I started Google Maps in high school, which was 8 years ago, and it started as a nonchalant hobby. Now, as a freelance photographer, clients are always amazed that I have 82 Million Views on Google Maps. Here are my tips, tricks, backstory to how I made it here, what Google Maps means to me, and where I intend to go from here.
Tips & Tricks
I’ll go right to what many of you are here for. Here’s an assorted list of things I do that you could adopt to boost your Google Maps portfolio!
- Always take a photo when walking up to an establishment
- I go to a lot of restaurants or stores or other places with family and friends or on my own and it actually helps to snap a quick photo, takes less than 5 seconds!
- Take full photos of menus and price boards
- I actually exasperate and annoy my friends who will be with me as I take photos of the entire menu, each page! It helps many people see what’s offered at the place when there is no menu available online or if the menu is outdated.
- There’s no such thing as too many photos
- Think about it: as a user, you’re looking at a new place that you’ve perhaps never been, you’re trying to build a mental picture of the place, so of course the more pictures you have, the better of a picture you make, and different pictures help different people see different aspects of a place
- Take clear photos
- I’ve noticed that it’s my more crisp looking photos that scale better than the blurry ones or the ones that aren’t well lit.
- Take photos from a unique view
- My best performing photos often capture the place in a new way that other photos don’t, and that causes my photo to scale the stats!
- Be the first [few] to contribute
- If you find a low-key place, a neglected place or even a new place, most likely it’s also not as busy on Google Maps either, and you can use that to your advantage by being among the early few to contribute to the place, and that’ll help it chart quickly.
- Don’t forget to upload
- I spend one night biweekly uploading photos to Google Maps, and I scroll far back sometimes as I forget to post photos or they just get lost in all the other photos I take.
- Leave a review
- Ratings are easy and great, but as you’re uploading photos, you’ll be prompted to leave a rating and review, and it only takes 30-60 seconds out of your day to leave a few words that leave a last impact; people love reviews and it’s really cool seeing people interact with your reviews by voting on them or having owners engage with you.
- Share what you enjoyed about a place
- When you’re visiting a place, you want to know what the best thing is to do there, and often different people have different tastes, but it’s best to share what you did there or what you recommend doing/getting at that place as these types of reviews are more attractive.
- Visit new places
- We all have favourite places that we like to visit, however, after becoming a Local Guide, I’ve really pushed myself to explore new places and eat at different restaurants or shop at new retailers, and it really helps adding some diversity to your portfolio of contributions.
- Wait
- It takes time to scale on Google Maps. My most viewed photo took 3 years to rise to the 6.4 million views it has, so the best practise here is to just post as many photos as you can so that later down the road you’re reaping the rewards
- https://goo.gl/maps/1otYCMjhsdGxzFuE8
- Be incentivized
- Google offers excellent perks for Local Guides, depending on which level you’re at; familiarize yourself with them and actually get enthused at the idea of earning those perks, it will motivate you to contribute more. And plus, the level system can help you get competitive with yourself as you can see your contributions having direct effects on your points.
- Explore other ways to contribute
- Photos, ratings and reviews aren’t the only way to contribute! When you edit a place, add a new place, confirm the facts of other users’ contributions, remove a place, add videos or 360 images you get tons of points! Many of my points haven’t even come from the content I’ve published, but have come from my other contributions too.
- Constructive reviews
- While you may love a place, or hate it, constructive feedback is fuel to every successful owner, so if you leave constructive feedback in your review, you’ll find a lot of people viewing and upvoting your review, and as well, you’ll have engagement from the owner themselves and be able to help the place become better.
- Be consistent & build habits
- It’s easier to constantly contribute to Google Maps when you’re consistent about it. I’m always using Google Maps to drive, and now anytime I’m someplace new, a little alarm bell goes off in my head that I should take a photo or see what’s interesting at this location so I can share it. This didn’t come with being a Local Guide, but it was built over time.
- Productivity Path
- I always go Upload Photos > Leave Rating > Leave Review, and then let Google stitch all of that together on their end while I go make some edits to places.
- What to edit?
- Excellent question, typically around my home people will list “false businesses” that end up being someone’s private home, and these (at the time of writing) do not count as businesses to be allowed on the map, so I go ahead and remove them. Also I’ve shown up at places only to have the place closed, so I’ll edit the location’s hours of operation. Also I could be looking for a new place and see that it’s not on Google Maps, so I’ll add it quickly, or see that a place is improperly categorized so I’ll switch it to the right category, etc.
I’ll add more tips and tricks as I discover them and I’ll update this list, and feel free to share your own with me!
Backstory
For the backstory, I’ll actually leave that for the Local Guides Connect Live 2020 Event video that I created as part of my application process. Here is the link!
[Link to be added]
What It Means to Me
Google Maps has become an outlet for me to feel important. I’m able to share my perspective of the world, and with the stats and engagement I’ve had, it’s shown me that people actually care to view what I have to share! It’s also really fun and cool to be able to snap a pic of a place and share it in such a spot that it becomes directly relevant to what someone is looking for, unlike social media which sort of just spams us with stuff we don’t necessarily want to see. Google Maps has evolved to become an important part of my life as it’s the way I prefer to travel and explore, and with its massive community and repository of information, I feel like I’m able to make informed decisions about many places or help contribute to create a personal photographic “wiki” of a place.
Where I Intend to Go From Here
As a freelance photographer, having these stats underneath my belt is really powerful and I only intend to continue pushing forward and contributing to Google Maps. My stats have truly been exponential, as previous photos continue to scale while new photos are added to the repertoire. I also want to explore other avenues of contribution, such as figuring out how to take better 360 contributions and building the habit to take more videos. Furthermore, my end goals do consist of being a more involved member of the Local Guide Connect community, as well as perhaps joining the Google Maps team one day and helping them push the frontier of exploration and travel.
Thank you so much for reading and if you’ve got any questions, feel free to comment or contact me directly. I’ll continue to update this as more current information comes up.
and thanks for this amazing informations…