How To Prepare Your Business for a Virtual Tour

Tutorials

How To Get Your Business, "Photo Shoot Ready" For A Virtual Tour.

Our team wants to set you up for success. Working as efficiently as possible requires good prep work. It's our goal to minimize as much work as possible for you in the process, so we've gathered our best tips, tricks, and requirements to prepare your business for a Google virtual tour.

Quick Links

download the virtual tour preparation pdf documents in the links below

Let's Get Started

You've booked a Google Virtual Tour. Great! But now what do you do? Planning for a Google Virtual Tour photographer to come to your business (or visit all of your locations) might sound overwhelming, but Advanced Online Insights makes it simple and straightforward to present your business in the best way possible.

Exceptional Project Management

One of the most important benefits we offer our customers is exceptional project management. Whether you are planning for a virtual tour of your 2,000 square-foot business office or 500 tours of your company's offices across the country, we will handle the process from the beginning to end.

Planning your virtual tour requires a bit of knowledge and insight from our team. To put together your estimate and proposal, we research your geographic location, sunrise/sunset times, distance between one location and the next, traffic flow, surrounding streets, and more. We plot out the plan so you know exactly what needs to be done and when. We will ask the right questions to get the information we need, and we'll minimize your time investment in the planning process.

Good-to-Know Information

There are always a few key pieces of information that the majority of our clients ask before a tour. Here are some of the good-to-know details we find most helpful for our clients preparation best practices.

People-free is the way to be.

It is best to have your business clear of all people during the 360° photo shoot. If people are present they will need to remain motionless for the duration of the virtual tour capture process. Google mandates that all faces are to be blurred for privacy and that no people are to be present in imagery for any type of medical practice. In most cases, we prefer to shoot during non-business hours to accommodate these best practices.

Areas typically INCLUDED in the virtual tour

Our goal is to tell the story of your business through a virtual tour. We mainly shoot areas of the business that are open to the public and all images must connect through line of site between shots.

  • Exterior Entrance

  • Lobby and Waiting Areas

    • 10'+ from entrance

    • 4' from entrance

    • 4' inside entrance

  • Meeting Rooms

  • Activity Centers

  • Hallways & Walkways

  • Areas of various business types

    • Retail space

    • Exam rooms

    • Private dining rooms

    • Service departments

    • Office stations

    • Art exhibits

    • Etc...

Areas typically NOT included in virtual tours

  • Restrooms

  • Private Offices

  • Breakrooms

  • “Employees Only” areas

Preparation: Before the Photographer Arrives

Our team will work with you to determine the best point of contact for each location that we visit. Each onsite contact will be responsible for the following...

  • Arriving 15 minutes before scheduled shoot time

  • Having keys, access cards, and security/alarm codes for the facility

  • Working knowledge of all lights and electronic signage

What To Expect On The Day Of Your Virtual Tour Photo Shoot

The day of your photo shoot has finally arrived! Here's how a typical virtual tour photo shoot usually plays out.

Walk-through & Staging: 5 to 10 Minutes Upon Photographer's Arrival

Upon arrival, the photographer will walk through the facility and choose the best location to setup and capture each room and the best connection points to create a fluid path for the virtual tour. They will help to remove any items that do not need to be in the photos and straighten any areas that may need attention.

Imagery Capture: Time Varies Based On Size Of Tour

When we capture the 360° imagery for the virtual tour, the onsite contact will need to stay out of site. Most customers spend time in a break room or a private office. In the case of multiple locations being shot in the same day, we will call the next location's onsite contact once we finish the previous tour.

Post-Tour: 5 to 10 Minutes After Photographer's Departure

Our photographers respect all of our customers' offices and spaces, and we do our best to return furniture and any items we may have moved for the tour back to their original location. It's advised to allot 5-10 minutes after the photo shoot for final adjustments once our team has finished. We always leave our clients spaces as clean, if not cleaner, than we found them!

Check Email for Updates

After the session is complete, each tour requires hours and hours of editing and “stitching” together. We provide a timeline and an estimated completion date for every project, and we do our best to honor that in every way. You can always plan to hear from our team if there's any need to adjust deadlines based on the scope of the project. Our production process lasts anywhere from two weeks to several months. We will do our best to accommodate important dates and deadlines on your project.

Conclusion

Our team is honored to have your business and we work hard to make the process as easy as possible for our customers. If you are interested in learning more about having your office, place of business, or multiple locations photographed for a virtual tour, connect with us! You can reach our sales team, via our primary email address: sales@advancedonlineinsights.com. We look forward to working with you!

Quick Links

download the virtual tour preparation pdf documents in the links below