We have all seen the Google car or at least photos of it, and you may wonder what it’s doing and why it’s important for your business. The Google Street View Program assigns mapping vehicles to drive every street in the world. There is a program to connect Street View to your business called Street View Trusted that will allow customers to “see inside” your business. Customers can transition from the street to the business and tour it with a series of connected 360 degree panoramic photos. This program is only available through Google Certified photographers know as Trusted Photographers.
This program is available in Colorado Springs now.
Why should you consider this? Google Street view Trusted panoramic photography will appear on the Google Business Listing, making you stand out from the competition that does not have this feature. Note that Google Business listings will appear above the websites that apply to your search query. Google Adwords listings will appear above the business listings. Contact your SEO provider to find out more about Adwords. Your Google Street View tour will also appear on Google Maps and Google + (Google Social Media site). You can also place your tour on your website, and your Facebook page. Your local Google Street View Trusted provider can help you with this.
There are no advertising fees to have your enhanced Street View tour on Google! You only have to pay a small fee to have the tour shot and uploaded to Google. The photo fee also includes high quality photos that appear on you Google Business Listing, Google Maps and Google +. You own the photos and can use them in an other way you choose, like your website.
You might well ask why bother with this program? You already have a website, and you are on Facebook. The reason to choose this is that customers with a Google Street View Trusted tour will get higher click through rates to the their website and more phone calls. Here are some quotes from a Google case study on restaurants in NYC.
“On average, restaurant listings that included Google Business Photos had
a 30% higher click through to reservations
- Visitors who viewed Business Photos for a given business clicked through
to make a reservation 50% of the time (20% more than visitors who didn’t
view Business Photos)
- 84% of 1,300 surveyed customers said Google Business Photos played a
factor in their restaurant choice”
Importance of mobile devices
Today’s businesses are faced with a lot of fast moving changes in the world of advertising. Traditional advertising like TV, Print, and brochure advertising, although important, is becoming less relevant as the internet and social media advertising becomes more and more significant for getting your business noticed and creating customers from prospects.
It seems like everyone has a smart phone these days and they are using them to find and visit business that engage them through their online presence.Google Street view photo sessions are optimized for mobile devices and play very well on Smart Phones. If you have not made your website mobile responsive yet, Google Street view trusted is a great solution to help you until you make your site mobile responsive.
See this graph (http://www.smartinsights.com/internet-marketing-statistics/insights-from-kpcb-us-and-global-internet-trends-2015-report/)
One of the best and simplest ways to get noticed is to pay attention to you Google Business listing. This is a free listing that provides basic information about your business, including directions, contact information and , maps and links to your website. Make sure your profile is complete, all contact and location and contact information is up to date and your business is verified. Ask your SEO provider for help if you are struggling with this. They can speed up verification for you.