The time of the online business video has come. I’m not talking about those videos on YouTube showing guys in white coats shoving Mentos tablets into bottles of Diet Coke with pyrotechnical results, or one I saw yesterday of a cute bunny chewing the end off of an envelope, acting as a live letter opener.
No, as fun and amusing as those videos are, I’m talking about videos that businesses get produced for them, that explain what the business does or show their products or services and sell them. These are usually 5-10 minute videos, placed in strategic places on the company’s web site and uploaded to online video sharing sites.
Why are videos so important for business web sites at this time? Several reasons. One is your web visitor’s short attention span. Think of the way YOU browse when you’re looking for a specific product or service. You look up something on a search engine, then visit a couple sites. But when you arrive at one of the sites, you only give that site a short time to convince you that they have what you want or explain what they do.
Well the visitor to your web site is the same way. He will only stay at your site a very short time before he either decides you have what he wants, or he leaves and goes to one of your competitors. That time is usually measured in seconds.
If you can engage his attention in a fast, high-impact, compelling, visual way, with a well-produced business video, then you’re way ahead of the pack.
Second, videos and multimedia are part and parcel of the new Web 2.0, i.e. the new way that business is conducted on the web. Today, static text content, PLUS images, video, audio clips, animations and blogs give a true multimedia experience for the visitor.
Third, your web visitor has been raised on TV and movies. While we could debate whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, he will find it easier to sit and watch your video than to read the same content in text on your web site. Research shows that people prefer to watch a video over reading about your company.
And finally, if there are several web sites that a consumer is considering, and yours has a video and the others do not, chances are that your company will get the business.
It’s important to place your video prominently on the site. Don’t hide it way inside the site. The video is like an introduction, so it has to go near the beginning of the whole browsing cycle.
Once you have a video, it’s also important to put it up on video sharing sites, such as YouTube, Google Video, and others. That way people will find your video on the video sharing site and then come to your web site. Most of these sharing sites do not allow you to display a hotlinked URL for your site on the video page, so it is smart to show your phone number and URL for 15-30 seconds at the end of the video.
Today you see ads everywhere that promote free web hosting. Dont be fooled by this gimmick as their quality is not as good as paid services.
There are several methods of choosing a suitable web video hosting site. Firstly, shallow as it may sound, you must consider its looks, because its interface must be as user friendly as possible - you must put yourself in the shoes of your own customer. Also, look at the overall video quality in order to get a general idea and check if the streaming is efficient; if your customers have to wait endlessly till a video loads, you might as well give it up (because they surely will, when put in that situation, and you don't want that to happen)
Also, it's important that you check if the user has to download some software in order to watch videos. Some sites require this option, some don't, and it's difficult to link this to discount web site hosting directly, as the price is not necessarily related to this feature. However, it's preferable that you choose things so that your customer can watch videos directly from your site, without further ado, so as to make the process as easy as possible.
Whether you've gone for discount web site hosting or not, you should check if the videos you need to upload and the offered player are compatible. Also, see if the server has any size limit, and if necessary, operate the required modification to your clips so that there will be no problem whatsoever for the end user. In the long run, when it comes to video clips, no matter whether you've chosen discount web site hosting or not, what's important is that all the necessary software comes with the hosting services and that your message is easily accessible to anyone who is interested.
Both John Eberhard & Thomas Tooma are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
John Eberhard has sinced written about articles on various topics from Internet Marketing, Marketing and PPC Advertising. John Eberhard is President of RealWebMarketing.net (). You can read his Real Web Marketing Blog at. John Eberhard's top article generates over 165000 views. to your Favourites.