Compiling a List of Local Businesses

I wanted to compile a list of 100 businesses in my area to contact and have not yet been able to find a tool that will do exactly what I want. I may have to create one eventually, but in the meantime, I've found something that will suffice.

You want to start with Bing, Microsoft's new name for their search engine. You'll find it at http://www.bing.com/.

1) Click on Maps and enter your search criteria. For this example, I kept with the default "Espresso in Seattle". For my own purposes, I would want restaurants, bars, groceries, auto repair shops, salons, and such, but you can only enter one type of business at a time. And I chose to narrow my field by entering the zip code of my choice.

2) Once you have your search results, you'll see an "Add to Collection" link (I've circled one in red below.) You can click on this link even if you haven't yet created a collection.

3) A Save dialog will appear. If you have no collections, it will show "Unsaved Collection." Click "Save." Repeat this step with each link you want to add to your collection.

4) Repeat Steps 1 - 3 for each additional business type you select until you have the number of links needed in your collection (Bing will allow up to 200.) When finished, click on "Collections," then "Open Your Collections."

5) You'll see your collection of links. Toward the top, you'll see, "This collection isn't saved yet. Save it now." Click on "Save it now."

6) Give the collection a title. If you plan to share this collection with a spouse, colleague, business partner, make it something clear. I chose "Businesses in 98003" for mine. And to share, you'll need to make sure the boxes below are checked.

7) That's all there is to creating the list. I compiled a list of 100 businesses of the various types I wanted in the area I wanted to concentrate on. To find out why, click here...

UPDATE: I just discovered that you can also export your data into a file to import to your GPS device. So this would be helpful in making face-to-face visits as well.