If a picture of your salon is worth a thousand words, then a moving 360° virtual walk-through is probably valued at a million. Google Virtual Tours let business owners entice clients inside using interactive, highquality, panoramic images that appear on Google searches, Google Maps, Google Places, and can be embedded into your salon website. The viewer navigates through your comfy pedicure lounge or your pristine manicure bar via a controller on the lefthand corner of the screen — it feels like a video game where the client spins around the space and zooms in or out at will.

“Since my Virtual Tour went live about five months ago, many new clients state their reason for coming is they saw the Google Virtual Tour and were excited to try it out,” says Desiree Parth, owner of NailBar & Beauty Lounge in Miami (shown). “Our clientele has grown, and groups have become more popular because clients can actually see we have five pedicure stations and seven manicure stations.”

Parth used Google trusted photographer Rodrigo Moreno of www.businessin360.com to shoot her salon tour. “Since the virtual tour is a complete 360°, our advice to a business owner would be to consider even the smallest details and highlight their unique features to present their business to the millions of Google users in the best way possible,” Moreno says. “This tool is a defi nite must-have for any type of business that is serious about its online presence and understands the power that Google possesses for its overall success. And who knows, in the near future perhaps every business throughout the world will have a virtual tour.”

Visit www.maps.google.com/businessphotos to learn more.

 

Businessin360 shows how NailBar & Beauty Lounge’s tour was created: www.nailsmag.com/businessin360
Using a toy shop tour as an example, Google explains its Virtual Tours: www.nailsmag.com/video/googletour

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.

Read more about