GOOGLE PARTNERSHIP WITH VIRTUAL TOURS

It's been a year since Google launched its own platform to produce Virtual Tours, called Tour Creators. 
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​It's no secret that the American giant focuses a lot on the interest that people put in the immersive experiences given by virtual visits, also because the data of research analysis reassure developers: offering an immersive virtual experience on the web leads the user to stay up to five times longer on the site that hosts it.

Google, The Good Giant
Google is the most used search engine (70% of the market) and the most reliable for local mapping of business activities, with the My Business application: through a personal professional portal, the user can be found on the map by all potential customers. By inserting the Virtual Tour into their commercial sheets, a professional can also be seen through Google Street View, with immense benefits in terms of visibility and direct conversions (if it is a marketplace).
A research commissioned by the provider Liberty Global to Studio Oxera on the benefits of broadband, has shown how the user is more stimulated to use the web for videos, streaming, virtual tours with 360-degree views and 360-degree live footage.

Virtual Tours help double the interest in web pages 
Users who view a webpage with an embedded virtual tour, are twice as likely to be interested in a reservation*. Especially among users aged 18 to 34, potential customers are 130% more likely to book after seeing a tour*.
Of the people surveyed, 67% want more activity sheets with virtual tours*. On average, 41% of these searches lead to an on-site visit*.

The value of a Virtual Tour
The Virtual Tour has many possibilities to use for promotional and marketing purposes:
- It can be inserted into your website with an embed code. In this way, the user can view the Tour by staying within the portal, ensuring an increase in the time spent on a single page.  It will significantly increase the time spent on your site: visitors remain on average 5 times longer in a site that hosts a Virtual Tour. This dynamic is extremely powerful as a SEO factor. Being among the first results in search engines is a fundamental goal;
- A Virtual Tour can include links to the commercial activity, possibility of purchasing goods and services, HD images, video, connection to the social platforms of the activity, direct call to a chosen number and many other options. These interactions create even more attraction towards the business and increase the possibilities of contact and purchase through the link to the sales site;

The "Immersive Mode"
- Makes you appreciate any environment, even the most complex, thanks to the totally immersive mode for which it was designed. Any corner can be appreciated, there are no surprises for the final user and the satisfaction and awareness of the observed reality  increases, preparing in advance a client for the real visit;
- Through the publication of a Virtual Tour you can make the structure visitable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And anywhere in the world. There are fewer visits to the site for RE Agents, resulting in time and effort savings (in addition to the absence of profit), increase the number of customers who will certainly be interested in the structure. Up to 35% more bookings and online sales have been recorded.
The secret is to give your customers what they are looking for and address their concerns, accompanying them in an increasingly detailed discovery, thanks to virtual tours.
And they will not be disappointed on arrival with expectations, which will be fully met;

Beating the competition
- With a Virtual Tour, you can anticipate competitors in innovation, using a platform that is still relatively new. As technology progresses, it is now possible to sell a house without ever having been there (directly documentable cases). Even if the tradition pushes the customer towards verification (the famous "touch with a hand"), I am more than convinced that in a few years most real estate transactions will take place thanks to the preliminary use of the Virtual Tour.
- There is nothing more authentic and realistic than a 360° virtual tour, photos and videos. Make available all the VR content to those who visit your website, and you will be rewarded.
This is an important strategy of involvement.

The Best Ally
Finally: the Virtual Tours and the Google, with the search engine, are now connected by a solid and visible thread: there is nothing better than having a well-structured ally in your team. 

For more information on how to run a Virtual Tour and consequent digital marketing choices to increase conversions of your users (including through SEO, or Local SEO), contact us without obligation, filling the simple form.



*Source: Independent research carried out by Oxera
Also see these case study 

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Diego Scarsi

I worked as an architect in Italy until 2016, then I decided to completely change my life and move to Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. Now I'm in charge of photography, virtual tour and virtual reality, interior design and wandering in the fantastic world of the web.