May is Photography Month, and we love photography here at Sparkfactor. This week, we’ll be publishing a series of posts based on photography. Today’s post focuses on the importance of a virtual tour.
Humans are creatures of habit and want to go where they feel comfortable and known. To have a tour of your business right on the search results page is a way to separate yourself from the pack and connect with your audience.
Virtual Tours Shouldn’t Be Stationary
Virtual tours have been around since 1994, when a virtual reality experience of the Dudley Castle, as it could have been in 1550, was added to its visitor center; the term is said to be the combination of “virtual reality” and “Royal tour,” as Queen Elizabeth II requested that titles and descriptions be added to the tour.
Usually, when thinking of a virtual tour, an image comes to mind of a rotating panoramic picture or of an automated guide leading you through a location or exhibit. Those types of tours were adequate when the technology was new, but now there’s a better way to showcase a location: a Google virtual tour.
The Google tour is unique in that it lets users guide themselves through the space. Unlike other kinds of tours that are made with videos or panoramic photos, Google tours are made of stitched together, floor-to-ceiling HDR photographs. In a process very similar to Google’s Street View, each walking point on a tour requires four photos that then get stitched together to form a 360° view from that point. From there, the user can select from the arrows presented to keep walking forward or turn to other available points in the tour.
As we mentioned in the headshots post, images have a way of establishing trust, long before the words on your site are even read. How much more impact can images have if they get seen before someone is even on your website? The tour, and the still photographs that are included with every tour, can be seen from Google Search, Maps, and Local. A potential customer can become familiar with your business and know that you can fulfill their needs, whether for a night out on the town, hard-to-find beads for their jewelery, or a school for their children.
And with Google Search, Maps, and Local being available on mobile devices, users don’t have to be connected to a desktop or laptop computer to see your tour. As they’re looking for a business on the go, they can see your tour right from their phone.
Your customers aren’t stationary. They move from location to location, using any device from a desktop to a smartphone. So don’t let your tour be stationary either. Give your audience the option to explore your business on their own, learn you’re the right fit, and then visit your business in person.
Want to learn what it takes to have a Google virtual tour of your business? Give us a ring!
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Read the previous Photography Month post about stock photography.