Google Local Guides: 3.5 Million Photo Views

We are BIG time!

Call me a trend-jacking algorithm-guru influencer. I just got completed talking about going over the 3-million on Google Guides, and we’ve already hit 3.5 milly now. I’ve cracked whatever virality mechanism in the algorithm, cos I can only see it hitting fast forward and us perhaps even doubling before the end of the year (that’s my prediction). We’ll definitely hit 5M, but even 7-10M is not out of the question now!

Google Local Guides: 3.5 Million Photo Views

It’ll be great to see how this transcends over the next month or so before I hit Japan. I plan on taking photos of everything and covering my bases with businesses. Previously I have taken a lot of shots but never uploaded or used them, so whilst I may have thousands of travel snaps, they aren’t in the digital ecosystem.

If you’ve read this far, I’ll give you one of the other keys to the castle. The first major tip I gave was to choose a highly viewed monument or tourist spot in your own town; then take a shot of that tourist attraction from a new perspective; That photo is now my second-most viewed in the image above at 265K+ views. The second tip I can give is to take either a great exterior shot of a location (The #1 viewed photo above has 350K+ views and is the exterior of a well-patroned yakitori in Namba, Osaka called Sumibi-yakitori Enya Namba); or a great interior shot of a location (The #3 viewed photo above has 150K+ views is ノア or Noa coffee shop).

Why this tip works? Google needs a range of shots to display to the user searching for locations, and if you’ve taken a great exterior/interior shot, you’ve given that user information about the location (exterior – how to find/locate it, via the signage; interior – what the ambience is like inside, so they know if they will enjoy it). Stay local my friends 😉