Google Tours allows your business a new and innovative way to interact with your customers. As more people turn to mobile devices, reviews, and video content, it pays to have a Google Tour that allows people to virtually visit your store. Virtually visiting anywhere is growing in popularity. Here is how a Google Tour can enhance your business brand.
What is a Google Virtual Tour?
A Google Tour is essentially a walk-through of your location using image sequencing from a professional agency or Google-contracted individual. The virtual tour is different from taking your cell phone and walking through your building. Instead, the tour consists of 360° images that are produced and added to your Google My Business listing. The photos are interconnected, so it feels as if the person is walking through the business as they can move their “camera” around and see all sides of the room they are in. The virtual tour is designed to give them an idea of what it would feel like when they visit.
Why You Need a Google Tour
Over 6 million people take virtual home tours daily! With these types of numbers, it’s easy to see why it is important to implement a Google tour for any industry. Google provides all businesses with a FREE way to showcase their business. Creating your Google My Business profile is an essential component of effective online marketing.
1. Increased Quality Content and Imagery Increases Customer Interaction
When you take the time to add onto your Google My Business profile with accurate information and imagery, your customers will take notice. Optimizing your listing is more than adding a website link, phone number, and address. Proper optimization goes beyond this basic element to include phots of the interior and exterior of your business, engaging content, customer reviews, videos, and a virtual tour.
When you use the virtual tour for a restaurant, you want to show people the dining area so they can get an idea of the atmosphere. Great photography helps to showcase the cleanliness of the restaurant and gives “a thousand words” to a viewer. Including the 360° virtual tour gives you that extra edge you need in the industry as people can spend time “walking” around the restaurant. This feature is extremely popular for almost every industry from dentistry to restaurants, even shopping stores! Giving people that real, inside look at your business does make your business more attractive to a potential customer.
Here’s the brass tax, when people use the virtual tour, Google rewards you. Now, you get views that are deemed positive interaction with the listing, giving you better rankings. Adding more photo content is recommended, and it’s free! A simple picture communicates so much to a customer, and it does give you that edge you need to stay ahead of your competitors. One other benefit of using the tours and photos is how it allows you’re your business to easily show your customers you are up-to-date with the latest technology, and you want to give them all the information they need.
2. Show Readers Everything Through Photography
Sometimes it can be hard to describe a physical location, a product, or that extra touch that sets your business apart from others. Using photography, you can easily showcase these unique touches. Simple things like art touches on the walls, colorful chairs in a kid’s playroom, and cleanliness are just a few things that look nicer in pictures than in words.
Virtual tours give the customer the ability to actually experience the location, using their own eyes. People often use these to help plan out vacations, dates, and more! It makes the person more confident as they feel like they have already been there. Walking around various parts of a business, especially those that are done with professional tours WILL stand out in the search engines. People get to zoom in and finally get to see all the things that make the business unique.
3. Updated Storefront of a Business – Benefiting Google Maps and Google Rankings.
What often happens is Google will use a picture of a listing that was taken by maps, which can often be a dirt field, or a storefront prior to when your business was established in that location. Not having an updated storefront is confusing to prospective customers as they are unable to identify your business. We often find business owners renovating buildings and updating exterior elements to breathe new life into the building. If you don’t have a current image to show this, your prospective customers may skip over your listing for the next one that looks more appealing.
Google Map vehicles only drive by once a year or less in several areas. A Google tour allows you to remedy the outdated imagery and replace it. A professional tour will involve a Google virtual tour producer who will start with the storefront at the beginning of the tour and will be able to go from there. It gives your Google listing an accurate look at your business, which is helpful for customers who use Google Maps to navigate to your storefront.
4. Accurate and Attractive Look
The virtual world continues to grow, and it’s been shown time and time again that people want more from their virtual world. Google Tours gives you a chance to stay ahead of the curb as things continue to change with Google and Facebook. Large corporations are paying millions for the development of hardware and applications to create new virtual reality programs. A Google virtual tour will give your customers the chance to actually experience your location.
5. How Many People Are Seeing Your Listing?
Using Google My Business, you can see how many people are looking at your photos and interacting with your listing. You will be able to see how many impressions are happening, along with how many clicks are occurring from the pictures. As you continue to add to your profile, you will be able to see how many people are engaging with your listing, and how it’s improving your business’s visibility.
6. Google Virtual Tour Can Be Shared
Google Virtual Tours are designed to be embedded and shared with several places. The copy-and-paste code makes it easy for you to share the tour on several pages on your website and on other websites. Some businesses like to include multiple pages to show different tours and views of the business. Real estate listings often find that these tours are extremely beneficial as they can show all the amenities that are included with the property such as a gym and pool.
Facebook includes 360° support and you can share your tour here, allowing you to stay in touch with your customers. Another great option is to share your tour with all your clients via email as it gives them a chance to see some of the changes you’ve made.
7. Google Tours Last for Years
Once you create the Google tour, it will remain your tour forever. The cost of the production and photography is fairly inexpensive, especially since it does last until you choose to delete it.
Final Thoughts From PDM
Proper optimization of your Google My Business listing is one of the best ways to increase your Google ranking. A tour is recommended by Google, which means you need to consider adding this to your business listing. As Google controls the majority of search engine traffic, 65% in fact, taking the time to optimize your Google listing has never been so important! Performance Driven Marketing is a trusted Google partner company, and we are here to help you get the most out of your Google tour!
