Why It’s Essential to Use Video on Your Website
Learn key ways that video can transform the performance of your website metrics, including engagements, sales, and SEO.
Image via @jakobowens1
Since video is the most preferred content on the web, a website without it is a major loss. Clever video production provides memorable digital experiences for your website visitors, which improves the overall health and objectives of your website.
High-quality videos that entertain, educate, or solve a problem will engage viewers the most. Consider the ways your brand can create unique content from these categories and share them appropriately on your website. Below, we will explore some video marketing savviness, and how it can greatly improve your website’s efforts, create opportunities for backlinks, and support your brand’s SEO.
KEY POINTS:
Video Production Goals & Objectives
Conversions, Sales, bounce rate, and more
Backlink & SEO Opportunities
Links, Optimization, ranking
Unlocking the Potential of Video
Quality, length, content
Video Production Goals & Objectives
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SET GOALS
The video content for your website should fit into a larger marketing strategy aimed to achieve specific goals for your organization. Let your marketing strategy guide your video production efforts, not the other way around.
Analyze your website to find out where video can play a role in accomplishing goals. Perhaps start by asking what expectations you have for the people who visit your website.
FOCUS OBJECTIVES
The central goal for nearly all companies is to turn their site visitors into customers — more conversions and closed sales. If you want customers to submit forms or interact more with your site, try using explainer videos, especially on a homepage. They are shown to greatly increase conversion rates compared to websites that do not [2].
Videos created for your product or service pages can have a stronger emotional effect on customers versus plain text on a page. It’s also an easier and quicker way to understand what it is your company is selling. In a recent study, online video experts Wyzowl found that 80% of video marketers claim video has directly increased sales and 88% of marketers have a positive ROI from their video production [1].
A more localized focus may be on lowering bounce rates, which can be achieved by websites that include video on their landing pages[2]. Since video is so eye-catching, it can draw users’ attention long enough to open their eyes to your products or services. Especially when including a call-to-action in your videos.
Using professional video production in these strategic ways can boost user engagement, increasing your site’s dwell time (by more than 80%[1]), page views, and click-through-rate. These actions signify to Google that your website’s content supplied information relevant to the user’s query, which will likely increase your SERPs placement for the keywords you target.
BACKLINKS & SEO OPPORTUNITIES
LINK OPPORTUNITIES
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Creating high-quality content is still the best way to build organic links over time. Video content that entertains, hits an emotional chord, or educates is more likely to be shared and circulated by users, and therefore provides more opportunities for backlinks (and sales). This is obviously a huge plus for your website rankings.
SEO & SERPs RANKINGS
Videos are the first bit of content displayed at the top of Google’s results pages in most “how-to” searches because people prefer to consume information by way of video. In this sense, educational, explainer, how-to, and demo type videos perform well on search engines.
Videos are analyzed by site crawlers for their content and meaning, just like text. Bots can understand more about videos when they are optimized with metadata, such as a title, description, and transcript. It’s not necessary to keyword stuff here, as writing naturally will continue to support your website’s SEO.
Optimizing your videos to appear on Google’s SERPs and other search engine sites, like YouTube or Pinterest, will help your pages rank for more keywords and drive more traffic to your site.
Unlocking the Potential of Video
Videos work – but only if they are done well. They tell stories in ways that words cannot and linger in our memories longer. But you have only a short time to impress your viewers, so make sure to keep these tips in mind for your video production:
QUALITY
Image via @jakobowens1
Quality is the gatekeeper to video success. In fact, audiences create an instant first impression of brands from the quality of their videos. Exceptional quality (video, light, sound, editing) will elevate how people view your brand, whereas poor and outdated quality will quickly deter them.
Working with a local video production company can ensure your videos are professional and of top-notch quality.
SHORTER LENGTH
Studies show that while people love watching videos, they also prefer them to be short. Video length often hangs greatly on the genre or goal of the video you are creating.
For instance, a promo/explainer homepage video should stay around 30-60 seconds, but a “how-to” or industry educational videos may need more time — 60-90 seconds ideally but could be up to ten minutes. Just be mindful that the shorter the video the better the engagement.
THUMBNAILS & GOOD CONTENT
People will make decisions based on the thumbnail of your videos, just like the cover of a book or movie. Eye-catching thumbnails will produce more views and click-throughs.
Marketers suggest we are naturally drawn to people, so using an interesting or inviting face as a thumbnail has proven effective.
As for content, always deliver personalized content that adds value in some way, whether it’s informative, artistic, funny, etc. We already know people click off videos quickly, so make sure your content is authentic and packs a punch.
CONSIDER:
A/B Testing: Content marketing can be tough, especially in the early stages of learning your target audience and building your brand. One way to learn more about your content and audience is by A/B testing.
Load times: Quick load times for your sites’ pages are critical for both visitors and Google. Pay attention to this when incorporating more video on your site, especially on your homepage, because slow pages will defeat the purpose videos are serving in the first place.
In Summary
While video content marketing does require a bit of trial and error, the effort is worth the benefits. When done skillfully by setting clear goals, using video on your website can bring much of your marketing efforts to fruition, like improved website metrics, increased sales, and better rankings.
There are key aspects to creating successful videos for your website, but keep in mind that the ultimate force behind video comes from your own creativity, knowledge, and individual brand. Be yourself with intent, and it will bring a fresh touch to your website and prove more interesting for your site’s guests.
Looking for a video production company in Colorado to help you create quality content for your website?