4 Video Hacks to Grow Your Business
Sarah Ebrahimi
“Using a video on your website is quickly becoming one of the most important tools in digital marketing. People are consuming a massive amount of video all over the internet and video content is favoured above anything else by the viewer. Including a video on your website has a lot of benefits and can help you grow your business.“
How Videos Grow Your Business
It all comes down to attention. According to Microsoft, the average attention span of a website viewer is eight seconds. In other words, not a lot, and definitely not enough for the visitor to find the patients to read through pages of content. Eight seconds of interest means that it is crucial to keep the viewers attention in order to prevent them from leaving your site, and video is the solution. The motion and audio provided by a video is a lot more engaging and attention grabbing than text or pictures. Video also reduces the strain on the viewer’s attention span since video has the ability to communicate more information in a shorter time period.
Apart from being attention grabbing, video enables visual, verbal and auditory learning, meaning that different types of learners have the same opportunity to retain the communicated information. As a result, the ad message recall is improved. Video can also help increase trust. Testimonial or service/product videos all provide proof to the viewers that what has been promised will be delivered. The proof provided by a video might very well be the last deciding factor for a lead proceeding to become a customer.
Video also has greater shareability than any other content and thereby increases your exposure. According to a study done by Wyzwol, people are twice as likely to share video content with their friends compared to other content. And by simply adding video to your site, you increase your chance of getting on the front page of a Google search result.
So what do all these benefits boil down to? You guessed it – higher conversion rates and growth! Even though the advantage of using video on your website is seemingly huge, video needs to be properly used in order to maximize its potential. There are countless many tips out there on how to make the most out of video, but we have boiled it down for you with our 4 best video hacks to help your business grow.
4 Best Video Hacks
Hack #1: Optimize Video Position
For the video to have the desired effect, visitors of your website must first and foremost clickpress the play button and watch the video. If they don’t, the content of the video might as well not exist. A study made by Wista shows that play rate decreases as visitors of the website scroll down the page. This means that the position of the video directly impacts the visitors decision to press play or not. In order to remove this barrier to press play, videos should be placed above the fold.
Hack #2: Choose the Right Thumbnail
This hack is probably the one that requires the least amount of effort. Still, choosing the right thumbnail can be crucial to make the visitor press play. The thumbnail is the first thing visitors see and ultimately decides their first impression of the video. If the website visitor is met with a logo or presentation preview you will notice that their incentive to press play is low. Instead making the thumbnail attention grabbing, fun and friendly will help you achieve the results you want. Strong visuals are essential, which can be achieved with high contrast, vibrant colors and high quality pictures. There is also the option to include an image of a face to add emotion, making the viewer want to press play to find out how the person on the thumbnail came to feel those emotions.
Hack #3: Optimize the Title for Search Engines
Naming your video is very important. This is not only your chance to create a magnetic title that turns potential viewers into watchers, but also a golden opportunity to stand out in search and give the video better search ranking. To utilize this opportunity your title needs to…
- Be clear and descriptive.
- Be adapted to what people actually type into the search bar on Google (or other search engines).
- Include keywords, so that both Google (or other search engines) and visitors of your website understand the content of the video.
The best way to decide which keywords to use is to make tests in order to identify the ones with the highest value. Keywords have multiple uses and can be included elsewhere. To maximize their effect, they can also be used in the description, thumbnail and tags of the video.
Hack #4: Include Video on Product or Service Pages
Before a lead becomes a customer they want to know exactly what they are purchasing. Including video on the product or service page will help you communicate your business’ value proposition clearly and effectively, hence making it easier for the lead to understand what to expect from the product or service and how your business can help solve their problem.
Using video is also a great way to encourage visualization, which creates mental connections that strengthens the lead’s desire to make their thoughts reality. Video is also a lot more engaging. The same study as mentioned before from Wyzwol shows that 68% of people prefer to learn about a new product or service by watching a short video, making the visitor more likely to receive your message and leading them further down the marketing funnel and closer to purchase.
What is the main takeaway from everything you just read? Including video on your website has a lot of potential benefits but video needs to be used correctly to achieve the desired result. The four hacks above will help you make the content of your video more impactful and ultimately grow your business. Happy growing!