by Kris Cone | Sep 2, 2014 | Listing Tools, Technology
Introducing the new Full Screen Tour viewer! We recently released this real estate marketing update that showcases your tours in stunning HD content. The new viewer features huge photos – they fill the browser window on any computer and look amazing, even on the big Apple Cinema Display that is 2560 pixels wide! Plus all of the other content like the FloorPlan, RoomPlanner, Map fill the screen too. The video rests over the background image of the tour and plays within a window, but you can also pop that to full screen. Note, if you want a different background image for the video, just select a different photo as the first photo in the Photo view of the tour.
If you are tired of those virtual tours that only occupy a small part of your screen, this tour viewer is for you! We feature the content in a viewer window that is up to 75% larger than the other guys!
Works on iPad too! If you select the Full Screen Tour for your default viewer, we also use this on the iPad. As with other tours, everything works, except the RoomPlanner tool, which is still in Flash (note, we are working on some enhancements for that tool this fall). All other tours will continue to use the tabbed tour on the iPad.
If you would like to see a sample, just click here.
Full Screen Photos
If you want to change your tours to full screen, just create a new tour, select the Full Screen Tour option as you go through the steps, or if you want to change an existing tour, just login, go to Manage Tours and select the Edit Details link for the listing. Note. You may need to do this for each tour as you place it for now. We hope you enjoy this free tour enhancement!
by Kris Cone | Apr 22, 2014 | Listing Tools, Technology
We recently launched a new 2 page flyer template that has one large photo on the front and then the floorplans and more photos and text on the back (or if it is a photo tour it had more photos on the left hand side). Just select the template when you go to Edit Flyer, as shown below. Mouse over the color area and click to open the color palette that allows you to pick a color…or even enter a custom color code, so you can match it exactly to your branding.
You can show or hide various things like Price, the QR code or even the tour link. The flyer can also be uploaded or imported into xpressdocs right from your account, or you should be able to upload it to any other printing company to get professionally printed flyers.
To get started just login to your account and go to Manage Tours, then Edit Tour/Edit Flyer. Download a Sample Flyer
by chrisdrayer | Sep 24, 2013 | Real Estate Info, Real Estate News, Technology
FloorPlanOnline is Approved by TheGeekyGirls.
FloorPlanOnline clients Lisa Archer and Laurie Davis wrote 5000 offers in the last twelve months!
Known as TheGeekyGirls, they are are top producing agents, run a team of 28 and have implemented systems and tools that make their job easy.
Learn 10 tools and tips beyond FloorPlanOnline that they find valuable by joining a FREE webinar this Wednesday at 12 Noon EST. (9am Pacific)
New Customer Discount from the #5000Offer webinar.
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 | May 21, 2013 | Listing Tools, Technology
We have made some updates to some of the tools you might use – the photo uploader and the WordPress plugin. Details are below.
1. Uploader. The photo uploader was updated with the most up to date functionality, powered by Aurigma, the company behind the upload functionality. There has been a lot of updates to Java recently which has caused some upload issues. So, because of the 
update, you will likely need to install the small program that the uploader users. Just give it a few seconds to install. Depending on your browser, the experience will be a little bit different.
Note, the Select all button is a little different. Now, just check the box next to the folder name to select all images in the folder. Then select the upload button.
2. WordPress Plugin. We made some updates to the WordPress plugin that allows you to embed the tour or a pop-over version of the tour on your website. The update was needed due to some code conflicts with some themes. For now, the way to update the plugin is download it from the Embeddable Content page, or just click this button.
Download WordPress Plugin
by Kris Cone | May 9, 2013 | Help & FAQ, Listing Tools, Technology
Add all of your videos to your YouTube Channel…quickly & easily
Due to some changes made by Google, who owns YouTube, you now have to authenticate your YouTube account with FloorPlanOnline in order for us to automatically upload your Tour video files into your own YouTube channel. If you are just uploading to our YouTube channel, you can ignore the rest of this news post.
Why the Change? Originally, you logged into YouTube with a user name and password you created when you signed up for YouTube. Google has now completely integrated YouTube with the rest of the Google services, and they have eliminated the separate YouTube user name. It is now your Google login. Because the Google login also provides access to your email and other Google services, Google has implemented a “Facebook-like” authentication process for 3rd party websites, like FloorPlanOnline. All you need to do is allow access, which is the virtual handshake between our two sites, and the account is authenticated.
A few steps to do this.
1. You need to be logged into Google – either YouTube, your Google+ or your Gmail account. Do this in the same browser you are using to access FloorPlanOnline.
2. In your FloorPlanOnline account, go to Edit Profile and then click the Edit Tour Linking & Distribution button.
3. Under the Automated Website Distribution Service section, check the box to link toMy YouTube Channel. Once you check the box, a new window will pop from Google asking you to allow access. Click the blue button.
4. If you want the change to apply to all of your videos, just select the Yes option.
5. Go to the bottom and save.
That is it. Each time you create a video and Approve/Publish it, we will upload the video to your YouTube channel. Note, videos do get queued up in our video server, so there can be a delay of up to several hours depending on the time of day. If you mark the status of the listing as sold or off market, the video is automatically removed from YouTube. If you want to manually manage this, then just download the video under the Marketing Center (the Photos & Marketing Tools link under Manage Tours), and you can upload to YouTube manually.
Note either way, you can do some edits of the video, like add call outs, once it is on YouTube. If you want to show this YouTube video back on your tour, you can do that too….just use the YouTube embed code and paste it into the custom video section on your tour (not applicable to the 1.0 tour).
Enjoy!
