Monetizing Google Local Guides

[j1gsaw]

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere else, but I can't find it. If it has can you please share the link.

Today I got an email from google saying my contributions are a big hit. Curious I opened the email to see my photos have been viewed 403,729 times. This isn't one photo this is spread out over numerous photos (313(. lowest view counts are in the single digits, and highest view counts are around 25,000 per photo. If its pertinent most viewed photo is a lobster meal for a restaurant in Maine.

The terms of service for google clearly state all contributions are voluntary & submitted for free. Google will not pay you in money. Once you reach a certain level google could invite you to their annual google map meeting, and possibly send you some gift cards to someplace that you may or may not be interested in. You can ask google to send you their 360 degree camera, but you can only keep it for 45 days unless your posting daily then they will extend that gift to you. again not money.

So I have multiple doorways of traffic here that has combined for 403,729 visitors, and that number is only going to continue to grow. Does anybody have any ideas on how to benefit monetarily from this?

My first thought is leave a link in the review, but

A) its not clickable

B) they only show the first 3 reviews, and only 10 after that before you have to click "show more reviews" so the exposure shelf life is limited & short.

Doubt google would approve watermarked photos with a website URL on them. Even if you coded a photo to be a hyperlink googles gotta strip that code through the uploading process right?? I don't even know if the traffic would be quality, but 403,000+ visitors seems worth exploring?

What do you suggest smart people of BHW?

 

[marlboroXXL]

how long did it take to get over 400k visitors?

 

[j1gsaw]

I haven't really been keeping track but I would guess a year to year n half somewhere in there

 

[arkelRMCF]

Bumped. Since i am on level 6 on goole local guides but absolutely no clue how to monetize it

 

[Mark Eternally]

I agree, this would be interesting to monetize. I have a couple Google Local accounts that I use for testing, and will start exploring.

BTW, one way to monetize this is to establish robust profiles or personas that you can use to leave great reviews of your businesses and not so great reviews of your competition. I would highly recommend here that you truly go visit your competition and leave an accurate review. I went to one of my competitors and their service was great, so I left a review that said I was in a pinch and they were close by, and if I were not a life-long client of [insert my competing business] I would frequent them more often. You get the idea. Also, if you are going to play this game with Google, use a burner device, and be truly dedicated to the art of personas.

 

[j1gsaw]

I agree, this would be interesting to monetize. I have a couple Google Local accounts that I use for testing, and will start exploring.

BTW, one way to monetize this is to establish robust profiles or personas that you can use to leave great reviews of your businesses and not so great reviews of your competition. I would highly recommend here that you truly go visit your competition and leave an accurate review. I went to one of my competitors and their service was great, so I left a review that said I was in a pinch and they were close by, and if I were not a life-long client of [insert my competing business] I would frequent them more often. You get the idea. Also, if you are going to play this game with Google, use a burner device, and be truly dedicated to the art of personas.

Mark,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I think trying to monetize this with reviews is like eating donuts while running on a treadmill. Depending on the business and audience engagement that review is only going to be viewable for a couple of hours before its buried below other reviews, and then a user would have to click view more reviews at least twice if you fall below the top 10. Submitted photos on the other hand the more views they get the higher placement they get. For example my lobster meal wasn't the first submitted photo. I have no idea what the number was but lets say it was submission number 200, and now its the featured photo for google "card" for that business. So everyone that looks up that restaurant in portland maine sees my photo before they even see anything else about that business. Before they see: phone number, website, hours, reviews anything they see my photo. And its currently receiving around 2,000 views a month, and doing nothing for me.

Its validating Google, and benefiting the restaurant but doing nothing for me. It doesn't even say submitted by ______. The review I left a year ago is on page 218 so even editing that review to say something else is pointless right?????

I don't think there is a way to monetize it.

 

[BlackhaTTer78]

I had a similar idea with the question and answer feature they rolled out last year

 

[lucade55]

I had already an idea, I think it could be pretty good even if it requires to move us "outside" web to look for money. This time it is not "copy and paste AdSense's banners code".

Listen to me people
This is a genial idea or it will be a total fail. You will tell me. (I'm sharing it with you because I live in Italy, so we will never be competitor, you will never "hit" me - or the probably it could happen is minimum)

According to his goal to use free UGC to give more and more useful informations to the users, Google recently launched the LetsGuide project ( http://www.blog.google/products/maps/letsguide-someone-out-there-needs-guide-you/ ).

If this initiative will grow a bit, it means that in some months like Local Guide did, there will be millions of users reading our "routes" through the best places/restaurant/POIs of our city.

When this will happen, you will be something very similar to an influencer on Google Maps. Boom.

You can ask to the places/restaurants you put in your itinerary to pay you to rest there; otherwise, you could "blackmail" them to replace his business with a competitor of them.

I don't know if this could make money or it's a complete crap, but I will try in the next months.

 

[DarrellTreyTrey]

I don't think it's feasible or even worth it.

 

[Topiano]

Bumped. Since i am on level 6 on goole local guides but absolutely no clue how to monetize it

What about being paid to post reviews on local GMBs?

 

[Zlatko Butkovic]

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere else, but I can't find it. If it has can you please share the link.

Today I got an email from google saying my contributions are a big hit. Curious I opened the email to see my photos have been viewed 403,729 times. This isn't one photo this is spread out over numerous photos (313(. lowest view counts are in the single digits, and highest view counts are around 25,000 per photo. If its pertinent most viewed photo is a lobster meal for a restaurant in Maine.

The terms of service for google clearly state all contributions are voluntary & submitted for free. Google will not pay you in money. Once you reach a certain level google could invite you to their annual google map meeting, and possibly send you some gift cards to someplace that you may or may not be interested in. You can ask google to send you their 360 degree camera, but you can only keep it for 45 days unless your posting daily then they will extend that gift to you. again not money.

So I have multiple doorways of traffic here that has combined for 403,729 visitors, and that number is only going to continue to grow. Does anybody have any ideas on how to benefit monetarily from this?

My first thought is leave a link in the review, but

A) its not clickable

B) they only show the first 3 reviews, and only 10 after that before you have to click "show more reviews" so the exposure shelf life is limited & short.

Doubt google would approve watermarked photos with a website URL on them. Even if you coded a photo to be a hyperlink googles gotta strip that code through the uploading process right?? I don't even know if the traffic would be quality, but 403,000+ visitors seems worth exploring?

What do you suggest smart people of BHW?

So, did you maybe figure it out how to use Local Guides to monetize?

 

[thebat1980]

Basically, if you become an expert guide in some areas, agencies or marketing teams will pay you to review (or free food normally) . They generally outreach, similar to TripAdvisor and yelp etc.

 

[danmrsn]

not a monetizing method, but a method to build brand awareness: I always have keychain, agenda or t-shirt on with my business' logo and I take a photo including it. since I started doing this, couple of months ago, I had lots of people telling me they saw me here and there.

 

[Mark Eternally]

For the various levels of effort described so far, and a few others I have tried, the return is not worthwhile. In it's current design, the Google Local Guides seems to be more for people looking for the fame or a free meal here or there (which really would call into question the integrity of their review).

 

[mycatmeows]

I had already an idea, I think it could be pretty good even if it requires to move us "outside" web to look for money. This time it is not "copy and paste AdSense's banners code".

Listen to me people
This is a genial idea or it will be a total fail. You will tell me. (I'm sharing it with you because I live in Italy, so we will never be competitor, you will never "hit" me - or the probably it could happen is minimum)

According to his goal to use free UGC to give more and more useful informations to the users, Google recently launched the LetsGuide project ( www.blog.google/products/maps/letsguide-someone-out-there-needs-guide-you/ ).

If this initiative will grow a bit, it means that in some months like Local Guide did, there will be millions of users reading our "routes" through the best places/restaurant/POIs of our city.

When this will happen, you will be something very similar to an influencer on Google Maps. Boom.

You can ask to the places/restaurants you put in your itinerary to pay you to rest there; otherwise, you could "blackmail" them to replace his business with a competitor of them.

I don't know if this could make money or it's a complete crap, but I will try in the next months.

Id be careful with the blackmail as some guy did some jail time for false and blackmail reviews on his influencer tripadvisor account in spain.

 

[dankepika]

You can approach local businesses which are not doing so well and try offering them a positive review.

 

[krekc]

I am coming up on 2 million views for my photos and I would love to know how if possible to monetize the images. Seems like such a waste of time to submit reviews and photos for nothing.