InstaView Pioneers Structured Data in Virtual Tours

The nation's largest virtual tour company is empowering the half million agents it serves with the newest technology to reach consumers directly with visually-rich listing information and information about their businesses. InstaView 3.0, the newest release of Property Panorama's category-leading virtual tour platform, became the first virtual tour to publish listing data the form of new structured data in its tours and to distribute the visually rich packages to YouTube and syndicate them to realtor.com®, Facebook and Twitter.

"By integrating rich listing data with lush visuals into a single package, InstaView 3.0 allows search engines and consumers to find what they are looking for in search results," said Property Panorama CEO Mike Barnett. InstaView 3.0 complies with RESO standards and Schema.org, a collaborative site sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex.

The technology also allows search engines like Google to render Agent Profiles, Office Profiles, Open Houses, and Property Detail summaries within search results, dramatically improving the search optimization of real estate listings. With structured data, agents can expand their "snippets"—the text that appears under or adjoining a search result on a major search engine like Google—to include graphics contact information, open houses and more.

"Structured data makes it easier to find and deliver information and is driving more consumer engagement with our new InstaView tours. InstaView tours are already receiving six times more unique visitors than any other listing marketing tool," said Barnett.

Barnett said that hundreds of thousands of agents can now have an entirely new tool, a Property Panorama Agent Profile page, to market themselves from the very onset of them entering the industry, where they can add their areas of service and expertise, certifications, designations and eventually their listings.

InstaView 3.0's MLS Enterprise launched this week at the New England Real Estate Network, making the program available to 7083 members. InstaView 3.0 has also been launched at First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS) to its 39,000 members. The branded InstaView 3.0 Broker Enterprise solution will follow within a few weeks of the MLS conversions.