The E-commerce environment can sometimes effect the ambiance of a business, the human touch just isn’t there. Now with Google Street View, we can bring a real-life 360 degree experience with virtual tours of your business, unlike anything before it.
Joe: I want to talk about Google My Business. There is no question that your business showing up on Google Maps and having the business directory listing (map pack) to the right is super important. Chauncey, you and I look at stats for clients of ours on Google My Business and sometimes there’s more traffic clicking on their ‘Google My Business’ map pack listing then are clicking on their website.
So I started doing some research on the things that my company could do more of to rank higher and so I started looking at different indicators and factors that help. I came across Google Street View, it’s a 360-degree virtual tour. You may have already see on some Google listings. So when I was doing research it looks like that helps. Now you’ve actually worked with Matt Morgan over at Optimized Worldwide where he did this.
Chauncey: He did the tour. I believe you can find it on the about page of his website. You can easily type in his address, go to street view and walk right into the end of the building.
Joe: So did that help him? You know I actually don’t want to cheat the question because I have a feeling it helps in a couple of ways. But how did it help him? And if so what was it doing for him?
Chauncey: Well that’s a long discussion. I mean it helps in a lot of different ways. I can’t tell you if it helped him exactly but I can tell you that it helped him exactly. A lot of this stuff is speculation and one speculation is that anytime you shake hands with Google you’re getting a trust factor because you’re connecting your account to multiple Google things and what this is doing is making Google say we know them. We’re friends with them, they’re there and they’re working with us you know and it’s creating and it’s upping the trust factor. So any time you use a Google product, it makes Google think you’re a real business.
Joe: We know that with Google My Business directory listing it shows up in the maps and we know that Google demands to trust you. We know that the more pictures you can show of your business the more Google’s will like you. Make sure that your business has the right categories and fill out your profile.
Chauncey: Yeah in the case of Google My Business, we know you need it, you want a rank, get it. You don’t have it? You know you’re not doing good. But in the case of other Google products, it’s speculation as to if it helps you or not. But we do think it helps at least.
Joe: That would be the chief answer I go to for my research, as it appears that it’s more information for Google to see that your real business and see that you’re willing for customers to see your business. And so I think that goes to trust factor I think sometimes what I’m saying the word trust factor is saying well so Google can trust you but it’s really if Google thinks that it can trust its customers with you, then Google trust you more.
Chauncey: Yeah but trust factor has like multiple facets to it. So not only is it like that, but it’s also like longevity. So you know one of the easiest things you can do for your SEO is to go out and buy your domain name for 10 years. That’s the longest amount of time that you can have it. And what that does is it tells everybody we plan on being here for 10 years. So as you use these products as you have them come in and take pictures of the inside of your building. It’s really kind of showing Google that we plan on being here and a business for quite some time.
Joe: Yeah. I have a personal story where it occurred to me this would have helped a business. So now that I’m here and I got a new house and there are weird things you’ve got to do like you got to buy a fence or you got to buy furniture. Those things that you didn’t have to do for some years as you were settled in where you lived before. You don’t know where a car wash is. You know you like a certain kind of car wash. I like the one where you can park and then you spray yourself and wash it all down yourself. Not that I do that, I make my boys do that. But I like to watch them do that.
Chauncey: You’re sick. Like, get to work you little jerks. Get to work you little brat.
Joe: So the point is though that you know when I go to look for a fencing contractor or whatever it is, I’m eating my own dog food now as a digital marketer because you’re going well why should I pick that fence guy over this fence guy. Gosh, I wish I knew more about how organized is that guy’s yard. Is all his equipment organized or is this other contractors yard a mess. You know he’s got a big pit in the center and a gun range or whatever.
So I’m starting to think about experiences with these new products and wondering how can that translate over to how I help our clients.
Recently, I drove around for 45 minutes to three different car washes trying to find the kind of car where I can pull up and wash it. All three I pulled up to was the kind that they pull your car through and they wash it. If I could have just seen one more image of what the place looked like or if I could’ve seen a 360 view in the parking lot, I would have gone to the closest car was that did that, but none of them did.
I’m constantly running into people who don’t want to put in the work to put an “About Page” on their website. So you know having a tour, photos or this 3D tour and all that stuff on their website would benefit them. You would have gone there, spent a lot of time looking at it. You would have been using their site, would have been checking it out and you would have been spending a massive amount of time on their website which Google would have registered as quality making them more likely to rank above their competitors. So if you’re a business owner that’s where the advantage really kind of lies with this transparency of these things.
Chauncey: Let the customers make up their mind and give them all the information they need.
Joe: Yeah well I mean it’s a double whammy. It’s also it’s letting the customer do it. But it’s also letting Google know the people are spending time on your site and enjoying it.
Chauncey: Double whammy. It’s like taking the suck out.
Joe: So this isn’t something that you have to hire someone to do right. If you want to give customers a better view of your business and frankly beat your competitor, because I don’t see very many companies doing this then help Google trust you. Also, you want to keep people on your website more by integrating this stuff into your website. It’s probably not something you’ll go out and do in two seconds but you can do it yourself.
Download Google’s street view app, it will let you take 360-degree pictures of your property and your building, it’s pretty easy to kind of spin it around and it will tell you when to take the next picture and you do. There’s also a camera you can buy, that will take the pictures for you. I’d like to see that we’re going to start doing this for all our clients.
Chauncey: It’s really not crazy. We live in a world of transparency and not only does technology like it, but society likes it. This is one of those things where we can look at society and we can know that we are on a linear path and that is people want more transparency out of the things that they’re dealing with. Every year it’s more and more. The more that you can show them, the more you can prove that you have nothing up your sleeves.
Joe: What you just did to show nothing up your sleeves, that was a total TV minute right there.
Chauncey: Jazz hands! So yeah I think I’m going to do this now.
Joe: There’s a big church in Redding called Neighborhood Church. It is such a big beautiful church. They rank pretty high there and they do exactly that.
Chauncey: I’d like to say, not even on a parishioner level, and not even on a search level and I hate to put it in business terms when we’re talking about a church, but on a conversion level like people look at it, they say they like it, they want to go. One business that we work with on a regular basis is the Shasta Venture Hub who rents out spaces and it would be a great service for them that people could come there and see how awesome it is on the inside without having to make an appointment. They could just virtually walk in and say “Man, I want to be a part of this.”
Thanks for listening to the Being Found Show, Click here to find out more about the Street View app by Google. To explore camera options for those who want to take a step further then the app click here.
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