Geotagging photos for Google My Business will give your business another boost in rankings. But how do you do it? What is it? How can I find out the best approach?
Geotagging photos is often overlooked and could be the advantage you gain in authority over your local competition. Today’s article will help you see how you can improve traffic to your Google Business listing. It will also take you through the following:
To jump to the relevant tip click below:
- Common Questions For Geotagging Photos
- Google My Business Geotag Video Tutorial
- 6 useful geotag tools
- Where to add geolocated photos
- Google My Business Reviews For Customer Photos
- How to check if a photo has already a geolocation
- 5 business examples of geotagging technique
- Conclusion and What Next
Common Questions For Geotagging Photos
So let’s look at the questions you have been asking me regarding use of photo images within Google My Business
Geotagging images tells Google where you’re located when the image was produced. It gives positive signals to Google that you are authentic for that LOCAL area. The more authentic your business is then it grows in trust. More trust means higher ranking & more business enquiries.
It’s about adding GPS coordinates to the metadata of the photo file. It’s latitude and longitude of where on Google the image was taken. Cameras and phones with GPS can do this with special software.
You will need special software to change or even add the metadata, The photo has a part called EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format). We review 6 tools to change this file correctly for free.
To get your longitude and latitude the easiest way is to go to Google maps, then right-click and select “What is here” See video below for a simple tutorial.
Google My Business Geotag Video Tutorial
Geotagging Photos For Google My Business video timestamps
- 0:00 Introduction to Zanet Design and Geotagging photos
- 1:06 What is GeoTagging?
- 1:18 Why Geotagging is important to your business?
- 3:46 How to find your longitude and latitude
- 5:45 The GPS file issue explained
- 7:00 Geotag.online review and tutorial
- 8:27 Tool GeoImgr review and tutorial
- 9:45 The Exifer tool
- 10:20 UrbanBird geotagging tool
- 10:46 GeoSetter standalone tool (recommended)
- 13:05 Digicam Geolocation software review and tutorial
- 14:25 Where to add Geotagged images and photos
- 16:00 important bonus tip Clients can geotag for you on reviews – gives a big boost!
- 17:00 Always use same Geo GPS location? The answer.
All of Zanet Design Google My Business training tutorials show you how I do it in real-time and authentically.
6 useful geotag tools
With 4 online tools and 2 standalone tools, all with free options, you have no reason not to geotag your photos. Once you get used to a tool just make sure you regularly use it as part of your image upload process. Add the image everywhere you can see a way of boosting your business.
“Boost local search results with these 6 Geotag tools reviewed for you.
Zanet.co.uk
If you want to get straight on it geosetter.de is by far the best SEO tool, but only works on Windows 10 platform
Tool 1 The Exifer
https://www.thexifer.net/
100 MB 20 Your files will be available for 15 MIN after the editing.
Tool 2 Geotag Online
https://Geotag.online/geotag/
now $10 3 a day or 3 days free
Tool 3 Geo Imgr
Tool.geoimgr.com.
Only 5 per day free. Now $10 for 1000 photos
Good for checking if a photo has already a geolocation
Tool 4 Urban Bird
https://editor.urbanbird.io/
Sadly couldn’t get it working for my review. Let me know in the comments below if you get any joy with this tool
Tool 5 Geo Setter
geosetter.de
My favourite SEO tool – This is awesome for Geotagging photos for Google My Business in bulk. its easy as copy and paste – see the video above for the example of simplicity
Tool 6 Digi Kam
https://www.digikam.org/
DigiKam it’s free; most platforms and op systems probably overkill as it has too much detail and is designed for photographers rather than SEO and business
Where to add geolocated photos
So you now have these saved JPEG images and you know they have the GPS settings embedded. Where do you add these Geotagged photos to improve your rankings in Google? Although Google My Business is always going to be a good starting point from an SEO perspective, don’t just stop there. Anywhere you allude to your business, wherever you have a business citation, then look to see if you can upload product photos or case studies where the images get some form of credit.
However Google My Business has based some of its ranking credit on what other details other citations are given. It’s not just GMB information. To authenticate your business with geotagging through your blog, social media accounts like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YELL Any indexes and citations you’re found on.
For an understanding of how your other accounts affect Local Search Ranking don’t forget to watch this video:
Google My Business has a large impact on Local SEO for small business ranking. So lets explore how much impact.
Google My Business Reviews For Customer Photos
It’s worth mentioning that customers can also upload images. They can do this when they visit your business and then provide a review thereafter. So if they are specifically asked to provide a review, why not point out that if they take photos on their phone with the GPS location setting enabled, that would be awesome. A photo from them of the product and then uploaded would really help your business.
Why does Google view it as a metric?
It’s another positive measurement that your business is where it claims to be. Google is obsessed with the idea of providing a business is where it says it is as this is often misused by a spammer to control areas there business isn’t located in.
How to check if a photo has already a geolocation
The easiest way is to just use one of the above tools. If you upload a photo then normally the software will show a globe, location on a map or the coordinates if it has a location already tagged in the Exif metadata
5 business examples of geotagging technique
So a simple quiz for you. Just give a yes or no answer to the following question. Should you put the exact same Geolocation on images for this business?
Q1. A restaurant?
Q2. Art gallery and/or museum?
Q3. Pizza takeaway
Q4. Lock smith
Q5. Plumber
To help you answer the above, my advice would be to follow the natural path if you want to have long term SEO benefits. If your photos are products that are only ever seen in your business location then it makes sense to locate them there.
Think about it, a restaurant serving food with eat-in only…all photos would be in one location
However, If you are a takeaway restaurant you would see local GPS on the reviews from neighbouring roads and nearby houses. Just follow whats natural to your business
So the answers to the above with that principle in mind are:
A1. A restaurant? – YES it’s at the same place as there is no takeaway facility
A2. Art gallery and/or museum? – YES it’s at the same place
A3. Pizza takeaway – NO, (expect around a 3 mile radius)
A4. Lock smith – NO, always at locations nearby
A5. Plumber – NO, different jobs in nearby
Conclusion and What Next
In summary, you can boost local search results by implementing geotagging as it just compounds the fact you are based where you say you are:
“For any complex Google My Business Question, my answer is to follow the natural path if you want to have long term SEO benefits”
Zanet Design
So I hope these videos and suggestions have been really helpful. please let me know below if you have any questions.
What Next?
Do you need an experienced professional to manage your website and help your small business grow on the web?
If you want a pro to look after your Google My Business then send a message on my contact page and we can take a look at some great solutions together.