How to Upload Your Matterport Virtual Tour to Google Street View
Have you ever heard of a virtual tour? Whether you have or haven’t, there are plenty of amazing benefits to having a virtual tour for your business!
A virtual tour is defined as a 3D digital replica of a physical location, created by using a sequence of videos or still images.
The incredible thing about virtual tours is how much they can benefit the SEO ranking of the business it is made for.
Because the virtual tour is linked with Google, businesses will rank higher in search engines, generate more calls, and build brand awareness like never before! This is because Google will inherently trust businesses that are linked through them as more legitimate than those that are not.
If you haven’t heard of linking Matterport virtual tours with Google yet, don’t worry. This step-by-step guide will answer all of your questions and provide you with another way to bring your client’s local SEO to the next level!
In this blog, learn how to publish virtual tours to Google Street View and view its analytics.
You may be wondering how we know so much about virtual tours. Well, Momentum 360,which is a branch of the Momentum Digital brand, specializes in them! Momentum 360 is a Matterport Partner and a Google Street View Trusted Pro.
Having these partnerships allows Momentum 360 to publish virtual tours of local businesses and other locations directly to Google Street View and Google Maps through the Google My Business integration with Matterport.
How do you publish your own? Keep reading to find out!
Step 1: Enable Publishing to Google Street View
Before you publish your virtual tour, you must first confirm that you have the setting enabled. This will allow you to publish it directly to your business location.
To ensure that you are able to publish your first virtual tour:
- Log in to my.matterport.com
- Choose the location you would like to upload the virtual tour to
- From the menu tabs, find and click “Apps”
Here, you will see that it costs $14.99 per location to publish it to Google Street View.
In order to publish the tour, there are two steps you must take:
- Enable Google Street View in your account settings
- Make the space live
To Enable Google Street View…
- Go into your account’s settings
- Navigate to manage
- Find the Product Settings
Make sure that the Google Street View Enabled option is turned on.
If you want to learn more, information about Matterport and Google Street View can be found here.
To make your space public…
- Navigate back to your locations
- Choose the location you would like to make public
- Find the menu options in the top right-hand corner
- Find the lock icon that reads “Space is Private”
- Click the icon and select “Confirm” to make public
Step 2: Publish to Google Street View
To publish to Google Street View…
- On your location page, find the “Apps” tab
- Find and select the “Publish to Google Street View” box
Once the page reloads, you will go through 3 simple steps to set up your location’s virtual tour.
- Adjust Footprint. This allows you to adjust where the virtual tour will be placed. Publish it at your business’s correct address in order to keep consistent citations and boost your SEO!
- Choose Account. Add and select a Google account to publish the virtual tour with. If you are posting on behalf of a business, use the business’ Google login. If you don’t have the login, you can post it for them with your account and invite them as collaborators so that they can view and edit the tour.
- Review and Publish. Review the settings and hit “Publish.” Once published, Google will review the virtual tour and post it to Google Street View. This process may take up to 24 hours.
Step 3: Check the Tour’s Analytics
After it is published for some time, it is important to check the tour’s analytics to see how well it is performing.
The analytics will let you know who is viewing your virtual tour. This data helps you understand your audience and can help remarket to them if need be.
You can track your virtual tour via Google Analytics and Google My Business. It is a successful tool to utilize because each platform gives a weekly and monthly report of the views each tour receives.
Now that your tour is published and you are tracking analytics, you are ready to go!
If you are looking to have a virtual tour of your business done, check out Momentum 360, a branch of the Momentum Digital family.
See you next week for another Momentum Monday blog!