Virtual Tour of your Business in Sussex from Google Business Photos
Click on the image below to ‘walk’ around!It costs nothing to feature your business on a Google+ Local Page. Add Business Photos and your customers can walk around – take a virtual tour – explore and interact with your business like never before. What’s more, you can add the the tour and additional photos to your own web site.
Customers will now be able to truly experience your business – just like being there – and when they like what they see, they’re so much more likely to come and spend with you.
A Google+ Local page
When you search in Google or Google Maps for businesses – such as ‘Pub in Cuckfield’ a number of red place markers (pins) are shown. If you click on the pin, a pop-up allows you to click on a ‘More Info’ link, which opens the Google+ Local page for the business (this used to be called a Places page).
If it’s your business, you can claim control of the page and add photos and descriptions of your business. There’s no cost to you for this page, which, if you make proper use of it, is effectively a free web site for your business provided 365 days a year by Google. Quite a bargain when you consider the cost of other media advertising that lasts only a limited period.
Example Virtual Tour
The example virtual tour below – of The Wheatsheaf In, Cuckfield, will open full screen if you click the symbol in the top right corner. Click the arrows to explore, the press your Esc key to return to this page.
When you choose to include Google Business Photos, a specially trained independent photographer, selected by Google, will take a series of still images for use in the photos section of the Google+ Local page and shoot the virtual tour, then process the tour to Google exacting quality standards to appear on your Google+ Local page.
There is no charge to you for showing or hosting your Google Business Photos, but you will need to pay the photographer for their production. The photographer is an independent contractor who has been selected and by Google and has undergone training to produce Google Business Photos to Google’s strict quality control standards.
There does not need to be any disruption to your trading. The tour uses Google’s street view technology, but you don’t have a car driving through your business! Using specialist equipment, the tour typically takes between one and three hours to complete, depending on it’s size, with the still photography adding perhaps another hour. When you ask me for a free survey and quote, I’ll give you a reasonable estimate of the time involved.
As on Street View, any faces and car registration numbers are blurred, but Google Trusted Photographers normally aim to keep people out of the tour imaging, where possible. You’re welcome to have your tour scheduled outside of working hours.