the 6 that matter.
2. Hide your address. If you work from home, Yelp has a toggle to hide your street address while keeping your service areas public. Use it, same as on Google.
3. Never ask for reviews on Yelp. This is the one that catches honest owners: Yelp prohibits soliciting reviews — even politely, even from genuinely happy customers — and penalizes pages for it. The review-ask habit that's correct on Google is a violation on Yelp. Ask on Google; on Yelp, just be excellent and let reviews happen.
Why bother at all? Yelp's business data is what Alexa+ draws on for local recommendations. That's a reader you can't reach any other way.
Here's what nobody tells you about "free" listings: the listing is genuinely free, but the setup flow on every one of these platforms is also a sales funnel, and it's tuned to catch you at the exact moment you're in let's-finish-this mode. Everything below appeared during our own three setups. None of it is a scam — ads are a real product — but none of it is a setup step either, and each one is dressed as one:
| The prompt | What it actually is | What we did |
|---|---|---|
| "$500 in free ad credit!" | An ad credit that requires matching spend and a credit card on file — it's an ads subscription with a coupon on top | Skipped |
| "Offer expires in 2 hours!" | A countdown timer manufacturing urgency. The deadline is not real — the same offer is there tomorrow | Skipped |
| "Add these categories too?" | Category-dilution prompts nudging you to claim things you don't really do — which blurs exactly the signal the machines read | Skipped; kept categories to what we actually do |
| Upgrade screens mid-setup | Paid products placed between you and the finish line, styled like required steps | Skipped — there's always a "skip," "not now," or quiet link past them |
The rule that got us through all three platforms unscathed: during setup, skip every paid prompt. The listings themselves are free, verified is free, and everything the AI engines read is free. If ads ever make sense for you, decide that later, on purpose, with a data case — never mid-setup with a fake clock running.
Listed everywhere? Check what the machines can read — free 60-second scan →
Honest limits: these three listings make your business readable and verifiable to the engines — they don't make AI recommend you, and nobody can guarantee an AI mention; anyone promising one is selling weather. What we can say is the direction of it: an unlisted business can't be the answer, and a listed, consistent, verified one can be. Our one-day timeline is one true story from one business — yours may hit a video verification or a slow claim and take longer. Results vary.
Go to google.com/business signed into your business's Google account, enter name, category, and location or service area, then fill the fields AI reads — services and description. Verification comes last: our full guide, including our instant verification.
Choose carefully between the business types Google offers at setup. If you serve customers (even remotely or at their location), set up as a service-area business: hide your address, define your service area, and your home address never shows publicly. The 'Online retail' type is for businesses selling products online — picking it when you actually sell services routes you into the wrong profile shape. We run a home-based online business and set up as a service-area business with a hidden address.
Go to bing.com/forbusiness — that is where Bing Places for Business lives now (the old bingplaces.com address is dead). If you already have a Google Business Profile, use 'Import from Google Business Profile': one click copies your whole listing over, verifies it, and turns on a weekly auto-sync from Google. That one listing covers Bing search and Bing Maps, and it is free.
If you set up with the import from Google Business Profile, you barely have to: edit your Google profile and the weekly auto-sync carries the changes to Bing. That is the point of the import — one source of truth. You can also sign in at bing.com/forbusiness and edit the Bing listing directly, but if sync is on, make Google the place you edit so the two never disagree.
Go to biz.yelp.com and claim (or add) your business. If you work from home, use the option to hide your address. Yelp caps service areas at 6, so pick the 6 places where your customers actually are. One warning that trips up honest owners: never ask customers for reviews on Yelp — Yelp prohibits soliciting reviews, and it penalizes pages for it. Asking for Google reviews is fine; asking for Yelp reviews is not.
Once verified, share your profile's review link systematically — here's how to ask for reviews AI can actually read. Don't do the same on Yelp.
Yes — the listings themselves are free on all three platforms. What is not free are the offers each platform shows you during setup: ad credits that require matching spend and a credit card, and upgrade prompts dressed as setup steps. Skip every paid prompt during setup; you can always evaluate ads later, separately, with a clear head. Nothing about being listed and verified requires payment.