Google Street View virtual tours New Look
Early in September Google re-branded Google Maps Business View to Google Street View a name most have an understanding of. With the change the Google Maps interface has be adjusted as well. Google has moved once again the Share Embed functionality of a Tour or Map in Google Maps. As with everything online change is a constant so we need to keep up. Below is a screen capture of a tour I have done recently with the steps numbers. As little as 3 steps to share a map or tour and 5 to 8 steps to find and create HTML code to embed the tour. Once you have the code you can add the code to your website, and even Facebook business pages as well.
8 Easy steps
Navigate to the the tour and the location of the tour you want to share in Google Maps NOT from Google Search. The view can be zoomed or pointed to a particular place in the business. You can easily pick multiple locations in a larger tour to create shortcuts or easy navigation to the particular department or spot.
Easy as…
- Click on vertical 3 dots top left of view in Google Maps
- Select Share or embed image.
- To Share link copy text in the highlighted box PC Ctrl C Mac Command C to copy to your clipboard and then Ctrl V or Command V to paste where you want to share. Alternatively right click on the text and pick Copy then switch to other document or application and right click and select paste to paste the link.
- For some applications you may wish to share a short link. Google will create a shorter version of the long URL. To do this click on Short link box to check and a shorter link will be provided to copy and paste as in step 3
- To Embed a tour Google creates HTML code that creates an iFrame or active window for a website where there is content from your tour hosted with Google. When you click on Embed image Google defaults to medium size and the HTML code is in the circled area in figure 5. You may have to double click on the text in the box to highlight all the text to copy then paste where needed.
- To change the size Google provides a Pull down menu with 3 standard options Small, Medium and Large with the bottom choice Custom size.
- With Custom size I like to use a 2:1 ratio instead of default 4:3. as offered in Figure 7.
- My choice for my website is 600 X 300 a 2:1 ratio as entered in Figure 8. Find the size and shape you like for your needs.
Google does provide a link (top left in the title box) in the embedded tour when it opens in Google Maps with the option to View on Google Maps to view in a new full size window.