Are you nervous about developing promotional video for your website? Maybe you’ve been considering internet video for a while and haven’t yet pulled the trigger.
Do you fear that video won’t make any difference in your marketing and it’s not worth the trouble? There are reasons to think twice, but that’s not one of them. Let’s explore why you’d want video in the first place.
Video for the web has overwhelming advantages for online marketers:
One, The Biggest Search Engine Loves Internet Video
Google favors video, with YouTube being its most indexed site. This means that Google is all over your videos. With some time and analysis for keyword research, and optimizing with those keywords in your video’s tags, description and title, your site’s search engine ranking will improve. Google gives preference to web pages with video because they tend to be viewed and shared by more people, even if you’re not hosting your videos on YouTube.
YouTube provides free tools to help your internet videos get found, including your own channel, and has finally allowed users to post live links to their websites. Your own video channel is something yesterday’s marketers could only dream of.
Google also indexes videos on other video sharing sites such as Vimeo, but YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, so even if you prefer Vimeo, you’ll want to have a YouTube channel too.
Two, Conversion Is Higher
Visitors will spend more time on your website if you have web video. Visitors who stay longer are more likely to convert. Ergo, video improves conversions.
Three, Video Is Memorable
Prospects who view your video content will remember your product better than if they only read text or hear narration.
Political communicators know this well, which is why the “photo op” is so popular. Viewing a video is helpful for visual learners, which is most of us, and ideal for auditory learners. A video impression of a brand is stronger than even from photos, because video is dynamic, engaging more of the senses–hearing and seeing–than just graphics and text.
That’s why video producers put titles on the screen–to magnify the impact of the audio, and why the usage of motion graphics, such as animated text, has exploded. Video helps prospects remember your brand.
Four, Video Is Fun–And That Encourages Social Sharing
Video that grabs people is often shared on Facebook, the largest social networking platform in the world. When YouTube videos are shared on Facebook, they are shown in HD (when recorded that way).
Facebook users don’t have to leave the site to view shared videos. Twitter users will click through, however, which can benefit marketers. Also, Pinterest, a social sharing site that’s visually focused, now permits its users to curate video, another plus for video producers. All of which can help your video go viral.
A Word About Podcasting
I’m a devoted fan, because podcasts permit multitasking. I listen to audio podcasts while driving, exercising and doing household chores.
You can create audio podcasts from existing videos so that people can listen while they’re doing something else. Interviews and speeches that have static visual content are ideal for this–as long as the sound is good, people will listen to a long speech in a podcast that they’d click away from online after a few minutes. Capture the sound in an audio file that people can listen to on an MP3 player, e-reader or cell phone. Success depends upon how visually-oriented your product or service is, and it may be easier to explain financing your car in a podcast than to describe dancing the tango.
If your content is more visually-oriented, a video podcast is a better option and can expand your marketing reach by allowing people to view your content in multiple formats. Apple makes this somewhat complicated by not supporting all formats on its devices, so consider this before you convert your video to a podcast.
In another post, I’ll contrast hiring a professional videographer vs. doing it yourself. Depending upon your business needs, your creativity, and how much time and money you’re willing to invest, DIY or even customer-generated video may be your best option.
Given all its advantages, an imperfect web video is better than no video at all. Just don’t bore your viewer, as I explain here.
Has internet video helped your site? What kind of videos do you like to watch on other websites? I invite you to comment on this post below.
Thanks for this informative post. I have been reading about using videos on eBay to help sell products, so this is timely information for me!
I hope you give it a try,George. Thanks for your comment.
Totally agree with you Linda!! I also prefer video to learn some new. Videos are always the center of attraction in my case if I am searching something.
Videos are attention getting, no doubt. Some things are just much easier to show than to describe.