THIS Google Maps Hack Turns Any Streets into Branding Opportunities (And No One’s Talking About It)

Take a look at this Google Maps listing. It looks like a nice beachfront. What about this Google Map listing here? Looks like a nice little trail. What about this one here? Just looks like a normal sushi restaurant. And lastly, what about this one here? Just looks like a normal dirt road, right? But although these all look like normal Google Maps listing here, what if I told you they all have one thing in common? All of these Google Maps listings are contributed by users just like you and I. Yes, we can actually upload our own 360-degree those into Google that contributes to the Google Maps view. Although this may not seem like a big deal to you, but have you ever tried to look down? Now, all of these people who contributed to Google Maps have figured out a sneaky way that they can market themselves, like this guy here who have mapped out this street view for Google and he has cleverly put on his own branding, or this sushi shop here who have cleverly increased their visibility on Google by having a street view. Map view. In this resort have uploaded a 360-degree image of the interior of their resort, and they have included their logo here at the bottom. So there is an official fleet of Google Map team where they go around to all of the major cities mapping out the street view of all of these major cities. But it's impossible for this team to map out every street on this entire planet. First of all, they have a budgeting issue. Plus, there are locations that are only accessible on bikes or on foot. So Google is relying on users just like you and I to help them get the Street View for those locations. And this actually presents an incredible opportunity for you and me by contributing to Google Maps. There are several major benefits. One, it allows you to boost your Google profile rankings, and this can help with the SEO efforts of your businesses. 2, it provides you a way to control the narrative and control how users see what your listing look like. Like a great example of this is this resort here. If Google Maps just mapped the front of the building, they would just see a normal hotel. By creating these 360-degree images, it allows this resort owner to show the users what this resort looks like inside, and it also allows them a clever way to brand themselves all for free. This guy has done an excellent job, and he has branded himself by creating this map view of the street on Zimbabwe, I think, and it allows him to now market himself all for free on Google without paying 1 cent in advertising. And if you think these are just for individuals, governments are getting into this game too. In Zanzibar, we can see that the government actually paid for a lot of these Google Street Map listings, and they have actually hired these fleets of cars to map their streets, and they have branded themselves on all of these street views, which allows them to get more visibility on Google. Here's another one, and this is from the government of Gambia, and you can see they have done the same. And the government of New Mexico has gone into this game too, where they have mapped a lot of the trails within New Mexico. This is a sneaky way that these governments are encouraging tourism into their country. By branding yourself this way on Google, you can potentially have your logo seen by millions of people, and it doesn't even have to cost you one dime on advertising. And Google's encouraging these user-generated data because it allows them to create a better experience for their users. Now, to create these 360-degree photos, you could go out and buy a fancy 360-degree camera, which will cost you a couple hundred bucks, or you can use this iPhone app for free. So I actually went out and I tried to give this a test and see if I can contribute a street view to Google Maps View. And spoiler alert, it did work. So the first thing I did was I went to Canva, I searched for travel agency logo circle, and let's say I like this one here, and I'm just going to customize it, change the name here from Rambio to Helena, and there you go. I have a nice travel agency logo ready to go. This is what I'm going to put at the bottom of my Google Maps listing. All right, once I have this done, the next thing I did was I went onto my iPhone and I downloaded this application called Teleport. Once I download this app, it asked me to register, which I did. So here, after I created my new account, verified it, I'm now ready to create my first 360-degree photo. I have to give it a name, and then I just click on the Begin Capture button. Now it's going to give me about 50 different points to point around. So you can see I'm in the middle of a woods area here, and it's telling me where to click. It's pointing to the different green dots, and basically every time I get to a green dot, I have to click on it, and I just keep going around. There's 51 shots I have to do to create the entire 360-degree view. So I have to do everything around me, and then I do everything above me, and I do everything below me as well. So you can see that. So I decided this is a perfect way for me to market Helena's Travel Agency. So after I have done all of the photos around me, then I did all of the ones above me, as you can see here. I then have to take photos whenever there's a green dot. That's where I would line up my camera with that green dot and take the photo. So this kind of creates a dome effect. And whenever you load these images onto Google Maps, then the 360-degree photo viewer will be able to see this. All right, so when I'm looking down and taking the final photos down on this photo, that's where I actually printed out a copy of the logo that I have. And on the last photo in the center, um, that's where I placed it below my feet when I took that photo. And that's how I got the logo in there. Now there are also ways that you can actually edit in that image if you use something like Adobe Photoshop or tool that can edit a 360-degree photo. I did it the old-fashioned way where I just placed that logo below my feet. Alright, so once I have my photo ready, it took about 5 to 10 minutes for this photo to actually render before I can see it. Now after I got my 360-degree video ready, the next thing I had to do was upload it onto Google Maps. If you just go onto the Google Maps listing though and add a photo, the 360-degree photo is not going to render. To render the 360-degree photo, you actually have to find the Google listing either on your phone or on your desktop, and then press Suggest and Edit, and then click on any of these categories, then go down here and click Add Photo. Then this is where you upload the 360-degree photo that you have just generated from your Teleport app. And this is what it looks like once it's on Google Maps. Now you can see that I have contributed to this view. And now my Google Maps listing of the 360-degree photo is now visible on on Google Maps. And now this version that I included here, I didn't include the version with Helena's Travel Agency at the bottom since that's not a real company, but I did actually post my 360-degree photo on this trail on Google Maps now. So I encourage all of you to try out this sneaky Google Maps technique that will help you boost your SEO ranking and help you get more recognition for your brand on Google Maps, all for free. And the next time you're on Google Maps, remember Don't just look right and look left, be sure to look down as well. All right, I'll see you next time.