I never paid much attention to Google Street View until recently when I went out for lunch with a friend to a part of town I rarely go. I wanted to find the building I was supposed to go to – I wanted to know what it looked like (without having to search for the street number while I was driving). I found it online and that helped me find it in person.

Google Street View gives local guidance

Here’s an example below of Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Maryland.

You see the map.

But do you also see the little orange human-shaped figure in the navigation section of the map? If you go to Google Maps and drag-and-drop him onto the map, you get Google Street View.

I viewed Johns Hopkins University Hospital through Google Street View and here is what I got:

Cool!

Now imagine the possibilities for your business. Link to or embed the map on your website. Encourage people to view the street view of your business. Create an online video using Google Street View to show people where to park, where to enter, etc.

And, if Google hasn’t been by your neighborhood to film your street, why not give your business a quick facelift so that you’re ready when they are.

Marketing with this “[your city] [your service]” technique has some advantages: It’s faster to achiever higher search engine ranking placement and it costs less because you’re not competing against larger multinational conglomerations with huge search engine optimization budgets.

But there’s something else that is important to consider about the psychology of searchers who are searching locally. Let’s say you are thinking of buying a car. You type in “car” into a search engine and see what comes up. Maybe you narrow it down by manufacturer.

So, let’s say that as you do your research you go from searching for “car” to searching for “midsize car” to searching amongst “general motors”, “ford”, “dodge”.

This is all at the conceptual level; the research level. What happens when you’re ready to buy? You don’t just type in “Ford dealership”.

No. If you live in Atlanta, you type in “Atlanta Ford dealership”… Notice that’s the [your city] [service] search.

So, the psychology of people search locally is this: They are ready to buy.

The web is a powerful research tool, but the terms used to research are general and broad. Searchers hit credible, authoritative sites to get more information. And when they’re ready to buy? They add a local modifier and look to a solution provider in their neighborhood.