“See Inside” with Google Virtual Tour
About a year ago “or so” I said to an associate I think I need to really focus on cleaning up the front of my residence as Google was using the front of our house as the street view that you would see when you searched for Bear Web Design. (We have since relocated to an Office on Lebanon Pike but the challenge remains with how we look from the street). Google uses street view (called “See Outside”) to show the front street view of each business as part of the Google My Business / Google Maps listing. It seemed pretty obvious to me – if the view looks old or run down you may just be losing prospects. I must admit I was excited at the idea of the concept “Google Friendly Landscaping” being someone who loves gardening but also realized how many businesses may look “HORRIBLE” from the street view. And even worse – Google can quite often show the wrong building or ajoining structure in street view and totally put off the searcher…
So before you go running to the front of your building (and start crying if it doesn’t look that good) Google has recently launched a great new service called Virtual Tour that actually shows the inside of your business (professionally photographed in a 360 view). This is called “See Inside” and it showcases the inside of your business and it also does additional professional street view photos to ensure YOU LOOK GREAT! We have our first client using this technology – Justin Patel of Integrity Investments and his Holiday Inn Express and Baymont Inn are both in the process of setting up this service. Another business that Justin owns has just completed this process is Primings Cigar Lounge & Bar and folks get ready to get WOWED!
Here is the link to see the view – https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=primings%20cigar%20lounge – and select “See Inside” on the right hand side of the search result… and voila you are in 360 view… You can literally walk thru the entire inside of the business (and sure enough Primings Cigar Lounge & Bar looks absolutely Gorgeous!)…. Play around with the views – walk thru the business and think about how a prospect or customer may have a great experience doing this in your business.
You will also note that the photos to the left are the same professional photos that were taken from the 360 view. And we can take the same virtual tour links and add them to Justin’s website so we can get people visiting your website to take a 360 virtual tour quickly!
So how do you get this service? Google Certificated Photographers are the folks currently charged with providing this service. You can see by this example that they know what they are doing and their results are outstanding. There are costs that can vary pending how much photography work is done – but you are paying a one time fee for this setup – no ongoing costs and basically the 360 view remains in place for the lifetime of business. Just imagine how much traffic this may receive over the years.
And the best thing is that you are now fully controlling the photos that are showed by Google. It is no longer a maybe good or maybe not so good street view. It is professional presentation at its best. So what business would this suite? Retail, Restaurant, Café’s, Specialty Stores, Events and Promotional Business – basically any business that can entice the customer into their business by showing off the inside of the business…
Bear Web Design has commenced working with American Marketing & Publishing, L.L.C and local rep Joy Collins who is helping us offer this service to our customers. Please contact me and I will be happy to share more information and general costs for this service. We can also setup an appointment to meet with Joy if we feel this is a good match for your business. I am absolutely excited about Google’s 360 view and look forward to “everyone” seeing the Inside of your business soon!
