Put two tours of the same flat side by side, one shot by a beginner and one by someone who has done a hundred, and the difference is rarely the camera. It is a handful of small habits. Here are the ones that matter, in the order they bite.
1. Tripod at eye level, every scene
Shoot at 150 to 160 cm and the tour feels like walking through the space. Shoot at chest height and every room feels like it was toured by a child; shoot from a raised shelf and buyers feel like a security camera. Pick one height and never change it between scenes, because consistency matters more than the exact number. Jumping heights between rooms is the single most disorienting thing a tour can do.
2. Patch the nadir
The nadir is the spot straight down, where the tripod stands. Leave the tripod legs visible and every viewer eventually looks down and sees them. In Pano you can cover the tripod spot with your logo, which does two jobs at once: it hides the rig and brands the player. That small circle at the viewer's feet is the difference between a phone snapshot and something that reads as produced.
3. Level the horizon
A tilted panorama makes viewers seasick without their knowing why. Use the bubble level on the tripod or the level indicator in your camera app, and check door frames in the preview: verticals should be vertical. Two degrees of tilt is invisible on a flat photo and very visible in a 360 scene you can spin.
4. Stand in the doorway logic
Place the tripod where a person naturally pauses: a step inside the doorway, the middle of the usable floor, the spot on the terrace where you would actually stand with a coffee. Corners technically capture the whole room but they make viewers feel pressed against the wall. And when you link scenes with hotspots later, the doorway positions make transitions feel like walking, not teleporting.
5. Clear your own shadow, then leave
Two last-second checks before each shot: your shadow (step behind the camera relative to the light, or trigger remotely from the next room) and mirrors (you would be surprised how many published tours contain the photographer, in the bathroom mirror, holding a phone). Most 360 cameras have a self timer or remote trigger exactly for this. Use it, step out, shoot.
The habit that ties it together
Walk the space once before you shoot anything and decide your scene list up front: which rooms, which order, which doorway connects to which. Then shoot the list without improvising. A tour planned in two minutes and shot in twenty will beat an improvised one every time, and when you drag the folder into Pano, the hotspot linking takes minutes because the geography already makes sense.