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Bing is the second-most visited search engine on the Internet. If people aren’t searching on Google, chances are, they are searching for your credit union on Bing (thanks to Microsoft setting work desktop computer homepages to Bing). The other benefit with doing Bing next is it is the process is simple. One thing to note is that Bing uses the reviews that come in via Yelp, so responses and any review flagging will need to be done via the Yelp platform.

Here are the steps to getting listed on Bing:

1. First, you need to visit: https://www.bingplaces.com/ and hit “Sign in” in the upper right-hand corner
2. You will then be asked to sign into Bing or create an account – they give you the choice to sign in with one of the following: Facebook, Google, “work”, or a Microsoft account. If your credit union uses Microsoft Office 365 it is straightforward to sign in with your work address in this way.
3. Once you are signed up, you will have to verify your account via the e-mail address you The email comes through very quickly – if you don’t see it shortly after you complete this step, check your spam filter or with your IT team as it may have been blocked.
4. Once you’ve verified, you’ll need to go back to the Bing Places page https://www.bingplaces.com/ and hit “Get Started”
5. You have two options here – to claim each branch separately, but almost instantly, or to claim them as a multi-location business and wait 1-2 weeks for a postcard verification. Both processes are outlined in the following steps.
6. If you are looking to claim one branch, fill in the business information.
   • When your business pops up, click “Claim Business,” if it does not pop up, click “Create New Business and follow the steps.”
   • You will have to sign in with your new Bing account from Step 2.
   • You will then be directed to a dashboard for your
   • To verify, click the “Verify” button on the dashboard
   • You will get several options to verify, either a PIN via e-mail, phone call or You can also hit alternative methods for mail.
   • The phone call verification is very easy, but email may be the easiest, depending on your call center and how calls are routed.
7. If you want to claim all your branches at once:
   • For Corporate Offices who clicked the “Chain” option:
   • Enter your contact information as shown: 
   • Enter your headquarters information, as shown below: 

• Confirm that you’d like to Verify.
• A pop up will open with information (see below) letting you know that a postcard with a PIN number has been sent and should arrive within 1-2 weeks. Once you receive it, you’ll be able to complete the process and also take advantage of the option to do bulk information uploadsCallahan tested: Ours came within 1-2 weeks**

8. When you get the PIN number in the mail, it will have login information
9. Follow the steps to login and enter your PIN number
10. You will get to a dashboard with several bulk upload options 
11. To bulk upload, you will fill out a spreadsheet to submit: here is the link if you are having trouble finding the Bulk Upload option:
    1. Downloading the template is vital in this process
    2. Once you have completed the spreadsheet, you hit upload
    3. It may take a few days for all of your listings to appear

If you are having any issues with getting on Bing go here, and you can message live with support.

Repeat all these steps for each of your branch locations.

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

Overview

You may have not set up a Facebook page for every branch, but there is a very good chance one has already been created for you. That’s because general Facebook users and 3rd party aggregators went out and created them for you (sometimes even creating duplicates), without your knowledge.

Facebook has changed the names it uses for different kinds of pages – and the word PAGE itself is something unique. Below, we’ll go through the steps to set up a structure for your multi-branch credit union account.

What you might have at the beginning:

• One Facebook page for your credit union, likely tied to your headquarters branch location
• “Rogue” pages that were created by Facebook
• Additional branch pages you created

What you want in the end:

• One BRAND page for your credit union, which publishes the primary content feed and has links to all relevant information members/potential members may want. This will not be tied to an address/branch location.
• Locations pages for each branch, which allow users to add reviews and ratings, but which can show the content published on the main brand (previously called Parent) page.

What this will look like this:

How do I get started?

Check all the known pages in the Listings Tab in CUBrandMonitor – this is your reference point. Which pages already exist for your credit union?

1. Create a BRAND Page: For your primary BRAND page, you’ll take your current main Facebook page and migrate it into a location, leaving a BRAND page behind – this keeps the ratings and reviews you’ve already accumulated.
2. Add Branch Locations: Upload the addresses and info for your branch locations.
3. Clean Existing Listings: For “rogue” pages, you will want to claim or merge, where they will be replaced by/edited into Locations (see above image).

 

Step ONE: Set Up Brand Page – With Locations

1. Configure Admin Rights: Log in and make sure that the email you’re using with Facebook is your work address.
   This verifies for Facebook that you are a representative for your credit union. If you’ve been managing with a personal email address, we recommend following the steps shown here and add your work address as an admin. Once you have that activated, log out and log in as the admin, so you can manage from that email address.

2. Request Locations Access: On this page, request access to the Locations functionality for your page. This will let you add each brand as an easy-to-manage Location, rather than as separate pages.
3. Receive Confirmation: Once the system processes the request, you’ll receive a message in your support inbox, which lives under SETTINGS on your main page. This can take a few minutes.
4. Migrate HQ Branch: If the page for your credit union that you wish to use as the ‘Brand” page has a street address on it, you will encounter a warning message asking you to either remove your address info or migrate existing ratings and reviews to a new Page. We recommend selecting to migrate, which will move that location-specific page into an official Location page. This means any ratings and reviews will go to that location, while overall information can stay on the “Brand” level.

IMPORTANT: Once you save, it can take a little bit of time for the system to process the changes, which will allow you to add Locations. We recommend turning your attention to dealing with any branch-specific pages, either claimed or rogue, then coming back and managing locations.

 

Step TWO: Verify Your Page

Verifying will allow you to rank higher in Facebook’s results algorithm.

1. On your Brand Page – go to Settings. On the right side, there will be an option listed as Page Verification near the top.
2. Click Edit, then click Verify this Page. 
3. You’ll be given two options – to verify by phone call or verify by using documents.
4. Phone verification: You can edit the phone number shown there, and add an extension. This process worked for some locations we’ve verified, and not for others. We recommend trying it before assuming it won’t work.
5. Documents verification: You can upload any of the following documents to verify the location:
   1. Business utility or phone bill
   2. Business license
   3. Business tax file
   4. Certificate of formation
   5. Articles of incorporation
6. Once you’ve submitted these, you’ll need to wait. Our verification came through within a week – and we were alerted by a message from Facebook within the app.

 

Step THREE: Merge / Claim Single Unofficial Pages

Note: To merge or claim unofficial or single (that you/your CU created) pages, you will need to be the verified admin for your main page.

1. CUBrandMonitor will show you all the Facebook listings you need to manage – go to Listings and sort by Facebook as your provider. You can click directly to the listing url from each listing shown on that page.
2. Click on a listing and open it in Facebook. If the Page is unmanaged, you’ll see Unofficial Page below its cover photo. You can request to claim the Page and become its admin, and you can merge it into a Page you already manage for your credit union. Here’s what that looks like: 
3. Click Is this your business? below the Page’s cover photo.
   You’ll be presented with two options – to merge the page into a Verified Page that you already manage for the credit union, or to claim and verify the branch – through a phone call or via documents, as described above. 

4. Choose to Merge the Listing:
   If your business e-mail is associated with your account, select it in the drop-down and you will be sent an e-mail to verify. If not, you will have to submit the documentation listed as described above when you verified your main page.

Callahan Tested: It took about 2 business days to receive an e-mail address we tested. You will get an e-mail through Facebook letting you know the page has been converted into a merged part of your main page.  Once pages are merged, the old url will redirect to the primary page – this is how it will look:

 

Step FOUR: Configure Your Locations

1. Once you have your Brand Page fully set-up, you can start adding in your child pages to the relationship! You can create new locations or add in pages that have already been created, such as those you claimed in Step Three.
2. Go to Locations under Settings – General, you’ll now be able to start creating branch-specific locations pages. Note that you’ve got the option for each branch and in general to choose to show posts and nearby locations. You can also add custom pictures and backgrounds to branch pages, if you wish.
3. Add A Location lets you create one branch page at a time. You can either choose from an existing page that you have claimed OR create a new one. You can also utilize the bulk upload functionality if you don’t have claimed pages for branches already. This would be the base if you did NOT have valuable pages you didn’t want to simply merge into the main page.
4. The bulk upload instructions can be found here. You’ve got the ability to download your location data with addresses from CUBrandMonitor, so this can be a very quick way to get all your branches set up quickly.

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

Here are the steps to getting listed on Google:

• For reference, the Google My Business support center is located here.
• In this day and age, the majority of businesses are already listed on Google. If you see your credit union branches already listed, this may have happened because you, a former employee, or a member already listed it.

Before you begin: Make sure to check that no one else currently at your institution has an active account used to manage locations, as having access to that account could expedite this process.

Step 1: Visit google.com/business.

Step 2: Click Start Now at the top right corner of the page. NOTE: they do provide a phone number (1-844-491-9665) you can call and walk through setting things up with a contract employee. The experience varies depending upon who you speak with, but if you’d prefer to do that over following the steps below, that is an option.

Step 3: Sign in – mostly likely, you’ll want to use a CU account. You can create a login by choosing Create An Account on the login screen.

• If you create an account with your credit union email, you may be asked to verify via an SMS text, then an email, or just via email.
• Once you click the activation link in the email, you’ll be able to log in to your My Business account.

Step 4: Once you’re logged in, you’ll see a map form at the top left (see picture to right here). Enter your branch information in the first field.

Step 5: As you type, suggestions for possible matches will appear. If you see your business, select it from the suggestions.

Step 6: Complete the rest of the fields, then click Continue.

Step 7: If you get an alert saying “Someone else has already verified this listing” skip down to the bottom of this section.

Step 8: You’ll get messaging asking to confirm that you want to manage that business (branch) on Google:

Step 9: Next, you’ll be asked to confirm you want the verification code via mail (this is the only option) – click “Mail”.

Step 10: They will confirm a postcard is being sent and that you should expect it in 1-3 weeks. That said, Google does tell us that the postcard usually arrives within 5 business days. You can also add a contact name to make sure your mailroom can route the postcard correctly.

Step 11: Click to accept the confirmation, and you’ll be taken to your Google My Business dashboard. The dashboard, once verification goes through, will be a big help in terms of listings management.

Step 12: From this single dashboard, as you claim and verify all your branches, they will appear within the same interface. You can also add additional users if you want your team to have access as well.  If someone has already verified your listing, you may see a pop-up alert telling you this. If so, contact that person or follow the Account Recovery steps linked in Google My Business.

 

Next, you’ll be asked to put in your information – and whether you’d like to share information with the current owner. For credit unions, 99.99% of the time the previous owner is someone who was or is in-house.

Google sends the existing verified owner an alert. If that person does not respond within the next 7 days, Google will then let you request to verify the listing via the above described postcard method.

 Repeat all these steps with each of your branch locations.

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

This guide offers a step-by-step guide to claiming your listings on each of the major provider sites.

Click to download the full guide here.

What to Keep In Mind

Whether you are listing your credit union for the first time, or re-claiming a location to clean it up, here are six very important things you need to know before getting started:

1. Remember your login information 
   • You will be creating an account for each provider site, and your username may not always be available. It is important to store your information in a safe
2. Do not always follow the exact instructions these websites give
   • Some of the steps listed online are outdated or do not work with systems you have set up internally. If necessary, look for opportunities to get a live person on the phone (we will provide you with the phone numbers we found).
3. If you work at headquarters office, to claim your businesses, it will generally have to be done through each branch location.
   • These search engines want to make sure you are who you say you are. Whatever phone number and/or address you are using for the business, the search engines will double check through either a phone call, text, or pin number they mail to you.
4. All of these websites are very sensitive, if you try to hit the “back” button once you are in the process of listing a business, you will lose everything and have to start
5. Keep your data relevant
   • Many credit unions, members, and prospective members are surprised with information they find on listings because is incorrect/not updated, even linking them to the wrong website.
   • If your credit union is already listed and the information is incorrect, it’s likely the information is incorrect in other Your goal is to claim the listing so if your information changes in the future, or if you want to make updates, you can do so because you own the page.
6. Listing your businesses will be worth it
   • Once you have claimed all your locations across all the search engines, signing back in is a piece of It’s a great feeling to be in control of all your listings and your search rankings will improve because of it!

 

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

The CUBrandMonitor User Guide walks you step-by-step through the platform. We provide details on how to use each tab, including the Admin sections found under My Account.

Click to Download the CUBrandMonitor User Guide.

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

Let’s start with a quick definition.

When a local business has more than one listing for a single physical location in an online directory, these other listings are considered duplicates.

 

A variety of negative outcomes can arise from the presence of duplicate listings, detracting from your local business’s ability to rank well and win members.

The Google My Business Review Policies speak in very plain language about the number of listings your business can have: Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.

In most cases, failure to comply with the above rule may result in any or all of the following:

• Not knowing which of your listings will outrank the others. You may end up with a highly visible listing with an outdated address, a wrong phone number or other issues showing up for your searches instead of your approved, authoritative listing. New members may be misdirected by the bad data, causing you to lose business. No one wants to try and urgently find an ATM and discover nothing at that location!
• Your review equity may be split up amongst the different listings. Instead of having a single profile for a branch with 20 great reviews, you may have one listing with five reviews and another with 15. If the listing with only five reviews is the one that shows up, the great reputation you are building will be invisible to your potential members.
• Major search engines like Google will not know which of your listings to trust, whether within their own index or within other indexes they rely on for data. You always want to send a single, clear signal about each credit union branch to the search engines from each place it is listed.
• Because of the way that data is fed from one local business index to another on the Internet, even one duplicate listing with bad data can be replicated across multiple platforms. Old listings with incorrect information can end up creating new listings with duplicated errors.

Management of a single listing on a variety of platforms can be challenging enough. If your business needs to update information, you may end up editing the wrong listings if they are duplicates. Your changes may never appear live because you are not editing the listing the search engine or index has decided is most authoritative for your business.

Duplicate listings are not always your fault – in fact, most of the time they aren’t! Very often, duplicates arise out of automated activity on the part of search engines or directories. For example, Facebook added thousands and thousands of business listings in this way. Regardless of how duplicate listings are created, it is always a best practice to try to get them merged or removed.

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

Why Citations Are Important to the Success of Your Local Business

Citations are defined as mentions of your business name and address on other webpages—even if there is no link to your website.

An example of a citation might be an online yellow pages directory where your credit union is listed, but not linked to. Citations can also be found on local chamber of commerce pages, or on a local business association page that includes your branch information, even if they are not linking at all to your website.

Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms in Google and Bing. Other factors being equal, a branch with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than those nearby with fewer citations.

Citations also validate that a business is part of a community. It’s hard for someone to fake membership in a chamber of commerce or a city or county business index, or being written about in a local online newspaper or popular blog.  Citations and links from these kinds of websites can dramatically improve your local search engine rankings.

Where to Get Citations

There are thousands of places where a citation – a mention of your credit union name and address, phone number or website – can be built for your local branch. Every credit union should focus on building a strong core of citations that not only broadens the visibility of the CU, but also strengthen search engines’ “trust” in the validity each branch’s existence.  High-quality, authoritative citations are also viewed by experts as the #1 ranking factor in competitive local search markets.

Here are some excellent potential sources for citations for your branches.

Data aggregators

In the United States, there are four primary aggregators of local business data. Infogroup, Neustar Localeze, Acxiom, and Factual have all compiled unique indexes of approximately 20 million business locations across the United States. These indexes are typically compiled by scouring traditional phone books, business group membership rosters, banking and phone records, and databases from business registration entities.

In turn, these aggregators license or syndicate their data to most local search engines, including Google and Bing.

Local search engines

Local search engines like Google and Bing crawl the web for citations that will validate or correct the business information in their own indexes. Getting listed on sites like Yelp, Foursquare, Yahoo, and others can shore up search engines’ confidence in the accuracy of your branch name, location, and website.

Local blogs

Local blogs are a great place to get your branches listed – and linked to. These will obviously vary by particular geography, but if you simply perform a search on your favorite search engine for “[your city] blog” or “[your neighborhood] blog,” you’ll likely see good candidates.

Locally-focused directories

Like local blogs, local directories are well-indexed by the search engines and are highly associated with a particular city or region. Directories which are edited by a human are much better than those which are “free for all”. Human-edited directories are less susceptible to spam, and are therefore more trusted by the local search engines.

Industry-focused directories or blogs

If a website is focused on topics and keywords related to your products and services, it may be included among the sites that the local search engines count as citation sources—even if that website or directory is not focused on a particular region.

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

Local Business Listing Attributes

Your Business Title

Your “business title” is one of the most important factors for ranking well in the local search engines. Having a title that remains consistent across all data sources is very important; it helps the search engines establish trust in the existence and location of a particular branch.

If your credit union is referred to as “City Name Credit Union” in one place and “City Name Federal” in another place, there is a chance that Google and the other search engines might see that as two separate businesses when it comes to indexing the listings (creating duplicates).

If you have recently had a name change or are looking ahead to one, you’ll need to go through the steps of changing its name, you can register a new DBA (“doing business as”). You will then need to edit all existing mentions of the old credit union name so that all listings include you under the new DBA name. While this may have some benefits, be advised that a change in business name will likely cause you to lose rankings and reviews. Consider this decision carefully.

Links and Citations

Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and other search engines find out about your business in two primary ways:

1. Visiting links that point to your website, and tracking sites where those links appear.
2. Tracking citations of your business, and on which sites these citations appear.

The search engines use these two factors in determining how to rank a particular business. All other things being equal, the business with the most links from high-quality websites in your area—like a chamber of commerce or a city government—and the most citations from high-quality websites in your area, will rank the highest. So you will want to make sure to get your branch name, address, phone number, and website listed as many places as you can.

What Are Citations?

Citations are essentially “mentions” of your credit union branch on webpages other than your own, accompanied by your address, phone number, or both—even if there is no link to your website.

An example of a citation might be an online yellow pages directory where your credit union is listed, but not linked to. It can also be on the website for a local chamber of commerce or local business association where your business information can be found, even if their website does not link to yours. You may also see the term “web references” used on other websites—a synonym for “citations”.

Categories

Many local search engines allow you to place your branch listing into a number of categories—usually between two and five—that help describe the nature of your business. For credit unions, the biggest recommendation we have is to be sure to list yourself as a credit union AND as a bank. I know, it feels wrong, doesn’t it? But since Financial Services aren’t always a category option, it is definitely a good idea.

This is an important step in creating or optimizing your local branch listing. The search engines use category data when deciding which businesses to show for particular searches. The search engines will not display listings results for a business that is uncategorized—or even worse, mis-categorized—for particular sets of keywords.

This usually happens among keywords and phrases that are the most competitive—where there are already a number of businesses associated with a particular category that might satisfy what the searcher is looking for.

Reviews and Ratings

Reviews and ratings area a major factor in persuading prospective members who are looking for the products and services you offer. While a bad review can encourage someone to hit their “back” button and perform another search, a good review can encourage someone to pick up the phone and call you, or stop by a branch or ATM!

Because reviews and ratings are displayed in so many different ways across different search engines, there is some debate about how much reviews or ratings of a business influence its rank in search engine results—but reviews can definitely influence a potential member’s decision to choose your credit union.

As a best practice, you should get in the habit of responding to reviews on the major search sites like Google Maps and Yelp. Sites like Yelp allow for both private and/or public responses.  We suggest private to remedy the situation and public if it is impossible to reverse the perception of the reviewer.

It’s important to engage all of your members—and especially to get your best members to leave a review of your branch on their preferred search engine or portal. Likewise, it’s important to recognize when – and why someone has left a negative review of one of your branches. Reach out to that member or prospective member and find out why they had a bad experience with your credit union, and see if there is anything you can do to change their opinion of you.

Each review platform has its own rules. Some platforms do not have strict or very clear rules, but the two review giants in the industry, Google and Yelp, do have specific review policies to which you must adhere.

• Yelp, for instance, does not allow businesses to solicit reviews from members beyond a simple “check us out on Yelp” sticker in their window or icon on their website.
• Google does not allow suggestions for review content

If you’re thinking about asking members for reviews, know the rules of the sites on which you’re hoping those reviews will appear before you ask.

Photos and Videos

Attractive photos and videos have been shown to increase the number of clicks that a particular listing gets.

They generally offer a great way to show off your business—such as community service projects that your credit union  has worked on, products you offer, your team, or your office itself. A compelling image can help you stand out in an otherwise flat playing field.

Recently, Google has increased the visibility of Google+ listing photos by displaying one for each listed business in their main search results. Choosing photos wisely—both a cover photo for your Google+/My Business Local page and gallery-style photos on your Google Local photo page—is vital to creating an engaging experience for potential members

Social Factors

The social media component of local SEO is growing stronger with each passing year, and learning to participate in the social spaces your members prefer can be a smart move for nearly any credit union. Some local and review-oriented platforms enable you to interact with the public.

For example, a Google My Business page enables you to communicate with your followers in a manner similar to Twitter or Facebook.  Indeed, the role of social factors in local SEO has been on the rise over the years, although the major indicators have shifted. While providing followers with content is still a factor, the real impact is driven by user engagement with what you post, rather than just the volume of posting.

Other Attributes

It is vital to list your complete contact information on your website in a format that the search engines can read.

This is a simple step that a lot of local business owners overlook. Your contact information must be in indexable text—not embedded in an image, Flash, or other formats that search engines can’t crawl.

If you’d rather not list your contact information on your webpages, you should set up a clear “Contact Us” page which displays your complete name, address, and phone number (NAP). To strengthen the signals of your NAP, you may choose to have your IT team encode it in schema, markup code that all major search engines agree upon and understand.

Adhering to the guidelines of any local or social platform is vital to avoiding unwanted penalties. In particular, it is important to read and comply with Google’s policy guidelines in promoting your business. Violations of these guidelines can lead to drops in rankings or even removal from the index.

Perhaps most importantly, the consistency of data published about your branches across the web influences the “trust” search engines like Google have in the validity of your data. Ensuring that every online citation of your branches lists your correct NAP and website address is crucial to your ability to rank well.

Finally, keeping up with changes in policy on the major search engines is the best way to ensure that your business is doing everything it can to be current and visible in local search. CUBrandMonitor will make sure to update you as we learn of any changes!

 

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

Claiming any listing of your credit union online verifies that you are the owner of a valid business and authorized to maintain its presence on the web. We will also provide you with an in-depth guide to claiming listings for each provider.

Each online local business index (‘Providers’ within the CUBrandMonitor interface) has its own claiming process with unique steps to verify your listing. This article provides a general picture of what you can expect to experience during the claiming process at most local business indexes.

Most entities will first ask you to determine whether your branch listing already exists in their index.

• Don’t be surprised if it already does, even if you’ve never created a listing there!
• In general, you’ll be prompted to enter your credit union name or phone number to discover any existent listings.

Next, you’ll review any existing information, correct any incorrect information, and provide any new or missing information about your name, address, phone number, website address, categories, and other details. This is when accuracy and consistency really count! Remember: You want your core branch details (name, address, phone, website) to be identical on every listing.

Once you’ve filled out a branch’s information, you’ll be asked to go through a verification process. This typically happens in one of three ways:

• Via an immediate phone call during which you’ll verify via a pin number.
• Via a postal mail postcard and pin number verification.
• Via an email in which you’ll be clicking on a verification link.

If you are verifying via postcard, alert all staff members who retrieve mail to be on the lookout for the postcard. These typically arrive within a couple of weeks, but are rather plain and small. Check your mail carefully each day.

The time between completing verification and seeing your listing appear online varies widely from search engine to search engine. In some cases, your listing will be live in a matter of days or even minutes, but other local search engines have a lengthy manual review process, meaning that it can take several months for your listing to be approved for publication.

While you wait, resist the urge to make any further changes to your submitted listings; this will only cause problems. Just be patient and check from time to time to see whether your branch listing has gained full inclusion.

In certain indexes, such as Google My Business, any future changes to core data such as the business name or phone number may trigger the need to re-verify. However, you can typically edit things like descriptions and photos without any need to go through the verification process again.

The verification process is easier for some providers than others. If you’re setting out to claim many listings at once, you may want to create a simple spreadsheet that helps you keep track of your efforts and progress with each listing you’re creating and/or claiming.

[CallahanAdminKeymaster]

Click here to download a PDF version of this guide.

We’ve put together an overview of the major factors that influence how a listing performs on local search.

You can:

Download the entire document.

Dive directly into each of the sections, linked here:

1. Local Business Listing Attributes
2. Claiming Your Local Search Listings
3. The Everything Guide to Citations
4. Why Duplicate Listings Matter

 

 

 

[Author]

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