Examples of what you can learn

What are the local hot spots?

Try spotting what categories of places got you the most views. In my area, hot spots include cinemas, pizza places, pharmacies, women's and kids' clothing stores, car dealers, and hobby stores. What categories are hot spots in your area? This information is very relevant when choosing what places to photograph. Hot spots will give you lots of views - especially if you can make a better photo than the current cover photo. Hot spots are high traffic places that Google Maps users often search for and visit on the map.

Are your pics featured or even the cover photo?

Try opening the places and check if your image is featured or used as the cover photo. Study your cover photos closely to learn what kind of images Google Maps select to feature. That is the quality of images you want to make more of.

If your pic is not selected as the cover photo, then take a closer look at the cover photo. How is it better than yours? And use this as inspiration for improving your future pics.

Find and learn from fellow local guides

When visiting the places' pages you can also notice the names of fellow local guides uploading images of great quality. And you can click on their names and see their most viewed photos. This can be a valuable inspiration for how to improve your skills. It's okay to steal ideas as inspiration as long as you don't copy their work.

You could start collecting the names of other local guides posting great pictures in your neighborhood. Try finding them on Connect or Facebook if you want to invite them to meet-ups or just to share passion and experience with. You could organize events where local guides critique each other's pics.

Track your progress

I enjoy visiting my list of most viewed photos at least once a week. Depending on how many views you have it can be fun to count how many of your pics have more than 1,000, 10,000, 100.000, or even millions of views. As you get better at predicting what photos will become cover photos and you use this information while shooting you can expect your number of views to increase accordingly. Maybe you will notice that high performing photos suddenly fall back. This can happen when Google picks a new cover photo. And be aware that it is only a computer that select the best photos. I sometimes wonder since other photos look better than the one Google's computer chose.