by Kris Cone | Mar 7, 2014 | Real Estate Info, Real Estate News
An interesting article from Inman the other day where the top 3 real estate portals are really dominating the search results. Zillow was at the top with 16.53 percent of real estate traffic. Then came Trulia with 8.66%. Rounding out the top 3 was Realtor.com (which used to be #1) with 7.26%. But what these numbers do not show is Zillow also powers several other websites, including Yahoo Homes, which is #4. So you have Zillow with over 64 million monthly visitors to their site and listings. Realtor.com does power MSN Real Estate, so together, they represent about 26 million monthly visits.
by Kris Cone | Feb 7, 2014 | Listing Tools, Testimonies, What's New
We recently launched intro and exit branding slides for the downloadable/YouTube video. We heard from some of you that you wanted this to be optional. We have listened, and you now have the ability to uncheck the box for the branding slides. If you do not want the branding, or if you want to first download the video file without the branding for use elsewhere…and then add the branding, just uncheck the box, save and we will regenerate the video you can download or that gets posted to YouTube. Each time you check or uncheck the box, we regenerate the video, so you do have some options to create multiple downloadable files.
We hope you enjoy this FREE enhancement!
by Kris Cone | Jan 22, 2014 | Real Estate Info
We are pleased to announce the launch of agent branding on the YouTube videos. We have been providing automated YouTube video uploads for years now, but the video was an exact replica of the video on your tour. Now, we have added agent branding at the beginning and end of the video that includes info on the property as well as 
your contact info, logo and photo. We also add a banner that displays your contact info and some property info.
As always, you can select the free YouTube posting service to either the FloorPlanOnline YouTube Channel, or you can set to authenticate with your own google account/YouTube account. See the settings under Edit Profile, then Edit Tour Linking & Distribution. Select the box to upload videos to your YouTube channel, then authenticate by signing in with your gmail account credentials (it helps to have gmail or your YouTube channel open when you do this). Save at the bottom.
Then just make sure as you create a new tour, the box is checked to upload the video to YouTube.
That’s it! Again we create these videos for free…no upgrades, up charges or manual work needed!
by Kris Cone | Oct 1, 2013 | Listing Tools, Real Estate Info, Tour Updates
We are pleased to annouce the offical beta launch of Event-based Lead Capture!
With Lead Capture, your virtual tour and it’s content now can become a lead capture machine. Just turn on the feature in your profile and let the leads come!
Click here to read more on this great new tool and to watch a help video.
by Kris Cone | Aug 29, 2013 | Listing Tools, Technology, Tour Updates
I recently read a post by a popular blogger named Andrew Spence regarding how important time on site is for your SEO rankings. Andrew states that the two biggest metrics Google looks at are “time” and “click throughs.” You can ready the full post here. http://www.andrewspenceonline.com/website-visitors/
This post touches on something I have been talking about for a long time now: Create a better user experience AND content than the other guy, and more and more visitors will come to your site.
Sure it might take some time and effort, but if you provide the same content as the other guys and you pull it from the same source (the MLS), then how in the world are you ever going to differentiate your website from anyone else. Last I heard, Zillow had $400 million in the bank…so you can’t compete there. Yet Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, your company website, and all of your competitors pull the same content from the MLS and regurgitate it in slightly different ways.
Where is the secret sauce?
I may be biased, but I think the Interactive Floor Plan Tours and some of the advanced things you can do with them are the secret sauce of the online real estate marketing world. One place you can compete on is a better user experience and content. We know from research buyers want to see floor plans. They rank right behind photos as the top 2 content items desired for a listing. They can also generate 30% more interest and even more commissions for agents. Use the valiable content created for your tours to lure people to your site and keep them longer.
Easily add embedded content on your website or blog
To help with the time on site issue, we offer embedded tour content for your site. Think of how you can embed a YouTube video on a blog….it is basically the same thing. We offer “embed code” via our Embeddable Tour tool and our WordPress Plugin where all you have to do is copy and paste the code into a page or a post to add the whole tour, or just parts of it, right into your website. We offer a pop-over tour, or an embedded in-line tour option. With both of these options, the user is technically still on your site. No clicking a link and taking the user away to another tab (which means they leave your site…hopefully to come back). While it is technically content not hosted by your site, the fact the user does not leave your site and stays longer is very good for your SEO, regardless.
If you just put a link or button to virtual tour, two things happen. 1. The user is LEAVING YOUR SITE. Bad. 2. Each click means you are losing 50% of your audience. Bad.
[fpotour emt=”popover” bgc=”ffffff” ftc=”0c004b” bnm=”PB” tbs=”01111111″ swi=”3″ oid=”62568″ mtp=”0.80″ uid=”VBNIQN3T” wid=”700″ hid=”530″]
Give ’em the Sauce!
So show your website visitors the great content you created with FloorPlanOnline.com – the secret sauce – right on your pages….and don’t hide it so half of your audience, or more, never sees it. Click here to see our embedded tour content live in action and read more about how to set things up. Or just click on the floorplan image to pop our pop-over tour! You can use our Pop-up Tour widget and put it anywhere, just like I did in this blog post, or in a sidebar widget area, etc. This is a great option if the content area for your page is narrow (like 600 pixels or less). Just use our button (you can upload your own as well) and when clicked, it pops the larger window over your site so you can maximize the view based on the user’s screen, not limited by your website layout.
Plus, with our new lead capture system coming soon, you will be able to capture leads in more places throughout the web. Something you can’t do with any other marketing medium. Click here to read more on our upcoming Lead Capture enhancements.
by Kris Cone | Jul 20, 2013 | Listing Tools, Tour Updates
We recently made an update to our photo uploader tool to add a new Flash upload option. The default uploader is a Java-based program that requires Java to run and work on your computer. While 98% of computers have Java installed, there are some recent issues due to security concerns, and users of Apple computers are periodically experiencing issues where they can’t upload with this version, because Apple blocks Java from running on the Mac, at times. In addition if you are a Mac user and use Chrome as your browser of choice, the Java based uploader does not work because Chrome is a 32 bit application, and Java is a 64 bit application for the Mac.
So…we added a new Flash uploader that uses Adobe’s Flash tools to upload photos. It works pretty good, you just do not see your file structure initially. You need to click the button to +Add More Files, navigate to where you have the photos stored on your computer, and then you can use the SHIFT key (start at the first photo and then hold the key down, and click on the last photo to select all photos in that folder) or the CTRL key (hold the CTRL key and then just click photos you want to upload to highlight them) to select various photos. You will then see them added into the upload window. Then just upload.
You can also use the Web Uploader where you select one photo at a time, if all else fails. This option does support the uploading of zip files too, so you can compress your images and upload.
