site tour benefits

8 Reasons Why Site Visits Are The Best Learning Experience

Whether you are just starting out in the field of architecture or an architect with 40 years of experience, site visits play a central role to our professional development. Most of the times, site visits take place during the construction phase of a project. It is during this stage where a team of multidisciplinary professionals physically get together to realize things previously drawn on paper in real, three-dimensional space. This long and complex process inevitably presents a series of challenges, but precisely so, it offers unique learning opportunities for architects , designers , and everyone else involved. From gaining professional knowledge to developing important life skills, here are eight reasons why site visits are the best learning experience:

1. Site visits allow for an authentic and accurate experience of the space.

While we may think we know a space or building inside out from all the overtime put into drawing plans, elevations, and sections, not to mention creating photorealistic renderings, site visits might prove that the actual space turns out looking and feeling a lot different from what we had envisioned. Physical factors such as time of day, temperature, and human traffic all affect our perception of a space or building, but the effects of these can never be conveyed sufficiently through mere two-dimensional drawings and it is by being on-site that we experience these factors at work and get an accurate understanding of the space.

2. Sometimes, site visits before the design phase of a project is crucial in helping us understand the local culture of a place.

When a project is located in a place unfamiliar to us, a site visit not only allows us to conduct site analysis, but also exposes us to the local way of life and the unique culture of the place. No amount of research in the office can beat being on-site and being physically and psychologically immersed within the environment. This is important so that we can create design solutions that are sensitive and responsive to the particular needs and characteristics of a place.

3. We learn most of the specifics of construction and construction methods on-site.

It is widely agreed among professionals that architectural education in schools rarely does a good job of exposing students to methods of construction. Schools are focused on teaching students to think conceptually and to sell their architectural designs, but when it comes to actual materials and construction, being on-site lets us witness how different materials and components come together and the processes and mechanisms involved in building. In fact, ask any professional in the field and they are likely to tell you that most of their knowledge of construction came from years of on-site experience.

4. Site visits allow us to learn from the expertise of other professionals.

Most of the times, site visits mean meeting professionals of other fields. Through our discussion of problems and solutions with professionals such as engineers, contractors, and electricians, we not only gain knowledge of other disciplines that will be helpful to our work, but more importantly see their expertise being applied in real life on the job site. Understanding aspects of a design from their perspective also helps us foresee and prevent potential problems in our design proposals.

5. Site visits expose us to concerns of safety.

Probably one of the first images that comes to mind when we speak of a construction site is that of people wearing helmets, and this shows just how important safety is on-site. When drawing or specifying a curtain wall glass panel on the computer, we do not have to personally deal with the physicality and weight of this massive material. At a site visit, however, the physical presence of large and heavy materials poses an immediate threat to our safety. An awareness of on-site safety is crucial to a smooth and successful construction process.

6. Site visits train us to think and make decisions on our feet.

When a project runs into a problem at the construction site, architects and designers often need to have discussions with other professionals to arrive at a decision on the spot. From a substitution of materials to signing an agreement, these things force us to be alert to various factors and consequences under a tight time constraint. Many of these decisions have major impacts on a project timeline and cost, so it is important to have the critical awareness and thinking skills needed to make such decisions when they are required of us.

7. Discussions and negotiations during site visits build our interpersonal and communication skills.

As different disciplines often have different methods of working, discussions and negotiations with a multidisciplinary team on-site require us to have good communication skills so that we can effectively convey our thoughts and relate to everyone involved. These conversations allow us to build interpersonal skills and learn from the various communication and working strategies of other professionals so that we become better at collaboration, management, and leadership.

8. When things do not go as planned, site visits let us understand why and how a design failed.

Sometimes, what we draw as two-dimensional plans, elevations, sections, and construction details fail to translate successfully into three-dimensional realities. It is useful to see the physical space or materials and talk with other professionals on-site to understand exactly how and why a design did not turn out the way we envisioned. Such experiences will give us the necessary foresight to prevent similar mistakes in the future projects.

Ultimately, site visits not only allow us to gain more technical and practical knowledge about materials and construction processes, but also offer opportunities to build valuable life skills that we can apply in our daily lives. Nonetheless, all these learning opportunities are only as much as we make of them. By paying more attention to the processes and complexities at a site visit, we might make our experience much more interesting and meaningful than it appears to be.

Lisa graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor’s degree in interior design and a few internship experiences. She is currently completing her Master’s degree in art history and studying architectural renderings for her thesis. Her passion is thinking critically about everything architecture: from architectural movements to contemporary professional practices.

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Website Tour Software: A Complete Guide to Improve User Experience

If you manage a website, you are aware of how crucial it is to offer a faultless customer experience. Users must feel comfortable exploring your website and comfortable with themselves. To do this, several companies are increasingly incorporating website tour software into their web designs . In this comprehensive tutorial, we’ll delve deeper into what website software is, how it works, and how it could improve user experience.

What is Website Tour Software?

Website tour software, website walkthrough software, or website guide software is software that offers a step-by-step tour of a website. Typically, a website’s capabilities are explained through a series of interactive, narrated phases that make up the tour. With the use of this tour software, users can traverse a website fast and effectively, improving the user experience.

How Does Website Tour Software Work?

An interactive guide that is easy to use must be made in order for online tour software to work. When a new visitor accesses a website, a popup or overlay frequently appears. The user is led through the various functions and features of the website, with an emphasis on key areas and possible actions. It can be modified to match the website’s branding and the unique requirements of the company. Even some tour software includes analytics, allowing website owners to monitor the effectiveness of their tours and adjust as necessary.

Why Use Website Tour Software?

Using this offers several benefits to both website owners and visitors.  Benefits for Website Owners Improved User Engagement: It can help increase user engagement on a website by providing visitors with a guided tour that showcases the various features and functions available. Reduced Bounce Rates: By offering a more intuitive and dynamic user experience that motivates users to stay on a website longer, website tour software can help lower bounce rates. Better Onboarding: Website tour software can help onboard new users more efficiently by providing them with a clear and concise introduction to the website. Benefits for Visitors Improved User Experience: By giving users a guided tour that clarifies how to navigate a website, website tour software can enhance the overall user experience. Faster Navigation: Website tour software can help visitors navigate a website more quickly and efficiently by highlighting key features and actions. Increased Confidence: By clearly explaining how a website functions, website tour software can boost visitors’ confidence when utilizing the site.

Who Can Benefit from Website Tour Software ?

Any company or organization with a website can gain from using website tour software. It can assist customers in better understanding how to use complex goods or services, which is very helpful for companies that provide them. Additionally, it helps customers find what they’re looking for more quickly, which is beneficial for websites with a lot of content or features that are not immediately visible.

How to Choose the Right Website Tour Software?

When choosing website tour software, there are several factors to consider, including: Customization Options: Look for software that can be customized to fit your brand and specific needs. Analytics: Choose software that offers analytics so you can track the performance of your tours and optimize them for maximum effectiveness. Ease of Use: Choose software that is easy to use and offers a user-friendly interface. Integration: Look for software that can be easily integrated into your website without causing any compatibility issues. Customer Support: Choose software that offers excellent customer support in case you need assistance.

How to Create an Effective Website Tour?

Creating an effective website tour involves several key steps, including: Step 1: Define Your Objectives It’s crucial to establish your goals before constructing a website tour. What do you hope to accomplish through the tour? Is it for bringing in new users? Describe any new features. Boost user involvement? Knowing your goals will enable you to design a better-tailored trip that matches your needs. Step 2: Identify Key Features and Actions Once your goals have been established, decide the important traits and deeds you want to emphasize during your tour. These might be anything from completing a purchase to subscribing to a newsletter. Step 3: Choose the Right Software Choose tour software that fits your specific needs and offers the customization and analytics features you require. Step 4: Create Your Tour By following the software’s instructions and personalizing it to match your brand and website, create your tour. Ensure that your tour is simple to follow and contains detailed directions for navigating your website. Step 5: Test and Optimize Test your tour to make sure it functions properly and achieves your goals. Make the most of your tour’s potential by optimizing it with the statistics that your program offers.

How much does website tour software cost? The cost of this varies depending on the provider and the specific features offered. Some software may be free, while others may charge a monthly or yearly subscription fee. Can website tour software be used on mobile devices? Yes, it can be used on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. How long should a website tour be? The length of a website tour depends on the specific needs of the business and the objectives of the tour. However, it is generally recommended to keep the tour short and focused, with no more than six to eight steps. Can website tour software be used for e-commerce websites? Yes, it can be used for e-commerce websites to help guide visitors through the purchasing process and highlight key features such as product reviews, promotions, and more. Can website tour software be used for training purposes? Yes, it can be used for training purposes to help new employees or customers learn how to use a website or product more effectively. Is website tour software easy to set up and use? Yes, it is generally easy to set up and use, with most providers offering a user-friendly interface and step-by-step instructions. Conclusion The user experience is more important than ever in today’s digital world. By using website tour software, businesses may improve the user experience overall and give visitors a guided tour that highlights crucial elements and tasks. Website tours can help decrease bounce rates, boost user engagement, and enhance overall website performance with the correct software and strategy. Visit the link to read more: https://blog.cloudpano.com/announcement-realtor-com-and-cloudpano-com-virtual-tour-software-integrate-directly-big-news/

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Top Website Tour Examples To Learn From In 2023

10 min read

If you’re creating a user onboarding flow for your SaaS company, you’ll want to look at website tour examples from other businesses before you start.

We can learn from their mistakes, as well as follow the best practices they’ve established for teaching customers how to use their product. Having helped thousands of SaaS teams with onboarding, we can assure you that other web apps have faced the same challenges that you have.

Let’s get right into it.

• SaaS businesses use website tours as a way of showing new users how their products work.
• Website tours are valuable because they make users activate faster and more consistently, leading to a higher rate of retention in the long-term.
• A typical website tour is built out of modals , tooltips , hotspots and driven actions.
• To maximize the odds of your website tour being a success, ensure that you segment your user s and keep your tour as interactive and personalized as possible.
• Don’t code your product tour from scratch . Use Userpilot instead. Get a free demo today!

What is a website tour?

In many cases, website tours are interactive, requiring the user to actively engage with your product. That’s because learning by doing is a more effective means of user education than merely passively reading tooltips.

When users visit your app for the first time, it’s unwise to simply leave them to their own devices and let them figure out your product in their own way.

Ultimately, the risk of churn for SaaS companies is just too high to do something like this. We’re talking about an industry where Day One churn rates often exceed 70% or 80%!

Many businesses solve this problem by giving users a product tour that highlights their web app’s key features.

What constitutes “key features” is subjective, depending entirely on what a particular user group finds valuable.

So a CEO will likely have a very different set of product needs than an intern at the bottom of the hierarchy, for example.

I’ve seen plenty of businesses attempt new user onboarding with passive tours as well, but I don’t advise it.

Types of UI patterns used in product tours

Most product tours are built out of the following elements:

• Tooltips : brief text snippets that walk users through one individual product feature
• Modals : larger, rectangular elements that grab users’ attention with striking graphics
• Hotspots: small circles that flash softly to illuminate one particular part of the UI
• Driven actions: focus the user’s attention on a specific action such as a click or an input

Userpilot will let you build all of these UI patterns from simple templates, without facing the hassle of having to code. Get a free demo today!

Other patterns include:

• Lightboxes: similar to modals , but smaller and less disruptive to the user’s sense of flow
• Banners: long, thin, rectangular elements displaying an important message, often at the top or bottom of the screen.
• Sliders: similar to banners, but they slide in from the sides of the screen

So you now know what a website tour consists of, but why should your business care about creating one, when there are so many other things you could be spending your time on?

Why use product tours in your user onboarding process?

Put simply, serving your new users with a high-quality product tour is positively correlated with all the most important SaaS metrics .

For example:

Website tours reduce Time to Value

It’s in the commercial interests of all SaaS businesses to ensure that their customers experience value from their products as soon as possible.

Partly, this is due to the high-dopamine, low attention span world that we live in.

But it’s also about fulfilling the promises you make to your users. If they’ve come to your app to experience a particular benefit, they’re likely to churn if they don’t receive what they were looking for.

So imagine if you signed up for a new product and were greeted with an empty state like this:

Not exactly very motivating, is it?

By contrast, social media scheduling tool Kontentino greets new customers to their app in a friendly, engaging way:

And they follow this welcome screen with two tooltips that guide users towards connecting their social media account and scheduling their first post:

Out of these two examples, I can assure you that Kontentino’s customers will be the ones more likely to stick around and experience value .

Customers that experience a website tour are more likely to activate

Arguably the most important milestone in any new user onboarding journey, activation is the moment when a customer personally experiences the value of your product for the first time.

A typical product tour is designed to highlight the features that are most important to each particular user segment.

Generally, this is achieved by giving the user a checklist of tasks to work through, like this:

By the time the customer has worked through the checklist, activation is almost certain.

That’s because you can use onboarding software like Userpilot to define a custom event that equates to activation on your app, and then guide users towards it with modals , tooltips and hotspots.

If you want to create custom events for your app that will help your customers to activate, get a Userpilot demo today!

User onboarding product tours drive more user retention

Imagine you’re a new user who’s using a web app for the first time and you’re overwhelmed at the amount of value you receive.

You had signed up to find a way to organize your team’s work projects more effectively, and the product tour you experience shows you multiple ways of doing just that.

You experience the core value of the product through engaging with different features.

Do you leave and check out competing products?

Of course not!

Since it’s given you exactly what you wanted and the website tour made it so easy to use, there’s a good chance you’ll stay with this app for a long time.

From the perspective of the SaaS business who made this app, this translates into a high retention rate and multiple recurring subscription payments.

Now that I’ve got your attention…

Top tips for effective website tours

Every product tour is different, but there are some best practices that can be applied to just about any SaaS business, regardless of niche.

Don’t code your product walkthroughs from scratch

If this is your first SaaS product, it might be tempting to think that you can easily create a bootstrap tour on your own.

Think again.

The simplest UI element used in almost every product tour is a tooltip . Here’s how much code you need to make one:

Now imagine that multiplied by the number of UI elements in your entire product tour.

But that’s not all!

Your developers will also need to edit your tooltips every time your product marketers want to run a product experiment , perhaps to change the tooltip’s color or shape to see if that affects performance.

Maybe you have investors with deep pockets, but given how expensive developers are and how little time they normally have, that sounds like a risky strategy to me.

A better strategy is to use code-free user onboarding software like Userpilot. That way, your product marketers can build product tours to their hearts’ content, without having to bother your devs.

But don’t take my word for it. Get a Userpilot demo today to see how it works!

Ensure your website tour is interactive

Do you remember that boring old professor at college that used to lecture you back in the day?

I’m prepared to bet that he lectured students 30 years ago in exactly the same way. Right?

The worst thing you can do is to create a product tour like that . I’m talking about a website tour that

• goes through the same product features
• in the same order
• to every single customer, regardless of use case
• in a dry, non-interactive way

This is called a linear product tour. And users consistently hate them !

This is why Pendo’s tooltip-based product tours don’t work, by the way. They’re just too linear and repetitive.

A better approach is to create an interactive walkthrough, like Kommunicate did here:

To the user, this feels more like a two-way dialogue than a boring lecture.

The product tour asks them to try out one of the core features , the user does so at their own pace, and then they get served with another interactive task that’s directly linked to their particular use case.

All the while, the website tour has tooltips and modals guiding users towards the features that they need.

Don’t forget to segment your users and personalize your website tours

As we mentioned earlier, what your customers find valuable about your product tour is subjective.

It will depend entirely on their particular use case. For example, if your product is an SEO tool:

• Senior management will look at the bigger picture of their business
• SEO managers will be interested in higher-level analytics to see how their team is performing
• Link builders will generally only care about specific metrics such as domain authority and domain reputation

So it would be foolish to serve the same website tour to each of these user segments.

The solution?

Segment your users, and deliver an individualised product tour to each segment .

A great place to segment is on the welcome screen . You can ask your users questions that assess how they want to use your product, and then use software like Userpilot to personalize the subsequent product tour based on their answers.

This is how Postfity segmented their users:

If you want to see how Userpilot can help you segment your customers, get a Userpilot demo today.

Website tour examples that follow best practices

Now that you know what a website tour is and what the signs of a good tour are, let’s look at some guided tour examples from other businesses.

Website tour example #1: Rocketbots

Rocketbots have a web app that allows you to connect all your messaging systems on one platform.

After the user logs in, they initially see this welcome screen :

Observe how Rocketbots is addressing me by name and how it’s already looking to personalize my user experience at this stage of the process.

This form is also extremely minimalistic, which shows that Rocketbots want to keep their website tour brief and get their users to activate as quickly as possible.

Once you’re done with the welcome page, the software serves you with an onboarding checklist , which looks like this:

It’s notable that the checklist includes the tasks “Connect a Channel” and “Create a Space.”

These are the two most important activation tasks that Rocketbots requires of its users.

Their software won’t work if you don’t have a “space” to put all your inboxes in, and you won’t experience any value until you’ve connected your first inbox (or “channel”) to your space.

Rocketbots used Userpilot to create a series of tooltips that walk users through these two activation tasks.

Here’s what the tooltips look like for adding your first channel:

Once this is complete, activation won’t be far away.

Website tour example #2: Tallyfy

Tallyfy is a project management tool. It has two main functionalities: documenting business processes, and then automating them.

Tallyfy’s tour consists of the following two tasks, both of which require action from the user:

The first task is simple enough. Simply follow the instructions and click “Open.”

Giving users a fast win like this is often a good idea when building your onboarding process . That way, your users will be more motivated than if you had a long, linear product tour .

The second task is rather more playful. If you click “Open,” you’re asked to choose between sand, bacon or cheese.

Adding a light touch of gamification is a great way that Tallyfy keeps its users engaged.

Once you’re done with these two trial tasks, Tallyfy finishes up by prompting you to create your own task.

There’s just the one CTA here, so it’s very clear where to go next after this website tour.

It seems to me like Tallyfy have listened to their user feedback and discovered that their product tour needn’t be any more complicated than this in order to get users to activate.

Website tour example #3: Demio

Demio is a webinar hosting service.

Their website tour is perhaps the very definition of interactivity . You are asked to join a fake webinar, and then handed over the reins to control it.

The webinar initially looks like this:

When the host passes control to you, you’re given dummy data and a slideshow to ensure that you have something to talk about.

If you’re anxious that this is some kind of a test, fear not! There is a fake audience who will chat in the sidebar and appreciate whatever you say!

There’s an element of playfulness to this website tour which makes it memorable.

And since it’s a fake webinar, there’s no risk to you if things go wrong. So it will be good practice for when you come to deliver a real webinar to real users.

If you take one thing away from this article, let it be that you consider using Userpilot to build your website tour!

It really is so much faster and cheaper than coding everything yourself, and Userpilot has templates for all the UI elements you’ll need.

Get a demo today and you’ll see what I mean.

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Beginner’s Guide to Animated Website Tours

To make a compatible tour page for your website requires a lot of insight towards what your visitors need to know. Generally you can find a lot of examples using static informational pages as a guided user tour. Admittedly this is a great method for gaining traction from your userbase but it is not easy to accomplish.

In this article I want to look over some examples and plugins for creating your own animated website tour. This could happen all on the same page or in-between different page sections. The content is entirely up to you and this leaves a lot of room for innovation. But after checking out some of the possibilities you will surely be able to craft something useful.

Designing Around Themes

A good tour should be created around a theme or specific user interface style. The dynamics of how your visitors access content in the tour will define terms if the information actually sticks. I really like the example tour from Dropbox which actually doesn’t use very many animations. But the page is fairly dynamic and quickly loads content in a book format.

It is easy to see how this may catch on as a quick and easy solution to explain Dropbox to somebody who has never heard of it. The colorful illustrations and graphics are also a nice touch. It seems like the interface would still work even having JavaScript disabled which is a good fallback solution. The minimalism is a welcome design feature by most guests.

The more simplistic tour page used on Freckle’s website is a single-page design without updated content. The first element is a big streaming video which is often preferred by most users. Videos are playable from mostly any browser and offer quick-to-the-point ideas for how to use the website or application.

But it is notable that their tour page includes real information and screenshots from the app. Depending on the complexity of your website this extra information may be a good idea. Setting up a complete tour page with just a video can be off-putting for some people. But I do stand by the idea of streaming videos and they can work even better as part of a presentation element.

Sticky-Sliding Navigation

One other solution for holding lots of tour content on a single page is parallax scrolling. The background images will slide along as the user scrolls but we keep a fixed navigation menu attached onto the interface. Then users may skip through the different sections at their own leisure.

The very creative MediaFire website is host to many great design aesthetics. But their homepage actually contains a small guided tour area once you scroll past the header. You will notice a series of links which are fixed off to the left side. You may click any of these section links to pan around the page jumping between content.

Take inspiration from this for your own ideas but remember that a tour should feature the most important or puzzling ideas related to your website. You are looking to clarify any questions users may have so that people aren’t lost when browsing the interface. You will find this to be the case on MediaFire and it is obviously very useful in other applications and social networking websites.

An Example Tour Page

The web development blog Codrops has been publishing a lot of great tutorials revolving around new-age design trends. Most recently I found an article discussing website tours using jQuery and the demo is simply fantastic. Additionally developers may download the project source code and see how to create this same effect on your own site.

There are a couple major benefits to the Codrops tour approach. First we have a navigation box in the top right corner so users have quick access to the next piece of the tour. Some tutorials do allow for navigation through the arrow keys – but this method doesn’t help unless you directly explain to the user that they should navigate using the keyboard.

I also really like how the popup bubbles do not interfere with other elements on the page. You may style each bubble differently as needed and this provides an excellent resource for demonstrating your website’s capabilities. The autoplay tour demo is another solution if you would rather animate like a movie without any user input.

Building with Open Source

All the examples so far should provide insight towards the idea that many different websites can build tours in various layout styles. Most of these pages are custom made, but modern developers have their choice of building with existing projects. jQuery developers have provided a handful of free open source plugins including my favorite which is called pageguide.js .

Check out the demo Github page if you want to see this effect in action. Pageguide offers the ability to customize not only tooltips, but also highlighted elements and motion up and down the page. Granted the coding may get a little harsh if you are unfamiliar with JavaScript. But this is true of almost any dynamic tour plugin so it will require some buckling down.

Another choice you may look into is the Joyride plugin released by Zurb. You can find this on Github and many of the features will continue years into the future. The plugin supports native responsive elements which may adapt as the window resizes. Plus the documentation is well-written and offers a slew of fantastic options to choose from.

There are definitely some other plugins worth mentioning like aSimpleTour and Crumble.js. It is difficult to pin down one specific plugin and label this as the de-facto tour plugin. But the truth is that each website will be using tours for a different reason. You’ll need to have a plan in advance before looking into the development side. But luckily there are plenty of open source projects to aid in the creation of your tour pages, no matter how complicated the interface.

Related Articles

• 8 Useful jQuery Plugins For Creating An Automated Website Tour
• Website Tour Plugins: Guide Your Visitors Through
• 10 jQuery Web Tour and Instructional Plugins
• 23 Great Examples of Web Application ‘Feature Tours’

Final Thoughts

I hope some of these resources may prove beneficial to web developers around the world. You do not often find startups with fantastic tours and feature walkthroughs. But the handful that are use tours online have been pushing the boundaries on this new trend in web design.

It is true that we have never had so much support for dynamic jQuery enhancement. Any static website tour may not require animations or any type of jQuery for that matter. But the added effects are often much more captivating to new users. Be sure and check out some of these plugins or demo pages from throughout the article. Plus if you have any questions or ideas we may have skipped over please share with us in the post discussion area.

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Top 10: Best Tour (website guide) Javascript and jQuery plugins

Carlos Delgado

• January 02, 2019
• 194.3K views

See our compilation from 10 of the best Tour Javascript and jQuery plugins to create a web guide for your user

Have you ever visited a website or a web application, where you don't have the most remote idea of how to start to using it because it's your first time there and you just feel like Jhon Travolta?

If you're a web developer, you may want to avoid this experience from your user creating some type of guide video, or a well explained documentation. However, some users won't read the documentation or see a video because there is no time for that, they just want to use your app! For this kind of users (that's the 90% of the people) you can use a dynamic in web tour while they learn to use your app. You can implement this feature by using a Guided Tour plugin in your app.

In this top, we are going to share with you 10 of the best guided tour plugins made in VanillaJS and jQuery.

Anno is a step-by-step guides plugin for powerful web apps. Anno.js is built to be extensible , the source is about 500 lines of literate coffeescript; you can read the annotated source in just a few minutes.

9. jQuery guide

jQuery Guide is a jQuery plugin made to create a "How to use guide" for your web app. It uses jQuery animations to provide a smooth and nice experience for the user while they learn how to use your app.

8. aSimpleTour

aSimpleTour is a jQuery plugin that will help you to make website tours easily.

7. Pageguide

Pageguide is a plugin to create interactive guide for web page elements using jQuery and CSS3. Instead of cluttering your interface with static help message, or explanatory text, add a pageguide and let your users learn about new features and functions. Pageguide comes with an example implementation (the files are in /example) which you can run locally with Grunt.

6. Bootstro.js

Bootstro show your users a guided tour of what is what on a page. Especially, for first-time users. Bootstro requires bootstrap & bootstrap popover , just add the class .bootstro to any element that you'd like to be highlighted, then include bootstro.js &  bootstro.css and start using Javascript bootstro.start() .

Any element anywhere on the page can be intro'ed: popovers are automatically scrolled to so they always get focused. This plugins is easily customizable, Bootstro provides various public methods so you can control as you like bootstro.start() , bootstro.next() , bootstro.prev() .

5. Hopscotch

Hopscotch is a framework to make it easy for developers to add product tours to their pages. Hopscotch accepts a tour JSON object as input and provides an API for the developer to control rendering the tour display and managing the tour progress. Hopscotch supports internationalization via i18n object in tour config. The default language is English. If you need a tour in a language other than English, pass in translated text in your tour config. Text used for previous, next, skip, done and close buttons, as well as, tour step numbers can be translated.

A Hopscotch tour consists of a tour id, an array of tour steps defined as JSON objects, and a number of tour-specific options. The tour id is simply a unique identifier string. The simplest tour consists of just an id string and an array of one or more steps. This plugin has been created by the guys at LinkedIn .

4. Enjoyhint

A free web-tool that is created to guide users through a site or app in the simplest way. It gives an excellent way to create interactive tutorials with hints and tips, and embed them into your web apps, thus, enhancing their usability and value/effectiveness. EnjoyHint adds simple hints that prompt users to navigate a website or an app intuitively and easily. It comes along with instant auto-focus highlighting, as the user moves into a new field.

We demonstrated the use of the EnjoyHint web-tool in an issue tracker demo, created with Webix JavaScript UI library. The tool itself is based on Javascript, HTML5 and CSS. The tool works on the client-side and can be used with any server-side platform. The key features of EnjoyHint:

• Fast web-tool setup
• Simple initialization and configuration
• Interactive hints - instant tips that provide a description to the user about the field they are in
• Scenario of coherent actions - allows adding a sequence of hints for all necessary steps
• Auto-focus highlighting - involves automatic focus on the area related to the hint and its instant hightlighting when the hint loads
• Defining shape - defining the shape and margin of the highlighted area
• Timeout settings - allows setting the delay before the moment, when the element is highlighted
• Hint resume that restarts the display of hints from the step where it was stopped
• Auto scrolling to the highlighted element at different animation speed.
• Cross-browser support (Chrome, FireFox, IE10+, Safari)
• Support for Android, iOS and Windows touch sceens (laptops and tablets)

3. Intro.js

Intro.js is a Step-by-step guide and feature introduction plugin for your website. When new users visit your website or product you should demonstrate your product features using a step-by-step guide. Even when you develop and add a new feature to your product, you should be able to represent them to your users using a user-friendly solution. Intro.js is developed to enable web and mobile developers to create a step-by-step introduction easily.

Intro.js has no dependencies, fast and small 10KB JavaScript and 2.5KB CSS, that's all (minified, gzipped), besides it works on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and even Internet Explorer.

2. Shepherd

Shepherd is a javascript library for guiding users through your app. It uses Tether, another open source library, to position all of its steps. Tether makes sure your steps never end up off screen or cropped by an overflow. Try resizing your browser to see what we mean.

Shepherd works in IE9+ and all modern browsers.

1. Bootstrap Tour

Bootstrap Tour is a plugin to make an animated, dynamic guided tour through your website using the famous Bootstrap Framework, however, if you don't use Boostrap you can use the standalone version without problem. This plugins is the easiest way to show people how to use your website with Bootstrap Popovers.

Honorable mentions

Driver.js is a light-weight, no-dependency, vanilla JavaScript engine to drive the user's focus across the page. Driver is compatible with all the major browsers and can be used for any of your overlay needs. Feature introductions, focus shifters, call-to-action are just a few examples.

If you know another awesome Tour plugin to show a website to your user or you're developing your own tour plugin, don't be shy and share it with the community in the comment box.

Senior Software Engineer at Software Medico . Interested in programming since he was 14 years old, Carlos is a self-taught programmer and founder and author of most of the articles at Our Code World.

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• INDUSTRY SCOPE

How can virtual tours benefit your business?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Imagine how much a virtual tour is worth

Virtual tours are simulations of existing locations, usually composed of a sequence of still images. Virtual tours are designed to allow your customers and clients to step inside your business from any device. Virtual tours have been around for long time, and business owners should start to realize the importance of having a virtual tour as part of their business model.

Thanks to social media and online review sites, people today have become incredibly visual. This means that having visual content of your business, that represents it to the highest level, has become of vital importance. According to the Nielsen Norman Group, most users stay in a website less than 59 seconds. So, if you don’t manage to capture a user’s attention in less than a minute, you’ve lost them.

Virtual tours are a good example of engaging content, that will make users want to stay in your website. Not only virtual tours will visually engage your potential clients or customers, but it will give them the ability to get a much better idea of what you do, and what you are able to offer as a business.

Here are some benefits of virtual tours for businesses:

• Virtual tours enhance your presence on search  with google business view
• a 360 degree virtual tour will help you showcase your business to bring more customers to your business and stand out from the competition. According to the WAV group, listings with virtual tours get clicked on 40% more than listings without virtual tours.
• Increase visitor retention:  Statistics have shown that websites with virtual tours are viewed 5-10 times longer than those without.  A virtual tour offers extra confidence in your business  as clients and customers can view inside and see how and where you work. Clients naturally feel more affinity with business they can see.
• Increase traffic and engagement.  According to a study by BIA/Kelsey, 97% of consumers go online prior to making a purchase to research products and services locally. Whatever is the business, whether retail, offices or service industry, the evidence suggest that more people will be willing to purchase or work with you if they know who you are.
• Generate faster and more sales.  When a website has 360 degree photos, the conversion rate on products sold on those pages is about 27% higher than for standard two-dimensional images.Golfsmith.com claims that products with the special spin feature have conversion rates at least 10% and sometimes as much as 30% to 40% higher than products without it.
• Attract more job applicants.  Job applicants now a day research companies before applying. By having a virtual tour you can give an insight of the workspace to potential employees to catch their interest.

You can use 360 tours in almost every business. At Professional 360, we proved that is possible, we used our Panono camera and created virtual tours for opera houses, shops, construction companies, furniture shops, car dealerships, and others. The possibilities are endless. If you are interested in having a virtual tour for your business contact us at  [email protected] .

• How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages?” Nielsen Norman Group, http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-long-do-users-stay-on-web-pages
• Audet, Michael. “Virtual Tours Reaching Consumers With Effective Internet Advertising.” Virtual Tours, WAV Group, 2009, http://waves.wavgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/virtualtour.pdf
• http://panomatics.net/web/statistics/
• https://conversionxl.com/blog/how-images-can-boost-your-conversion-rate/  
• https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2011/05/26/rotating-images-generate-higher-conversion-duematernitycom/

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7 Steps for Planning a Successful Virtual Site Visit with Your Funder

July 27, 2020

In the era of social distancing, nonprofits across the sector are having to act quickly to move in-person events online — and for better or for worse, it’s likely that this will be our new normal for the foreseeable future.

Some of the types of events impacted by this are immediately obvious; things like fundraising events, galas, and in-person programs have demanded quick pivots and adjustments in order to make up for potential losses in earned revenue in response to covid..

But as we’re seeing, site visits are another example of a once-standard practice that now require some flexibility and creative adjustments. And regardless of how long the effects of this pandemic last, knowing how to plan and execute a successful virtual site visit could still be an asset even when things return to normal.

Before we get too far, let’s establish exactly what we mean when we talk about site visits.

What is a site visit?

According to Exponent Philanthropy, a site visit is defined as a meeting with one or more staff, board members, or clients of a nonprofit organization, with the goal of understanding more about what they do and how well they do it. Site visits are often part of a funder’s vetting or decision-making process for a grant, or they may be used to help monitor a current grantee at the midpoint or end of a grant cycle.

At Elevate, we also leverage site visits in our work with nonprofit clients that are based outside of the DC Metro region. The primary purpose for these visits is to enhance our services to our clients by understanding their programs in more depth, seeing their programs up close, and building rapport and goodwill with our points of contact.

A virtual site visit has very similar goals, and may even look quite similar to an in-person site visit, with one obvious exception: the meeting takes place in a virtual forum.

As you think about how to make this shift for your organization and begin planning for upcoming virtual site visits with your funders, here are some ideas you might consider :

1. Start from scratch

Tempting as it might be, we do not recommend simply converting a previously-planned site visit into a virtual one. Instead, take some time to consider which aspects of your programs are easiest to showcase virtually, and how best to do so. For example: if you typically do a tour of your office or campus, will you try to do something similar via phone? Or does it make more sense to offer a tour via PowerPoint presentation?

2. Prepare an agenda

We strongly suggest you spend time putting together an appropriate agenda for the site visit ahead of time. We often think it’s best to ask funders if they have a standard agenda they’d like to use, or any questions they’d like to go over first; if they say no, that’s a great opportunity to share an agenda of your own.

When you do share your agenda, that’s a great time to ask your funder if there’s anything missing, or anything else they’d like to go over. This helps them to prepare a little on their end, and gives them an opportunity to offer more meaningful feedback about how they’d like to spend their time .

3. Bring in your participants’ voices

We always like for funders to hear directly from our clients’ program participants, volunteers, and/or recipients whenever possible. Depending on the options available to you, it may be fine to use a video or video excerpt if you have that prepared. However, if you’re able, you may want to invite a few volunteers or participants who are also working from home to join you. Not everyone needs to attend the full duration, but including others can lend more structure to the site visit and help make the tone less meeting-like.

If you do decide to include others, be sure to offer them a good range of topics or talking points ahead of time, to help clarify expectations. We recommend scheduling a meeting or prep call with everyone who will be in attendance, to walk through all the details together ahead of time.

Want this list in the form of a downloadable checklist?

We’ve turned this blog post into a downloadable checklist you can use as you start planning out your next virtual site visit, to make sure you’ve covered all your bases. Download the checklist  below!

4. Consider inviting a Board member

Having a Board member join your site visit is an excellent way to demonstrate that the Board is engaged, and that they find it important enough to carve out time from their day to meet with a funder. When selecting a board member to invite, choose someone you can trust to stick to the agenda and talking points, and who is in-the-loop enough to answer questions that might be asked of them.

If inviting a Board member isn’t an option — or even if it is! — you can also have a staff member join you. If you end up having both a Board member and a member of your staff, it’s a good idea to prep them in advance, so everyone is clear about who should field which types of questions. Typically, staff will take on the more detailed questions, while a Board member’s role is more about lending support and credibility.

5. Find ways to break up the monotony

Without having something to do or to look at, virtual site visits run the risk of feeling like a long drawn-out meeting. To help break up the monotony, think about introducing elements like a slideshow of photos to introduce your programs, or give a virtual tour of your space.

At a typical in-person site visit, we sometimes worry about focusing too much on having a PowerPoint prepared since we think it’s more important for people to have a conversation. While this is still true in principle, we also think having some prepared content to walk through can offer a welcome sense of structure and dynamism in a virtual setting. For example, you might break up a 60-90 minute site visit into a few phases, like:

• Introductions
• A virtual tour via PowerPoint/screen share
• A volunteer or participant joins and speaks about their experience for 10-15 minutes
• Q&A with the funder

6. Prepare thoughtful questions

This applies to a ‘normal’ site visit too, but the point stands: make sure you take time to prepare insightful questions to ask your funders as well. During the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, we’d recommend asking them about their future funding strategies and what is top-of-mind for them, if you haven’t already had that conversation.

7. Have a solid game plan for (and TEST) your technology

Hosting a site visit in a virtual environment is likely a new experience for you, so you’ll want to make sure you have a clear and thorough plan for how things are going to run from start to finish. Start by thinking through any apps and/or equipment you’ll need, and who on your team will be responsible for what components of the day. From there, we recommend doing at least one internal test run to make sure things run smooth, and nothing was overlooked.

We all know technology can be fickle, so having a contingency plan is key. What will you do if a team member loses their internet connection, or if that video doesn’t load properly? Once you’ve decided on what your backup plans look like for various scenarios, discuss them with your team and make sure you’re all on the same page. You’ll also want to make sure you have email addresses from all parties involved, in case you need to quickly share any documents or materials that fail to load properly. Finally, we recommend sharing a phone number with everyone who will be attending, that they can call in case of any unanticipated interruptions or hiccups.

Download the Virtual Site Visit Planning Checklist

About the author:.

Alayna Buckner

President & CEO

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Virtual Site Visits: How Technology Can Make It Easier

A significant part of any good event is choosing the right venue. Typically, you would walk the venue in order to get a sense of its size, unique features, and overall charm. It provides you with confidence that it is capable of meeting the needs of your clients prior to completing the booking.

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to visit a location. You could be sheltering in place for the pandemic or the venue could be located on the other side of the country. Whatever the reason for being unable to tour in person, you can choose to use virtual site visits. The technology that makes this possible has improved drastically over the past few years.

More importantly, virtual site visits can be beneficial to you if you’re an event planner with a particular venue, such as a hotel or convention center. Further, it can be beneficial to your clients if they are going to be exploring your venue before moving forward with booking.

What are virtual site visits?

A virtual site visit allows for the ability to stay within the comfort of your home while being able to explore something on your internet-connected device. This concept has been around for a while and virtual tours make it possible to tour museums, national parks, and more without ever having to leave the house.

Particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic preventing many people from leaving their homes, it begs the question of how event planners are supposed to get their jobs done.

Technology responds by providing you with the ability to view the venue on your computer or mobile device. Instead of simply looking at photos, you can be given a full walk-through tour. It allows you to see the entire flow of the building, understanding the dynamics every step of the way.

Seeing as how some venues look better in photos than they do in person, the virtual tours answer the questions. It can identify the full layout. You can pivot at any point of the tour in order to see a 360-degree view from where you’re virtually standing in the room.

What are the benefits of virtually visiting a site?

There are quite a few benefits of virtually visiting a site. Perhaps the most obvious is that it allows you to explore a venue without having to go anywhere. This is convenient during the pandemic as well as when it’s simply not geographically possible for you to walk a venue.

Another benefit is that you will have access to the virtual tour 24/7. When scheduling can be problematic, you have the ability to tour the venue when it’s convenient for you. This can also allow you to share the virtual tour link with others who may not have been able to go on the tour with you but who are still invested in what the venue looks like.

You also have the ability to view the site for as long as you wish and as often as you wish. If you have ever toured a facility and realized later that you forgot to take a measurement, forgot to look at how far the nearest restroom was, or forgot to take note of lighting, you know what a pain it can be. Additionally, when you have to make appointments to tour a venue, you may be left feeling rushed to see it all in 15 or 30 minutes. If you want to tour the site several times before making a decision to book it, virtual tours provide you with a higher level of convenience to do so.

How Virtual Site Visits Can Secure More Business

When you’re a venue, you have to make it easy for your event planners to show off the property. You also have to make it easy for clients to see the property. Regardless of what events may be held at the location, there are a lot of details that need to be considered.

No one wants to spend thousands of dollars to rent a venue “sight unseen” because it can lead to problems during setup and throughout the event. It can lead to unhappy clients and bad reviews. As such, you want to make it easy for people to see the property so they know exactly what they’re getting.

Virtual tours are made possible with 3D renderings and other technology that truly paints a three-dimensional view of every corner of your property. You can choose to leave the venue empty or you can even render in various details to show what the venue would look like decorated for a conference, a wedding, or another type of event.

3D Renderings for Realistic Expectations

You will be able to discover the many benefits of 3D rendering within a virtual site tour. Perhaps one of the most important aspects is that it can offer accuracy along with precise measurements. Many event planners and clients want to know how the space can be set up for their wedding, reunion, conference, or another event. You have the ability to give that to them with your 3D rendering.

By working in a digital atmosphere, it can also save you money as you paint a picture of what people can expect. Many venues spend thousands of dollars decorating their venue. They want to show off what it would look like for a wedding or a convention. Then, they hire even more for a photographer to take photos. Those are, then, used on the website for marketing purposes.

The problem with staging your venue is that it still doesn’t answer the questions that many people have. What are the lighting options? How far do guests have to go to use the bathroom? What size table will fit against the wall?

3D renderings and virtual tours allow you to have the best marketing tool so that common questions are answered. It’s also the most economical option because of being able to create digital renderings of a staged venue instead of making an investment in furniture and props.

Embracing the Technology That Makes It Happen

Successful virtual site visits depend on technology. Real estate agents have been using “virtual” tours for years, though there are problems with virtual tours . Many agents use the wrong terminology, which means they over-promise and under-deliver with “tours” that are no more than a slideshow of photos. Additionally, the tours are incapable of representing the 3D space and allowing people to see all that the property has to offer.

How Does it Work?

A variety of technologies are leveraged in order to let your venue shine. The more videos, drawings, and photos you have of your property, the easier it will be to incorporate every angle. Additionally, you have the ability to use 3D Warehouse and other 3D drawing tools in order to provide even more details — including “virtually” decorating your venue.

Concept3D embraces the latest technology in order to overcome the problems found in some of the virtual tours being offered. This includes ensuring that the virtual tour is truly interactive while being able to explore the venue in a three-dimensional way. We use a blend of 3D, location mapping, and physical data to offer a full visualization. It ensures that people have the ability to “walk” the space on any digital device to understand more about what the venue feels like.

Perhaps the most important aspect of our platform is that it is compatible with a VR Viewer. This allows people to truly immerse themselves into your venue rather than looking at 2D photos. Photos fail to give an understanding of how the photos are ordered based on getting from the entrance of the building to the venue space and every corner within it.

Meet (and Exceed) Expectations

Customers demand more in today’s day and age. They already know that virtual tours exist because they’ve used them — especially during the pandemic. Many businesses and organizations offer virtual tours of Disney World, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other locations around the globe. When it comes to wanting to tour a venue, they’re going to expect that you have this technology in place.

Your customers demand convenience more than anything else. They want to conveniently tour a location, and that means being able to do so at any time of the day or night from the comfort of their home. If you’re unable to provide them with virtual tours, they may choose to eliminate your venue from their list of options.

Creating a virtual site visit is easier than you might think, especially since you’ve already been taking photos and videos. By incorporating more technology, you can ensure that your venue is accessible even when people cannot tour it in person. With an easy-to-use platform, you have the ability to build and edit a virtual experience of your property, allowing you to offer virtual tours of your event space 24/7.

Interested in learning what our 360° tools can do for you?

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About the author: tim wiedeman.

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• Experiences

8 Top Benefits of Pre-Event Site Visits (plus expert tips!)

• Experience Agency Blog

• 28 September, 2017
• by Summy Lau
• in meeting planning

When it comes to planning the perfect meeting, what's the most important step? Booking the entertainment? Recruiting corporate sponsors? Creating a finely tuned agenda?

The foundation of any event is the setting , and there is no substitute for scouting out potential locations in person . Yet all too often, event planners are asked to justify the expense of a site visit or site inspection.

In today's post, learn 8 reasons site visits are critical to your event's success , plus tips to get the most out of your visit.

Benefit #1: Understand the spatial dynamics of the location.

"A misunderstanding of the location led to unhappy guests and unhappy clients."

You don't want to rely on third-party information while planning a meeting, only to have your idea of the venue end up being different from reality.

"Had the client gone on a trip out to the site and experienced the dinner, they would have said, 'This is not for us. Our executives will not like this at all - let's find something else'," Davie adds.

On a site visit, check the distance and travel times between all essential locations , during peak (rush hour) and non-peak times. Important sites include:

• Restaurants and meal locations
• Venue / hotel
• Guest rooms
• Meeting space
• Scheduled and suggested activities

Benefit #2: Discover new opportunities.

Not only do site visits prevent logistical problems, they also open up new opportunities.

When planning your meeting, you can (and should) do plenty of remote research. You'll most likely look up activities online, call the hotel concierge for recommendations, check Yelp and more.

But when you're sitting in the hotel bar, next to someone who has lived in the area for 20 years, and they talk about an amazing restaurant down the street... well, those unexpected details can end up being the most memorable part of the meeting.

The best options for your group, don't always come up in an online search . If an opportunity comes up while you're on a site visit, you're still free to make changes to your itinerary to the site visit and say, okay, let's check out this place because a local was raving about it.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for opportunities to improve your meeting, especially with points of local interest that can't be enjoyed anywhere else in the world.

Benefit #3: Know what guests can expect.

Fact is, hotel properties are known to photograph very well. What you see on the site or in brochures may be significantly more polished than what it looks like in real life. Had the event planner just booked the property sight unseen, it would have fallen well short of what guests would likely be expecting. Thankfully, the site visit was conducted well before moving futher with plans.

"Since we were already in the area, we made appointments with other nearby properties," adds Davie. "We will be booking with another property that has everything on their wish list."

From the moment you walk in to when you leave, take note of your first impressions . Walk through as many areas your guests will visit as possible. Check different types of guest rooms.

Benefit #4: Customize for your audience.

Put yourself in your typical guest's shoes- then make the most of a two-day site visit.

• Don't just see one hotel. If there are multiple hotels within your destination and price range, stay in a different hotel each night of the visit. This gives you an actual sense of how the staff works, and the level of service they are likely to provide.
• Schedule different meals at the various restaurants where you may be looking to host a dinner or reception.
• Try out the activities you'll be offering or suggesting. You want to know how much time each activity takes and allot space in the program accordingly. What you estimated to be a 3-hour dinner cruise, for example, may end up only taking 1 hour.

Benefit #5: Meet potential vendors.

Building good rapport with the vendors executing your meeting (hotel event managers, speakers, caterers and more) is important. If you have questions, last-minute changes or difficulties, a good relationship makes it easier to get help. After all, you'll have a direct line to the right contacts if - and when - questions come up.

Plus, planning a meeting requires a lot of emails to be sent back and forth. Meeting in person puts faces to names that will be whirling back and forth when the event date approaches.

Meet as many key contacts as possible, and keep track of their contact information. Follow up after the site visit to thank them for their time and ask any questions you may have.

Benefit #6: Show a high level of interest.

You know what to expect, you've seen the quality of the venue, and you know the location will work for your event.

It's no secret that planning meetings and events is a stressful job. The less unknowns, the better... and that kind of assurance will pay off handily when all is said and done.

#8: Get the most out of your event.

Finally, the success of meetings is typically evaluated by ROI, or return on your substantial investment. To maximize ROI, you want to get the most out of your destination as you can.

Site inspections add even more value to working with a full-service meeting planning provider like Winspire. As meeting planning professionals, we facilitate the entire site visit itinerary from start to finish.

"We check with clients on availability, then schedule the flights, book arrangements with the hotel, make all the appointments, take care of transportation, and keep everyone abreast of the schedule," Davie says. "We let vendors know about the group, how many rooms we need, how many we'll have for dinner, how many will be participating in activities like golfing or kayaking... We go with clients from one appointment to the next, introducing them to vendors, then negotiate rates."

Since the vast majority of Winspire clients elect to do a site inspection, we have years of experience making the most of preliminary visits. Click below or leave a comment to begin brainstorming your next meeting.

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Workplace Tour

What Is a Workplace Tour?

Benefits of workplace tours.

• Students are exposed to job opportunities within your organization.
• Provides students with experiences and perspectives that cannot be duplicated in a classroom.
• Provides an opportunity to develop career readiness skills, including communicating effectively and appropriately (speaking, professional etiquette), personal responsibility, etc.
• Many employees find it very satisfying to share their work experience and mentor students.
• Students can gain insight into what it is like to work for a particular industry (e.g., education, health care) and for you specifically.
• Students are able to meet with professionals, gaining insights into jobs and careers.

Who to Invite to Tour Your Workplace (and How)

How to organize and lead a workplace tour.

• Identify the participants needed to assist with the implementation; for example, school staff and employees within your organization.
• Decide the basics with those participants, such as the date, time and focus of the tour, and number of participants.
• Determine the career interest of the participants. Based on the interest of your participants, identify those employees best suited for the tour. Students should be able to observe and interact with employees within different levels of the organization.
• Collaborate with school officials to identify activities that will meet the goals of both the school and your organization.
• Plan structured activities before, during and after the tour to ensure a meaningful, engaging experience.
• Work with facility staff to arrange entrance, parking or any security measures that may be appropriate.
• Provide a Q & A session.
• Ask all participants (students and employees alike) to fill out evaluations so you can continue to improve your tour program.
• Be sure to document your tour with photos or videos.
• Thank everyone and recognize the time and efforts of your employee hosts.

Wendy N. Kelly, MSHRM, PHR, SHRM-CP

Eddy’s HR Mavericks Encyclopedia

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9 Benefits of a Virtual Tour

Why do you need a virtual tour.

Almost everyone in the world has access to the internet. Currently, it stands as the most effective marketing platform. It is now possible for millions of people to learn about your products or services in a matter of seconds. Are you in the real estate business? Do you run a restaurant or own a hotel? If you do, we can create a  virtual tour  for your business to give your customers an experience of your location beforehand, and to keep your potential customers interested.  Google Maps Street View  feature has even made it easier for customers all over the world to view your business because it supports integration.

Business with professional photography and virtual tours generate twice as much interest. Ipsos Study

9 Reason You Need a Virtual Tour

Today, the market has transformed, and businesses are taking marketing online. Virtual tours are a common strategy that businesses use to improve their online presence. We will gladly use our photography skills to create a virtual tour of your business. It has numerous benefits, and we will outline some of them to let you see why you need to hire us.

1. Beat Your Competitors and Reach a Broader Market

When customers go to Google street view inside, they will be able to preview your business from any angle they wish to. This spectacular tool will place your business ahead of your competitors. More so, anyone can see your business regardless of the location he is lives in. The more the people see your products, the more popularity it gains. Your customer base will eventually grow, and so will your business.

2. It Saves Your Client's Time

If you run a hotel, a virtual tool will help save your clients a lot of time and money. Take a scenario whereby members of a company are planning to attend a business convention in your area code. Instead of having to travel from their present location to come and assess the hotels around the convention, they can just go on Google street view and see all there is about your hotel. This saves them valuable time and money. More so, it creates more business for you.

Save your guest time and encourage in-store visits!

3. A Smart and Effective Marketing Strategy

As the saying goes, pictures speak more than 1000 words. You can rely on our expertise to take the best photos of your business for your target and potential customers to preview. When we create the virtual tour for you, we will be marketing your business at a decreased cost because you won’t have to go through the hassles associated with traditional marketing. The photos taken will tell your potential customers what they need to know about your business without having to include extra-long descriptions.

4. You don't need any software and can embed the tour on your website

Virtual tours are easier than ever to embed on your website and social media.

5. Tour is avaible 24/7 basis

A tour increases the value of your business because it operates on a 24-hour basis. This means that customers can preview your business at any time of day or night, and from different time zones. Individuals that preview your business from Google street view inside will eventually become your loyal customers. Also, these customers can contact you directly from the tour we’ll create for you to increase your sales.

6. Virtual Tours provide abundance of visual information

A tour plays the unique role of letting people know all there is to know about your business. When we place it into Google street view inside, your customers will have access to information about your business’ facilities, the photo gallery, and your contacts. You can rely on our professional skills to create a high-quality, appealing tour for your visitors to see. The visual information contributes a great deal to attracting more visitors and converting them into your clients. More so, the visual information available in the tour will answer most of the questions that guests have.

7. It increases your sales

The virtual tour we create for you will be a stronghold for attracting more sales. How? Customers usually know what they want when they are looking for a product or service. So, if your tour presents all they are looking for, the customer will immediately call you to make a purchase. That is why we ensure to make your virtual tour to be as appealing as possible to catch your visitors’ interest.

For instance, if you run a beach hotel, the tour will include a captivating photo gallery of your amenities, services, food and beverage products, and contact information. So, if a customer is searching for a beach hotel that has all the amenities and services that we’ve included in the tour, he is guaranteed to contact you to make bookings.

8. Available on multiple devices

We are living in a technological age, and every day, technology continues to evolve. Today, a majority of the world’s population own smartphones, which gives them easy and convenient access to the internet. What’s more, most of these people use Google as their main search engine. Google offers a lot of services that are compatible with mobile phones and tablets including Google street view inside, where we integrate the tours. So, potential customers can preview your business and make purchases or bookings from the convenience of their mobile phones or tablets.

9. You can email the tour to potential clients

The beauty of technology is how it easily connects people. If you run a real estate business and have the email addresses of some of your potential customers, you can email them the tour of your property in an instant. We will ensure that it’s attractive enough to catch their attention so that it may keep ringing in their heads. A tour is intriguing, and no one can avoid being attracted. It may be the key to your business’ prosperity

Want a professional virtual tour?

Forge Mountain Photography is available to shoot anywhere in the US, Canada, or the Caribbean. We travel often so please reach out to us to discuss your photoshoot.

Will for Photography Questions –  828.243.2755 Julie for Scheduling –  828-243-9725

Professional Photographer working with clients in North America and the Caribbean. 

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BY Joel Junker

How to Successfully Interview During the Site Tour

During a follow-up interview with a company, you will likely receive a tour.  This is almost always the case for manufacturing or distribution opportunities where you will be given the chance to see the production line or warehouse/distribution center operations.  I have also known companies to give candidates tours of the office complex, oil and gas drilling sites, stores and call centers.  Although these tours are designed to show you the opportunity and the place you may work, they are also an occasion for the company to evaluate you.  To be successful, you must prove your interest and excitement about the site through your verbal and non-verbal communication.

Here are the keys to continuing to prove your interest and fit during a tour.

1.  Approach the tour with a curious attitude.  When you see equipment, people or processes, be curious, and ask questions to learn more.  When you see something that interests you, do not just take it at face value, ask the person giving the tour to provide more information.  A mistake some candidates make is going through a tour only listening the entire time.  Asking questions communicates interest.

2.  Take notes.  Taking notes also demonstrates interest and a desire to learn.  Additionally, at the end of the tour, you can refer to your notes to ask questions.  It is also possible that during one of your subsequent interviews, someone may ask you about the tour and what you learned.  They will be impressed when you whip out your notebook and refer to specific notes.

3.  Interact with those you meet.  Your tour guide will introduce you to people.  Ask them questions.  Find out what each person does, how long he/she has been with the company, what they like about working in the role, etc. 

4.  Understand how equipment, people and processes relate.  This is really for manufacturing, distribution and call centers.  You will see a “flow” on the tour.  Identify how things fit together and write it in your notebook.  Ask questions about the flow demonstrating that you see how things relate.  I remember one time a candidate took a tour of a new biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility. Outside the filling operation stood a big white board covered with equations and statistics.  He never asked about the board.  A simple question could have been, “Do the calculations on the board pertain to some of the filling operation?”  If the candidate had studied Six Sigma, a better question would have been, “Are those filling operation statistics to drive some sort of process improvement or Six Sigma initiative?”  I assure you the tour guide would have been impressed.

5.  At the end of the tour, be ready for the question, “Did you notice anything that we could do to improve or change?”  Recruiters want to know you took an active part in the tour and did not merely observe.  They also want to hire JMO candidates who focus on continuous process improvement.  When you answer this question, it is best not to be ultra direct in suggesting what could be improved.  Rather, you could phrase it, “Yes, I saw in the glass cutting line that the person stacked glass on the far wall.  It seems to me the near wall would be a shorter route and cut down on time.”  Notice how I did not tell but rather noticed and suggested.

The bottom line of the 5 points. Be an active participant not a passive one, ask questions, be “interested” and not “interesting.”

Joel Junker

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9 Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Tour or Attraction Website

Nathan Andrew

Step 2: Add your website and booking engine to your referral exclusion list.

Why it’s important: If you don’t do this most of your conversions will likely be attributed to your website or booking engine. Steps to follow: To do this, Go to Admin > Tracking Info > Referral Exclusion List and add your website and booking engine URL.

Step 3: Filter out traffic from your staff.

Why it’s important: If you don’t filter out your staff traffic, their sessions will likely dilute or inflate your conversion rate numbers. Steps to follow: To filter out the traffic from your staff, simply go to Admin > Filters > Add Filter > select “Exclude” and “traffic from the IP addresses”. To find your IP address, just Google “what’s my ip address” and paste in what you see. (Make sure you’re in your office / where your staff work, when you do this.)

#2: Know your business goals/objectives and your audience’s top needs

Having a solid understanding of your business goals combined with what your audience’s top needs are will transform how you think about your website.

Business goals/objectives

Business objectives are specific, measurable goals that align well with what you want to accomplish as a business.

Audience needs

Audience needs are the things that your audience is trying to get done when they visit your website. Some examples of common audience needs include:

• Book a tour
• See tour pricing
• Read customer reviews
• See any deals for group bookings
• See what you have for different age ranges
• Read your cancellation policy

Once you’ve defined and prioritized what your top goals/objectives and audience needs are, you’ve essentially created a set of parameters you can use to prioritize site optimizations as well as which pages to work on in the first place. If a page or feature lands in the intersection between business goals/objectives and audience needs, it’s probably worth your time.

#3: Articulate your “Why” consistently across your site

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. What you do serves as proof of what you believe.” – Simon Sinek, Author and Motivational Speaker

I’ve yet to see a tour and activity company that doesn’t at least attempt to explain what their product is. It’s easy to make a list of features and highlights of your tour or experience.

• 10 Ziplines!
• 4-Story high Giant Swing!
• Funny guides
• Beautiful views

What’s a little harder to do, and requires more thought and guidance, is communicating your “Why”. When you communicate your “Why” you start to build real connections with your potential customer. Take a look at this example:

If you had only looked at the “old” version of the homepage and I had asked you “Why would you take your family to Highlands Aerial Park?” you probably would have listed off some facts: “Well, it says it’s North Carolina’s best zipling. They’re located in Highlands. It looks like maybe they’re in the mountains.”

Now, if I asked you the same question about the new site, the answer would be simple: “Because I want something that will be fun for my entire family, from my 5-year-old son to his 73-year-old grandma.” And then, in addition to that, you would still maybe list because the ziplines look awesome, and the tour is in the mountains, etc.

But the key here is that in a few seconds, you know why Highlands Aerial Park exists: To bring adventure to the young and the old, and everyone in between. And if that’s what you’re looking for, their mission will really resonate with you. If all you have are the facts about the course, you might keep researching things to do on your vacation.

#4: Show your experience through quality, seasonal imagery and video

More often than not, a customer’s first interaction with your brand includes visuals like photos. The power of a great photo can do wonders for your business, including establishing credibility, generating excitement, enhancing your brand’s story, and increasing your competitive advantage. It’s undeniable that compelling photography has the potential to be one of your best selling tools and investments. However, far too often, small businesses view professional photography as expendable.

We go into more depth on this important topic, here . But let’s cover a few best practices when it comes to photography:

Relevance: Personal And Relatable

Relevant photos engage viewers. A potential customer should be able to “see themselves” in an image. Use a wide array of ages and demographics if it makes sense for your product. If you run a tour and activity company throughout the year, your visual assets should reflect that. Summer photos of a tour in the dead of winter creates a disconnect for customers. Be sure your website, ads, and other customer touch points are seasonally appropriate.

Quality: Photo Definition

A blurry, underexposed photo reflects negatively on a product or an experience, suggesting a less-than-premium business. Strive for clear and properly exposed images—the foundation to any successful photo.

Concept: Idea Clarity

Keep it obvious. Don’t assume a potential customer has a clue about your tour or activity. Photos are an excellent way to tell a story and explain an experience—or complicate one if it’s done wrong. Be sure your main images clearly show the activity in context. For example, an image of a person ziplining without the visual cue of a cable and handlebars, can initially leave someone wondering what they’re looking at. And without context within the image or from surrounding images, a person ziplining could look like a construction worker dangling in a harness.

#5: Build Trust by Doing These Four Simple Things

Bring voice of customer / reviews and ratings into your site.

There’s a lot of power in letting your customers sell your experiences. We call this “bringing the voice of the customer” onto your website. Showing a variety of testimonials from reliable sources like, Tripadvisor or Yelp provide a lot of value to potential customers.

Here are three quick tips on what kinds of testimonials to bring onto your website:

• Make sure they’re product-specific. Maybe you have a walking tour, a segway tour, and a bike tour, and each experience has its own landing page. Make sure the reviews on each page are product-specific! A lot of review widgets will simply pull from your main Google My Business or TripAdvisor profile and mix the reviews from your experiences. You can get around this by creating separate profiles for your different experiences, using a tool like WhiteSpark and tagging your reviews, or just manually selecting reviews for the different pages.
• Show a variety of demographics and experiences. Don’t just feature the tourist who had a life-changing experience on your tour. Instead, show the honest experiences of dads, grandparents, college friend groups, etc.
• Don’t be afraid to show negative reviews. If you have 100 reviews, and they’re all 5-stars, customers may see that as a red flag and think “ someone’s not being honest here… “. No one is perfect, and a 3-star review won’t scare people away as long as you’ve responded to the review, and shown that you care about the customer’s experience.

Make it Easy to Contact You

Your website visitors should realize that there are people that care about their experience at your organization. And one easy way to do this is to make your contact info easily accessible. 

In addition to a dedicated contact page, have your contact information such as phone number, email, and social media accounts in a fixed spot that are displayed no matter what page of your site a customer is visiting. If someone has a make-or-break question that will determine whether or not they purchase your product, and they don’t know how to get in touch, well, there goes your sale. 

Avoid Errors (technicalities, copy editing, etc)

It’s really about credibility. Having a website with a few spelling, grammar, and general errors doesn’t look professional. Why would someone want to put their hard-earned dollars into your product if you haven’t taken the time to edit your work?

Incorrect grammar can also make things difficult to understand. You want your website to be clear so potential customers can easily understand what you are selling. We all make mistakes, it’s inevitable. Just give your work a second or third look and have someone else look at it if you’re not sure. Your business depends on it. That said, always have someone take a look at your work when you’re done. We all have that perfectionist friend who would love to find something wrong—now is the time to ask for their input.

#6: Create Confidence During the Booking Process

People’s plans can change for a number of reasons. Booking a tour on your website should be a low risk action. People want to lock in a reservation, but they don’t necessarily want to be locked into a price or time slot that turns out to be less-than-optimal. (We talk more about this in our post on beating TripAdvisor .)

Here are three ways to create confidence during your booking flow:

1. Price Guarantee

We all like knowing we got a good deal, right? It is easier than ever to shop around and try to find a tour cheaper through an OTA, or wait it out to see if a sale happens closer to the time of travel. Guaranteeing the price on your website is the best price available, and making sure that it is, gives potential customers one more reason to stick around and buy right then.

2. Generous Cancelation Policy

Customers want flexibility, so many will wait until the last minute to make a purchase. A high percentage of customers are not willing to commit to a specific tour and time well in advance unless it comes with something for them, like a discount. Putting a policy in place that gives as much flexibility around rescheduling and canceling tours removes a big barrier to purchase, especially in situations where tours don’t fill up far in advance.

3. Satisfaction Guarantee

Another way to remove risk for the customer is guaranteeing they will be satisfied with their tour, or they get their money back.

You’ve worked hard to create an amazing experience, you get 5-star reviews consistently, and this statement of confidence from you to the customer can have an impact. If your confident in the satisfaction of your customers, adding a satisfaction guarantee is a natural progression of your brand voice.

#7: Cross Sell and Upsell Where it’s Helpful

Cross selling and upselling is all about helping customers craft the perfect experience with you.

Upsell a product

This encourages a customer to purchase the product that best fits their needs—and most of the time, it might be a more expensive “upgrade/premium/vip” product or service. Below, Cliffview does a good job of showing the added value in a higher tiered wedding package with a side by side comparison.

Cross sell products

Make additional products or services visible outside of its dedicated page on your site. Provide value by giving a package discount when more than one of your offerings is purchased at a time. Red River Gorge Zipline gives 20% off to those who lodge with their sister company—Cliffview.

Cross-selling and upselling guidelines

• Listen and know customers. Utilize user demographics, listen to feedback, create solutions to user problems.
• Be Honest. Show transparent pricing and use non-obtuse communication.
• Demonstrate value. Show user testimonials, positive reviews, and/or “Save X% when you upgrade” messages.
• Don’t frustrate. Aggressiveness or trying to cross/upsell when it’s not relevant to the user can turn customers off.
• Reward upselling and cross selling. Send thank yous and/or discount codes to encourage that a user showed trust in the guidance of your company.
• Set up cross/up selling. Many online checkout processes like Xola allow you to set up an “upgrade now” option at checkout.

#8: Make sure your site is fast

Every additional second of load time costs you conversions.

No matter how beautiful, well designed, and well organized your website is, if it doesn’t load fast enough, you’re going to lose potential customers. According to this Portent study , website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time (between seconds 0-5).

To put this into a real-life scenario, let’s imagine that you have an online revenue goal of $1M this year, and your average order value is $100. Now, let’s imagine you’re counting on 200,000 users to visit your website this year. Your website needs to have a 5% conversion rate to reach your $1M online revenue goal. Now let’s imagine your site conversion rate is only 5% when your site loads in 2 seconds. Here’s how the numbers would play out:

• 1 second average site load time. Revenue: close to $1.1M .
• 2 second average site load time. Revenue: $1M .
• 3 second average site load time. Revenue: $955k .
• 4 second average site load time. Revenue: $910k .
• 5 second average site load time. Revenue: $870k .

In this scenario, the revenue difference for a site that loads in 2 seconds verses a site that loads in 5 seconds is $130,000. That amount of money could make or break a season!

The Importance of First Contentful Paint

First contentful paint (FCP) is the time it takes from when you land on a webpage to when you see the first content rendered on the screen. A good FCP happens within the first 1-2 seconds of a user landing on a page.

Not sure what your FCP is? Check it with Gtmetrix or WebPageTest .

How Do I Get a Better FCP?

You can decrease the time to FCP by delaying the loading of resources like JavaScript, fonts, and images. For example, after running a test in Gtmetrix you will see a score under the PageSpeed tab labeled optimize images. This will give you a list of images that could be served at better sizes to help with page loading times. Other important things to look for in the report are: serving scaled images and minimizing redirects.

Serving Smaller Images

Time and time again, we’ve been able to knock seconds off website load time by simply uploading smaller images to the websites we manage. It makes a huge difference.

You can speed up the process by using an image compression service like TinyPNG . TinyPNG will optimize your image and can dramatically reduce the overall file size.

Looking For More Speed?

Still running into slow site issues? While it adds an additional cost to your monthly web hosting bill, you may want to consider using a service like Cloudflare which can cache static versions of your website and provide faster page responses to users. You can read more about what Cloudflare can do for you here .

Choose a hosting service with caching options and a fast time to first byte. If you’re using WordPress you may want to consider Kinsta as a hosting service. They have excellent support, great caching options, and 99.9% uptime.

#9: Create urgency and a sense of scarcity

People don’t like missing out. If your tours fill up quickly on a particular day, or if you have an offer ending soon, or maybe there are just a few spots left on some of your upcoming tours, you need to let your customers know.

Feeling like you’re stuck with your website? We can help.

We’re proud of how we’ve helped dozens of tour and activity companies make a lot more money by improving their website’s conversion rate. If you’d like help taking the next step towards optimizing your website, we’d love to hear from you .

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About The Author

Nate is passionate about helping companies reach their goals through integrated digital marketing campaigns and local SEO. He loves helping tour and activity company leaders stay focused on the numbers that matter, and fostering sustainable long term growth and profitability.

Email Nathan

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Zurich classic of new orleans 2024 sunday tee times, pga tour pairings and how to watch, share this article.

With 18 holes remaining at the 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, Zac Blair and Patrick Fishburn own the 54-hole lead at 23 under .

The former BYU teammates flirted with 59 on Saturday but settled for a 12-under 60 after making par on their final three holes in the best ball format.

One shot back are Luke List and Henrik Norlander at 22 under, while the Mark Hubbard/Ryan Brehm and Rory McIlroy/Shane Lowry teams are two back at 21 under.

The purse at the Zurich Classic is $8.9 million with $1,286,050 million going to each member of the winning team. The winners will also receive 400 FedEx Cup points each.

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From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for the final round of the 2024 Zurich Classic. All times listed are ET.

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Roku Q1 Results Show Benefits Of Streaming Price Hikes

By Dade Hayes

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Roku posted solid first-quarter financials, with positive results in several key metrics illustrating the benefits of ongoing price inflation in the streaming sector.

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Roku 2023 Executive Pay: CEO Anthony Wood Dips A Bit To $20.2M, Media Chief Charlie Collier Gets A Fraction Of The Prior Year's Bonanza

Platform revenue came in at $755 million, up 19%, which Roku said reflected contributions from streaming services distribution and advertising activities. Platform gross margin was flat at 52%, and average revenue per used (ARPU) was also essentially flat at $40.65 on a trailing 12-month basis. The sideways movement was due to a growing percentage of overall households being in international markets, an increasing strategic focus for the company.

Proceeds from streaming services distribution grew faster than overall Platform revenue, which the company chalked up in part to price increases for subscription-based apps. “Live sports are still accelerating the shift of viewers from traditional TV to streaming,” executives noted in their quarterly letter to shareholders, with that demand helping drive sign-ups via Roku. The letter noted Roku’s role in driving sign-ups for Paramount+ ahead of last February’s Super Bowl, which wound up the most-watched in history across all platforms.

Most of the major services have seen step-ups in price over the past year as overall viewership continues to migrate from linear to streaming. Streaming providers are also grappling with the financial challenges of the space, with Wall Street insisting on profitability and pricing an important lever to pull.

“Roku Pay, our payments and billing service, makes it easy for both our viewers and content partners to transact subscriptions,” the letter noted. “We are focused on the large opportunity to grow the share of subscriptions on our platform that are billed through Roku Pay.”

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All the proof Taylor Swift is making first major change to Eras Tour

Welcome to "The Tortured Poets Department" (Eras Tour Version).

It looks like Taylor Swift 's Eras Tour is getting a brand new era, straight from the Tortured Poets Department .

Since the announcement of her new 11th studio album ( which dropped April 19 ), fans have been anxiously waiting to see if her worldwide, career-spanning tour would get a shakeup to accommodate the new music. While Swift is remaining mum, and a rep for the singer didn't respond to an EW request for comment, a new YouTube Short posted to Swift's account seems to provide all the clarity Swifties needed that a change is imminent.

In the video, which is part of Swift's #ForAFortnightChallenge tied to the album's first single, "Fortnight," the 14-time Grammy winner can be seen rehearsing for tour with her backup dancers. While some shots are obviously from the Folklore , Lover , and other existing "eras" of the show, several blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments have never been seen before.

In one, Swift, clad in workout gear, appears to be wearing the same boots seen in her "Fortnight" video . She's holding on to a banister that looks like it has the Tortured Poets Department emblem on it — the "P" and the "D" can just be made out.

taylor swift/youtube

Although the video is in grayscale, and therefore exact colors are impossible to identify for sure, several shots feature what looks like a new white-ish mic, which has never been seen before. The new era's color, of course, is also an off-white hue.

Perhaps the most interesting moment of the new clip, though, is one that features what looks like new choreography and costumes. Swift's backup dancers can be seen in top hats and dancing with canes, while she sings in the front middle of the group — choreography and props which have so far not been featured in the concert.

This is all speculative until the tour resumes in Paris, France, on May 9, of course, but if Swift is adding a whole new era, it would mark the first major change to the setlist since Swift began performing it last March.

Throughout the tour, she's made little swaps here or there: She added performances with some of the artists who opened for her like HAIM or Phoebe Bridgers, and she added "Long Live" to the Speak Now section when that re-recorded album released during tour. She also swapped out "Invisible String" for the "The 1" in the Folklore section after news of her split with Joe Alwyn broke.

But, nothing has majorly been added or subtracted from the show, which is already a whopping three-and-a-half hours long. Now, if anyone could pull off adding more runtime to Eras, it's the "Mastermind" herself, but it's more likely that some songs will be getting cut to make room for new material. Fans have theorized that the tracks that didn't make it into the VOD rental of the Eras Tour concert film — "The Archer," "Wildest Dreams," "Cardigan," and "Long Live" — could be first on the chopping block, but we'll just have to wait and see what Ms. Swift has up her cryptic and Machiavellian sleeve.

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• Vitamins and Supplements

Health Benefits of Shilajit

Shilajit, also known as mumiyo or mumie, is an organic mineral compound found in the Himalayan mountains and mountainous regions in Russia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. This naturally occurring, blackish-brown resin contains over 40 minerals and substances, most notably fulvic acid.  

Shilajit has been used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine in Nepal and India for many years. Some evidence suggests that shilajit has antioxidant and inflammatory properties.  

The safety and potential side effects of shilajit supplements are relatively unknown due to a lack of research. Talk to a healthcare provider or pharmacist before starting a shilajit supplement. Read on to learn about shilajit, including potential benefits, risks, and more.

fotostorm / getty images

4 Benefits of Shilajit

Human research on the health benefits of shilajit is limited and ongoing. Some experts believe that shilajit has the potential to treat many health conditions, from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) to male infertility.

1. Has Anti-Inflammatory and Antioxidant Effects

Shilajit has strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. The compound is thought to promote greater longevity and have anti-aging properties in Ayurvedic medicine. These benefits can support overall health and reduce the risk of certain conditions.

Research has shown that shilajit may also:

• Increase cell turnover
• Potentially encourage the body to produce more collagen
• Slow down oxidative stress

2. May Prevent Bone Loss

Shilajit may have a positive effect on bone health. A study published in 2022 found postmenopausal women with osteopenia (low bone mineral density) who took shilajit supplements daily saw significant improvements in bone density after 11 months. The researchers theorized that this effect may be due to shilajit's ability to speed up cell turnover.

3. Could Increase Male Fertility

Shilajit may increase male fertility by boosting key hormones. Research has shown that taking 500 milligrams (mg) of shilajit per day can significantly increased dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEAS) and total testosterone levels.

4. Might Improve Exercise Performance

A growing body of research indicates that shilajit can be helpful for exercise efforts. Some evidence suggests that athletes have less post-workout fatigue and are better able to reach peak muscular strength after taking shilajit supplements.

Other research has found that shilajit can aid in muscle elasticity and repair during an exercise training regimen. Some experts find these findings to be promising in terms of shilajit’s potential benefits for people with CFS.

How To Take Shilajit

You can find shilajit supplements at many online shops, pharmacies, drugstores, and health food stores. It's available as a dissolvable powder for drinks like water or milk and as a capsule.

Shilajit isn't regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), meaning there's no set dosage deemed safe and effective. The dose administered in some clinical studies has been between 300–500 mg once per day.

It's best to follow the dosing instructions from the manufacturer listed on the label if you are taking a shilajit supplement. You can also talk to a healthcare provider for guidance on finding a safe and effective dose.

Is Shilajit Safe?

Shilajit isn't FDA-approved, and the research on it is limited. There's insufficient information about its side effects or safety among different populations. Some evidence suggests that shilajit is safe and well-tolerated by most people, even when taken long-term. Very few adverse reactions have been reported.  

Talk to a healthcare provider before taking shilajit. They can advise you about potential drug interactions and side effects. Don't take shilajit to treat a health condition or to replace a prescription drug without consulting a healthcare provider.

Potential Drug Interactions

There's no evidence of shilajit interacting with medications. It's still possible that the compound may interact with certain drugs. More research is needed, but it's important to talk to a healthcare provider about any other supplements or medications you take before taking shilajit.

What To Look For

The FDA does not regulate supplements the same way it does food and drugs. Look for shilajit supplements that have been third-party tested to ensure a product's safety.

Organizations like NSF International, Consumer Lab, and U.S. Pharmacopeia test products to confirm they contain the ingredients listed on the label and do not contain a harmful level of contaminants. Look for the organization's seal on the bottle.

Look for words like "purified" on the label, and follow the instructions closely. Avoid raw, unprocessed shilajit, which can be contaminated.

Can You Take Too Much?

No adverse reactions have been recorded from taking large doses of shilajit. There's not enough research to confirm shilajit is not toxic when taken in excessive amounts.

Side Effects

The potential side effects of shilajit are unclear due to limited research. Talk to a healthcare provider about any conditions you have and other medications you take regularly before taking shilajit.

Shilajit can cause an allergic reaction like any other substance. Call 911 or go to the emergency room if you develop symptoms of anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction):

• Difficulty breathing, speaking, or swallowing
• Nausea or vomiting
• Rapid heart rate
• Stomach pain
• Swelling in the face, tongue, eyes, lips, throat, or mouth

A Quick Review

Shilajit's purported health benefits include heightened male fertility through higher testosterone levels. There's also evidence to suggest shilajit may lower the risk of bone loss, reduce inflammation, and improve exercise performance. 

Talk to a healthcare provider before trying shilajit. The FDA doesn't regulate shilajit, and evidence about its efficacy in treating health conditions is very limited.

Ding R, Zhao M, Fan J, et al. Mechanisms of generation and exudation of Tibetan medicine shilajit (zhaxun) . Chin Med . 2020;15:65. doi:10.1186/s13020-020-00343-9

Keller JL, Housh TJ, Hill EC, et al. The effects of shilajit supplementation on fatigue-induced decreases in muscular strength and serum hydroxyproline levels . J Int Soc Sports Nutr . 2019;16(1):3. doi:10.1186/s12970-019-0270-2

Pingali U, Nutalapati C. Shilajit extract reduces oxidative stress, inflammation, and bone loss to dose-dependently preserve bone mineral density in postmenopausal women with osteopenia: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial . Phytomedicine . 2022;105:154334. doi:10.1016/j.phymed.2022.154334

Neltner TJ, Sahoo PK, Smith RW, et al. Effects of 8 weeks of shilajit supplementation on serum pro-c1α1, a biomarker of Type 1 collagen synthesis: A randomized control trial . J Diet Suppl . 2022:1-12. doi:10.1080/19390211.2022.2157522

Pandit S, Biswas S, Jana U, et al. Clinical evaluation of purified shilajit on testosterone levels in healthy volunteers . Andrologia . 2016;48(5):570-5. doi:10.1111/and.12482

Das A, Datta S, Rhea B, et al. The human skeletal muscle transcriptome in response to oral shilajit supplementation . J Med Food . 2016;19(7):701-9. doi:10.1089/jmf.2016.0010

Stohs SJ. Safety and efficacy of shilajit (mumie, moomiyo) . Phytother Res . 2014;28(4):475-9. doi:10.1002/ptr.5018

Office of Dietary Supplements. Botanical dietary supplements background information .

MedlinePlus. Anaphylaxis .

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David Wallace-Wells

This is what a miracle drug looks like, and it costs only $5 to make.

By David Wallace-Wells

Opinion Writer

Last year was called the year of Ozempic, though it was also a year of Ozempic backlash and Ozempic shortages , which could persist for years. Even so, we appear very far from a peak for GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy, which are powered by a molecule called semaglutide, and Mounjaro, which uses its cousin tirzepatide. It seems possible to imagine a future in which almost everyone is taking some variety of GLP-1 drug, and with a pretty good reason to do so.

Probably, you have heard about the game-changing impact of such drugs on obesity, a condition that affects 40 percent of Americans and increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and hundreds of other comorbidities. Patients on Ozempic and Wegovy can lose 15 to 20 percent or more of their weight in a little over a year, and if they stay on the drugs, the weight tends to stay off. That may not sound like a monumental effect, but consider that on average, an obese 210-pound man who loses 20 percent of his body mass generally passes quickly through the overweight stage all the way to a normal weight.

If anything, though, we’ve probably talked too much about cosmetic weight loss and Hollywood vanity — and certainly made too many comparisons to fen-phen, Botox and Viagra. The GLP-1 drugs have been shown to cut risk of heart attacks, strokes and death from coronary disease by 20 percent among overweight and obese patients, presumably through the salubrious effects of weight loss, though the researchers can’t yet say for sure. Semaglutide has been shown to eliminate or reduce the need for insulin among those with recent-onset Type 1 diabetes. In a clinical trial of people with Type 2 diabetes and moderate to severe kidney disease, the drug reduced the risk of kidney disease progression and cut the death rate from cardiovascular and kidney-related causes by 24 percent — such a clear result that the trial was ended early. Semaglutide has reduced fatty liver deposits in patients with H.I.V. and nonalcoholic steatotic liver disease. It has normalized the menstrual cycles of those with polycystic ovary syndrome. (It has also, somewhat mysteriously, seemed to produce a wave of unintended pregnancies among women taking birth control, at least if TikTok videos are to be trusted.)

Studies have shown promise in treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s with GLP-1 drugs, perhaps by regulating insulin levels and reducing inflammation, and the drugs may yet prove useful in treating many other conditions made worse by chronic inflammation. Some studies have found large decreases in the risk of depression and anxiety; others found smaller but still positive effects. There are potential applications for schizophrenia and neurological dysfunction, thanks to the role that insulinlike hormones like GLP-1 play in the development of the central nervous system and the way semaglutide reshapes the brain’s chemical reward system. It seems to bend the curve on alcoholism and drug addiction and curb other addictive behaviors, as well — compulsive shopping and sex addiction, gambling and nail biting, smoking and skin picking. A compulsive nation has stumbled into what looks like a treatment for compulsion and one that happens to protect against some of the country’s biggest killers and curb some of its most pervasive pathologies and inner demons.

Americans love to dream of miracle drugs, but hardly anything ever seems to fill the bill. True, semaglutide has arrived with real questions trailing like bunting: Much of the weight loss is from lean muscle mass, which isn’t ideal, and there are reasons to worry over the possibility of thyroid problems, loss of bone density and sarcopenia, a weakness disorder associated with aging. There are potentially other serious long-term side effects, though millions of Americans have been taking Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes for years without serious issues. (Some of them do report more familiar side effects, like nausea.) The GLP-1 drugs aren’t a permanent fix in a single shot — whether the thing being addressed is body mass index or cardiac risk or the progression of Alzheimer’s — but a permanent disease-management program. They also haven’t exactly cured cancer, although more than a dozen cancers are linked to obesity, and in at least one case, colorectal cancer, there is reason to believe GLP-1 drugs may directly cut the chances of developing the disease.

All that means that semaglutide isn’t exactly a cure-all, in the vernacular sense. But it seems to be about as close as we’ve gotten, even in a time of racing biomedical progress, to that old science-fiction proposition — one pill for almost everything and almost everyone forever.

And pretty soon, it won’t be just one. Technically, Ozempic hasn’t even been approved yet for weight loss, though Wegovy and Mounjaro (under the new brand name Zepbound) have, and there are almost 100 new GLP-1 obesity drugs in various stages of development. Roughly 70 percent of American adults are obese or overweight, and while not everyone who might benefit from GLP-1 drugs is likely to take them, it’s also hard to have confidence in projections that the market will grow only 26 percent annually over the next five years, when over the past five alone, semaglutide use has grown fortyfold. When we talk about GLP-1 drugs as a major breakthrough or even potential solution to obesity, it raises questions about health care access, the social determinants of health and the political determinants of health inequality, the pathologies of the United States and the modern world. (Not to mention the unpredictability of putting so many people on what may need to be lifelong drug regimens.) But it also means, very simply and straightforwardly, that the drug could help a couple of hundred million Americans right now.

At the moment, getting those drugs to those people would be remarkably expensive. A single month’s worth of Ozempic or Wegovy is today priced at around $1,000 or more, which is more than private companies currently pay per employee into employer-based insurance in total, and at present few private insurers cover these drugs for weight loss. A group of researchers recently calculated that at current prices, the cost of providing GLP-1 drugs to all Americans who could benefit from them could grow past $1 trillion annually: more than the full annual cost of Medicare or even than that of the U.S. military.

But miracles don’t have to be this expensive, and in fact, they aren’t elsewhere in the world, where Ozempic costs one-fifth as much as it does here or even less. A month of doses can be manufactured for less than $5 , which means that American customers are paying a 200-fold markup or more, with many of them paying it out of pocket. That suggests one additional way that semaglutide could reshape American health and health care: The price of marginal production has never determined American medication costs, but the sheer magnitude of Ozempic demand may force a belated reckoning with the mess of U.S. drug pricing. Perhaps it will also refocus our approach to health care away from crisis treatments and toward underlying conditions and preventive care, as reformers have advocated for decades.

If this is the beginning of a health revolution, we are still in its early days. We don’t know how many Americans would like to avail themselves of GLP-1 drugs or how many of them will find an unending course sustainable and helpful. (Though we do know that a majority of those who took the medications over the past several years have already stopped.) We don’t know whether the costs will be brought down to manageable levels, for individuals and for insurers, and we don’t know what that might mean for the government’s role in setting drug prices generally. We don’t know how quickly, if at all, obesity rates will fall. We don’t know what medical complications might follow from the sudden uptake of weight-loss meds by a conspicuously obese nation. We don’t even really know everything about how these drugs work or what else they might do.

What we do know is that treatment for obesity has been called for decades a holy grail. All of a sudden, we have several, with many more to come.