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What does “Good for SEO” really mean?

We regularly make the claim that Google Indoor Street View is good for your online presence, specifically helping both your Google Listing’s ranking & your website’s ranking. Below we get into more specifics.

SEO Basics

(SEO) refers to methods or techniques that help your website rank at the top of search engines results, such as Google & Bing. 

Local SEO

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Local SEO: Your Google Listing

Local SEO is an important factor in your overall SEO and, just like it sounds, it affects your local rankings when a user searches in your area. Your Google listing (shown on right) for Maps and Search is what will be visible in Local SEO. 

The principle outlined above applies in very similar ways to both your website and your Google listing: Fresh, Engaging, and Quality Content is beneficial.

Helping your Google Listing rank better is crucial. When Google chooses to show a snippet from Google Maps, there are only so many listings they show. Do what you can to be in that top tier.

Increased Online Visibility

Those who view a listing with a virtual tour are twice as likely to be interested in booking a reservation there. And among 18-34 year-olds in particular, prospects are 130% more likely to book based on a tour. Here’s where it shows up in search and maps.

How Much Does the Google Virtual Tour Help?

Sometimes we get asked something along the lines of, “how much will it help my SEO”. The answer is that the specifics of the increase in engagement and the subsequent effect on SEO will vary based on a lot of unique situational data, such as the competitive (for SEO) environment, etc. Google has released statistics backing up the claim that Indoor Street View is Beneficial.

  • When searching for businesses, consumers use mapping products 44% of the time
  • Listings with photos and a virtual tour are twice as likely to generate interest as those with only photos.
  • On average, 41% of these place searches result in an on-site visit
  • Adding virtual tour to your Google listing increases online booking by 85%.  
  • 50% of users would click through the virtual tour and make a reservation, increasing online reservations by 30%.  

In summary: Power of Maps & Search Listings Research

Impact on your Website

Embedding a Google Virtual on your website via HTML is like making a direct window to your Google listing. It is Google’s own code setting right on your website as quality content. All the principles of engaging & quality content apply. Here are some embed guides for common website platforms: LINK to Embed Guides

Best Practices / Ideas: Clearly, if you embed the tour in a prominent place on your website, the tour will get a lot more engagement than if it’s buried at the bottom of an “about” or “contact us” page. Additionally, you can put the link to the tour in email signature/footers and other places to encourage engagement.

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A virtual tour is of great quality content for your website. By adding great content and helping keep your average site viewer on your website a bit longer, adding a virtual tour is great for your website’s search engine optimization. We have three guides to help you put it on your website yourself: Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, and WordPress

SEO is obviously a great reason to get better content for your website but there are so many other great reasons to get a virtual tour; find our more on virtual tours here