Choosing the Perfect View in your Virtual Tour to Share it Online

Choosing the Perfect View in your Virtual Tour to Share it Online

One of the most versatile ways to showcase a business online is a Google Virtual Tour. This type of tour provides an immersive experience for customers, allowing them to virtually explore the business as if they were physically there. It provides an excellent way to not only give customers a glimpse of what the business looks like, but also to showcase its unique features and ambiance. Additionally, a Google Virtual Tour is highly shareable and can be easily embedded on a business’s website, social media pages, and other online platforms, making it accessible to a wide audience. You’ll want to share it with as many people as possible. To help you do so, we have put together a list of best practices and techniques that will ensure that when you share your tour online it will shine.

Choosing the Perfect View

Many tutorials on sharing virtual tours simply instruct you to select a tour and generate links to share it. While these instructions are not necessarily incorrect, it is important to consider the purpose of sharing your tour and make intentional choices to enhance its appeal and stand out from others.

When we are choosing the view from a virtual tour that we will share online we approach it like a photographer would when they are taking a picture. When you put yourself in this mindset it prepares you to pick a view that is informative to the viewer, visually pleasing, and begs to be clicked.

Good

Not so good

What do we need to share a tour online

There are many opportunities to share a virtual tour online. Today the most popular sites that we see our clients sharing their tours are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google and many more industry specific platforms. Almost every place to share your tour needs 3 key pieces of information to share it properly.

  1. A link to the tour
  2. An image of the tour
  3. Description text that explains what the user will get or see when they enter the tour

Basic Instructions

  1. Open Google Maps on your desktop computer.
  2. Search for your business or location in Google Maps.
  3. Select the virtual tour from the image gallery.
  4. Navigate through the tour and choose the view you wish to share.
  5. Click on the three dots in the upper left-hand corner of the page to open the menu.
  6. Click on “Share or embed image”.
  7. Click, “COPY LINK”, to copy the link to your clipboard.
  8. Open a screenshot tool and take a screenshot of the view.
  9. Save the screenshot.

Detailed Step-by-Step Instructions With Images

Step 1.

Open Google Maps on your desktop computer.

Step 2.

Search for your business or location in Google Maps.

Step 3.

Select the virtual tour from the image gallery.

The virtual tour can be found in the image gallery by selecting the Street View & 360° category in your Google Business Profile or by selecting a photo in your gallery with the 360° symbol in the bottom left hand corner of the image.

Step 4.

Navigate through the tour and choose the view you wish to share.

Use the arrow buttons on your keyboard or click and drag with your mouse to change your viewpoint. As you move through the virtual tour, you can also use the navigation controls in the lower right corner of the screen to zoom in and out, rotate the view.

Bonus Tip:

The view you choose in (Step 4.) will be represented exactly as it was chosen when you add the virtual tour to your website. Here are a few bonus tips to make your tour look amazing on your website.

  • Center the most important content in the center of the view.
  • When possible, drag the viewpoint to allow all of your vertical lines to appear straight up and down.
  • Keep an eye on the navigation arrows. It is a best practice to share a view in the tour that allows the viewer to step forward, when possible.

Good

Not so good

Step 5.

Click on the three dots in the upper left-hand corner of the page to open the menu.

Step 6.

Click on “Share or embed image”.

Step 7.

Click, “COPY LINK”, to copy the link to your clipboard.

Step 8.

Open a screenshot tool and take a screenshot of the view.

Bonus Tip:

To choose the exact size of the image you want to share, click the “Embed a map” tab in then the Share window. This brings up the options and iframe code to share you tour on a webpage.

Step 9.

Save the screenshot.

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