Online Video Tips for Small Businesses

Posted: August 28, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11524" align="alignright"]© Do Ra - Fotolia.com[/caption]The website is built...now to get people to visit. The trick could be to add video, but you need to follow some general rules of thumb. Don't make video mistakes that will lose you traffic or sales.

Pedro Hernandez, contributing editor at Small Business Computing and InternetNews.com, gives tips for creating business website videos that will catch visitors attention and increase your credibility.

Congratulations on your pixel-perfect website. Getting around is a breeze, the expert photography delights and the compelling copy gives it a professional edge.

So why aren't more of your visitors sealing the deal?

If your site lacks video, you're passing up a great opportunity to hook customers, according to Brad Jefferson, CEO and co-founder of Animoto, a provider of cloud-based video creation services for businesses and individuals. Sporting easy-to-use tools and professional templates, the company's Animoto Pro product guides you through the video creation and publishing process.

Citing figures from comScore, a Web tracking-and-measurement firm, Jefferson notes that people who view a video online are 64 percent more likely to complete a purchase than other visitors. Legendary online retailer Zappos discovered that items with video outsell those without by 35 percent.

And don't forget the value of Web video in terms of sheer exposure.

"YouTube is the number two search engine behind Google itself," reminds Jefferson. Web videos are also a great search engine optimization (SEO) opportunity. Search engines consistently rank pages that contain video higher than plain websites, he adds.

Essential Elements for a Successful Online Video

Now that you're convinced, here's how to enjoy the business-enhancing benefits of online videos.

1. Tell a Good Story

Products and services abound. Good stories are much harder to come by. Consumers respond to entertaining yarns and touching tales, Jefferson says. The key is to a successful video is to "hook them pretty early as to why they should care," advises Jefferson.

Read the entire article Online Video Tips for Small Businesses at SmallBusinessComputing.