Localmn Announces New Local SEO Services for Virtual Tour Customers
Putting search in your virtual tour
Localmn has provided local search marketing services since 2003 and virtual tours since 2017. Now with more modern analytics and image search recognition, you can now have the unique Local SEO strategies that combine the two and more for our virtual tour customers. Localmn is excited to offer this new combination.
Google and photo recognition
Google is taking more steps to improve photo recognition in search. In fact, Google has a number of patents including this one including recognizing points within a grid. (TL:DR)
Associating a grid of points with the image, each point having an initial position
In your custom tour content hotspots, added images and videos, you can have links, descriptions and tags to help search engines identify the search users intent, all while offering trust and comfort to your users.
Applying these photos in your virtual tour
As an example, you can feel more at ease going into somewhere knowing that up front is a safe check-in with plexiglass, hand sanitizer, and a water station. These are just 3 of many examples of what both users and search engines are looking for.
Agencies! See our agency page to see how you can have our tours created for your local clients.
Say no to stock photography
Like above, using your own photos in your custom virtual tours simply outweigh any stock photography. Users are there to see your unique location. Not only are these your own photos, but they can be precisely positioned and even described in a way to provide trust for users before they even visit you. These are often the moments users make that decision to pay a visit
What about the search engines?
Custom virtual tours can be optimized for search engines as well with your compelling features and benefits. You get both the best worlds (custom and Google) with each tour! Here’s just a Google search example which includes a properly written title and meta description.
Protip: Having calls-to-action items staged for your virtual tour can help users and search engines. Partially because of the improvements in photo recognition, this is a great example of providing useful images to both the user and search engine.
What about generative AI?
This is emerging as we read. Generative AI has been making noise lately in local SEO circles which can certainly help for local images. Imagine using an image of Currie Park in Minneapolis with downtown in the background. They recently renovated their soccer pitch and you wanted to add a player to the generated photo. You may get something from a search like this.
soccer player with ball at currie park with downtown minneapolis in the background
This is a big improvement from just months ago. It’s also admittedly missing US Bank Stadium which would be prominent in the background. Ok, we’ll try it again.
soccer player with ball at currie park with downtown minneapolis in the background us bank stadium
Still no stadium. With using “US Bank Stadium” in the generator, it does include Vikings purple apparel. It’s compelling and I just assume there’s a match in their AI for this, but I really don’t know.
These are just a couple of many samples from Dall-E 2 which on this end is much cleaner than they were just months ago. Will this technology kill stock photos? Probably not. It gives companies a reason to raise their eyebrows though. Look what Shutterstock is doing with their innovations to use and sell AI-generated stock imagery.
Be a step ahead
Having a virtual tour already puts you a step ahead by being interactive with your local customers. Combine that with the strategies, reporting and our experience, and you have the knowledge to continue engaging customers.
See both our portfolio page and our outdoor portfolio tours around Minneapolis and Minnesota.