How to add a virtual tour to your WIX website?

What is Wix?

Wix is a cloud-based web development platform that allows users to create HTML5 websites and mobile sites through the use of online drag-and-drop tools. It also provides web hosting, domain registration, e-commerce, and other web services. With Wix, users can create almost any type of website, including professional portfolios, business websites, blogs, and more.

What is a virtual tour?

A virtual tour is a simulated online experience of a physical location. It is typically created using a combination of 360-degree panoramic images, video, audio, and text. A virtual tour can be used to explore a variety of different places, such as hotels and resorts, museums and galleries, universities and colleges, historical sites and landmarks, theme parks and amusement parks, retail stores, restaurants, real estate properties, car dealerships, and tourist attractions.

Adding a virtual tour to your website can help to increase engagement and provide a more immersive experience for your visitors. It can also help to showcase your business in a more interactive way, allowing customers to get a better feel for your products and services. Additionally, it can help to improve your SEO rankings, as search engines favor websites with more interactive content. Finally, it can help to increase conversions, as customers are more likely to purchase from a business that they have a better understanding of.

Taking 360-degree panoramic photos

A smartphone with a special app installed or a special 360 camera such as the Ricoh Theta series or Insta360 series can be used to take 360 photos. Additionally, a DSLR camera with a fisheye lens could be used to capture 360 photos. Let’s compare our options.

Smartphone

Depending on the smartphone model an option to shoot 360-degree panoramic images may be already included in the default camera app(at least Google Pixel camera does that). Or you may install an additional app such as Google Street View, Panorama 360, or 360 Pro.

Usually, you take a 360-degree photo by rotating your smartphone in a circle.

Pros of using a smartphone:

• You don’t need to buy additional hardware
• Your smartphone is always in your hand and you are ready to shoot

Cons of using a smartphone:

• Taking one photo requires time
• Usually limited image quality and problems with stitching

360 camera

A 360 camera is a type of camera that captures a 360-degree field of view, allowing the user to capture an entire scene in one shot. It typically consists of two lenses that are placed opposite each other and capture images from all angles. At the moment the most widespread cameras are produced by Ricoh Theta and Insta360. Usually using a 360 camera requires a tripod, but photos are taken in one click operation.

Pros of using a 360 camera:

• Easy to use and requires minimal setup
• Generally cheaper than DSLR cameras
• Lightweight and portable

Cons of using a 360 camera:

• Limited image resolution and quality
• Limited control over settings and the final result

DSLR camera with a fisheye lens

This option gives you the best quality but requires substantial additional investments both in hardware and software to process images. Also, this option is quite time-consuming since you have to shoot multiple photos per location and then stitch them into a single 360-degree photo using your laptop and special software.

Pros of using a DSLR camera with a fisheye lens:

• High image resolution and quality
• Full control over settings image processing

Cons of using a DSLR camera with a fisheye lens:

• Requires more setup and expertise
• More expensive than a 360 camera
• Requires additional software for image processing
• Bulky and less portable

Adding a virtual tour to your website

Once you have your photos at hand it is time time to create your virtual tour. Here is simple steps to follow!

First, create a website using Wix(skip this step if you have one):

1. Go to wix.com and click “Sign Up” in the top right corner.
2. Enter your email address, and password, and click “Continue”.
3. Choose a template for your website from the available options.
4. Customize the template to your liking by adding text, images, videos, and more.

Once you have a basic version of your website ready it is time to add “Virtual Tours” app and create your first tour:

1. Open WIX App Market from the website editor and search for ”Virtual Tours” and click “Add to Website”.

2. After accepting the Terms and Conditions, ”Virtual Tour” will automatically appear in the website editor for the demo tour.

3. Click on the window with the demo tour.

4. Select the ”Settings” button will appear, and right away you will see ”Get Started”

Then a window will pop up:

5. From here you can start the tour creation process, just click on “Create Tour”

Give your tour a name and choose the option to upload an image. Remember that the image should be in a correct 360 photo format: it should have a horizontal aspect ratio and be in the equirectangular projection.

Here is an example of how an image should look like.

After you press Continue, the tour will be created and added to the tour list in the “My Tours” tab. Each tour can be edited, previewed, or deleted. The number of tours will depend on what subscription you will have.

Press Edit. Here you can play with your tour and add all the information your visitor will need like:

Virtual Tours Futures:

1. Product hotspot — If you have a WIX store you can link a product from your store to your tour, so your visitors could shop directly from the tour. More here
2. Hotspot — Fast transition to another location
3. Infospot — A text note that the visitor could open and read.
4. Linkspot — A HTML link to another website
5. Set your tours’ thumbnail — Set the image you want to display in the tours’ navigation bar
6. Set this view as your tour starting point — Set the view that your visitors will see first thing when opening the tour
7. Add a floor plan — Help users understand better the space and add a floor plan with hotspots, that can be used also as quick navigation through the space

Once finished, just assign a newly created tour to the Virtual Tours widget, by simply selecting it from My Tours.

In Settings, you can adjust how the tour will look for the viewer, and make the final touches. You have the option to show or hide the tour/image name and even turn on the Autoplay feature of the tour.

Happy creating!