The value of video content for your website

90% of people say video helps them make buying decisions and 64% said that seeing a video makes them more likely to buy a product or service, according to Forbes?

As the internet changes, businesses must evolve with the times or die out. The Digital Marketing Institute writes: "In an impersonal digital world, we're craving connection and personality. We want to see and hear people in a real-life context - it's meaningful" (source). William Craig of Forbes writes: "Video does what text doesn't. It creates an immediate, real and authentic route of interaction and connectivity with audience members, who can often provide reactions and comments in real time" (source). It's time to think about the value of video content, as opposed to just having regular text content, can bring to your website.

Before we get too far into it, some more interesting statistics about video content to think about from Social Media Today (source):

• Mentioning the word "video" in the subject of your email increases the open rate by 19%
• Video on landing pages is capable of increasing conversions by 80%
• According to digital marketing expert James McQuivey, 1 minute of video content is equal to 1.8 million words

Video content that is relevant to your business and website can be an effective way to encourage more user impressions. Videos can also be a great way to help draw customers to your website while at the same time giving you a presence across a broad range of media platforms. The trick is learning to use them well.

Use everything at your disposal

After customers find what they are looking for from your video, you can use links in the video's description or in video annotations or pop-ups to direct them to your website. If your video is appropriately named and tagged it will also appear in search engine results, providing another opportunity for your business to be found through a search.

The relationship between Google and YouTube is particularly important to keep in mind here: Google owns YouTube and therefore prioritises its videos in search results over other video services (and often over non-video websites too). Creating videos for a YouTube channel also provides you with content you can easily embed on your website to help keep it looking fresh and lively.

Consider hosting platforms besides YouTube

Following the above information, when you're choosing which platform to post your videos on we recommend starting with YouTube, which attracts an estimated 1 million unique visitors per month (source). It is the most popular video site on the internet on the internet by a long shot for a reason and it doesn't look like this will change any time soon - it's been reported people collectively watch upwards of 1 billion hours of YouTube per day (source).

A YouTube presence is sufficient for the video purposes of most businesses, but if you want to target other video sites as well then you could consider some of YouTube's competitors like Dailymotion or Vimeo. Facebook is also on the rise - 49% of consumers connect with video streaming on Facebook (source).

Quality is key

The main challenge with video content is actually having to produce it. Creating high-quality videos that show your business in a positive light can be time consuming and expensive. A bad video can be worse than none at all. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need video content just because that's how you do online business - ensure you are clear about the marketing purpose behind each video.

There is a danger in spreading yourself too thin between video, blogging and social media. Be sure you have a well-defined marketing strategy appropriate to your goals and business type, and that you are clear on how video and all your content fit within this. Are you trying to drive conversions, increase backlinks, spread brand awareness or something else entirely?

SearchEngineJournal have put together a helpful list of 10 rules for video marketing (and SEO success), including useful tips on metadata, thumbnails and video length. You can read these by clicking here.

Placing the video on your website

1. Copy the video ID from the URL (this is the combination of letters and numbers after "watch?v=" on YouTube or after ".com/" on Vimeo)
2. In the webconsole, select the page on your website you wish to embed the video on and click the Edit button
3. Drag the Video Content element into the section where you want the video to go
4. Click the video link in "Select video to display" (or the Edit icon of the Video element)
5. Fill out the following fields:
   - Video Type: Select YouTube or Vimeo
   - Select 16:9 or 4:3 depending on the aspect ratio of your video
   - Video ID: Paste the ID from the first step
   - Allow Full Screen: Choose whether you want the viewer to be able to watch the video in full screen or not
6. Click Save and Close

For some more useful tips on YouTube, you can follow their Help Centre tutorial by clicking here.