Nov 13 The Importance of Web Videos

Important for a successful website

I’ve already stressed the value of having quality original content on your website. Today, I’m going to talk about why it’s important to have video on your website. In the industry we refer to things like pictures, info-graphics and video as “engagement objects”. That’s because they engage the user and make them want to click on the object and stay on your website longer. Engagement objects are visual, and images and video are much easier to process than the written word for most people.

In addition to video being valuable by engaging users and keeping them on your website they are also important from an SEO perspective. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006 and integrated video into their search in 2007, Google has given more weight to sites and pages with video on them that is relevant to the content on the page. To optimize the value of videos on your website be sure to give as much information to the Google bot about the video as you can. Tag it with the keywords that are relevant to it. In the background (the area that users can’t see on the page) give it a title, a brief description and even include the dimensions. If someone is talking in your video, have a transcript of what they are saying to accompany it. The more the bot can understand what your video is about the more SEO value it will have for your site.

Video is also important from a marketing perspective. Take television ads as an example since they’re the basis for web video advertising. Television ads are more effective than print ads according to John Ferrell because, “Print, more than television relies upon data. In print your abilities lie naked to the world….On television you can have a great song, and you can have beautiful production values, and people can see a commercial and not quite realize that there was no idea to it.” If you’re trying to sell something with just the written word you have to be extremely persuasive and compelling. Selling with video gives you a lot more tools to persuade someone including music and fancy graphics.

In addition, rather than you having to describe your product or service in detail, the viewer can see the product or service in action, making it so you can literally do more showing than telling. If someone can see how something works they’re much more likely to purchase it. According to search engine land, “approximately 80 percent of online users view an entire video, and 25 percent click to purchase products, which drives an overall revenue lift of 10 to 15 percent.” Those are some significant numbers. If you’re trying to sell something online you have to use video.

Do you want to integrate video into your website? Are you using video right now? What are some techniques with video that you’ve noticed work or don’t work? Take the discussion to the comments section. Thanks

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