Well, they certainly are pretty, aren’t they? And they’ve become very easy to do, too. You just take a bunch of pictures, load them into whatever tool you’re using, set them to pan and zoom and add a little light music and wha-lah! You have an impressive goo-gah for your website. Your seller will be proud!
And I think we’re all missing the boat.
First, if your pan and zoom virtual tour is on your website and you also uploaded all of the individual photos used to make the tour (and you should), why would anyone watch the tour? A visitor has far more control just clicking through the photos. Second, the kind of tour I’m describing here adds little in the way of search engine optimization. Yes you can load up the description with keywords, but that’s only going to take you so far.
There is another way to do a virtual tour that is not only more interesting to website visitors but also far more interesting to search engines. Begin by shooting video. Yes, video – moving pictures, not pictures that move. If you video tape yourself walking through the house describing easily overlooked features as you go, you’ll be creating something new and of value for your website visitor, not just a re-packaging of what ‘s already there. Plus (and this is the most important part), when indexing your site, Google will actually transcribe your audio track, turning it into searchable text. If your walk-talk is loaded with neighborhood references and key words, you will up your chances of potential buyers finding your listing online.
Shoot your video, pull it into your computer and do a little editing, add titles and even a soft music track if you want and then upload it to YouTube. YouTube will give you a little code to embed the video into your listing so that it can be played right there.
Here’s another idea for using video on your listing: why not let the Sellers lead you through talking about what they like most about the house? I know that’s pretty radical. But we Help-U-Sell folk have always championed the idea that things usually go well if buyer and seller are allowed to talk to one another. Why not start that process early by humanizing your seller on video? Once again, Google is going to transcribe whatever you upload which will be very beneficial from a search engine standpoint.
So far we’ve talked about using video to market your listings and make you more visible on the web. But why not broaden the focus? Why not take the half dozen or so key neighborhoods in your area and do a video profile of each. Create a script, describe the demographics and amenities, shoot video of typical housing and area infrastructure. When Google transcribes that kind of video, it’s going to find reference after reference to the local market and your ability to have people find you on the web will go up significantly.
Is there a learning curve? Yes, of course. The first such tour you do will be the hardest. It will get much easier after that. Here are your steps:
- Get a video recording device. You probably need something more than your cell phone. Most decent still cameras today shoot video as well and mine (a Panasonic Lumix) shoots better video than my actual video camera!
- Learn how to record, how to take video off your camera and onto your computer
- Choose and learn some editing software. Windows has Movie Maker and if you search you’ll find many more, some free. I like Pinnacle Studio. At $80 +/- it is feature rich and easy to use.
- Go to YouTube.com and open an account. Its free.
- Shoot and edit your first video, save it to your hard drive (probably as an .AVI file) and then upload it to YouTube.