Videos are a crucial element for a complete website experience. Having original and professional videos on your website showcases your creativity, conveys your passion, and illustrates that you are seriously invested in your business. In order to translate your video production efforts into website hits and click throughs, you must place video strategically throughout your site. What is the optimal location?
Proper placement relies on several factors, such as the page content and the “layer” of the page. Your video productions should enhance the content on the page. They don't have to match it exactly, but they should coordinate with it and bring value to the visitor. The best place to add video to your website is anywhere you want to give more information without adding to the word count.
Here are 5 places to include (and optimize) video on your website:
1. Home Page Videos
The Basics: The customer can’t avoid this one, so might as well give them all you've got! The content must be highly engaging, clear, and no longer than 30 seconds – you don’t want to bore or confuse your visitors. The user must have the capability to opt out of the video but still have a clear idea how to navigate your site. Most videos on the homepage have a welcome message or basic information about the company, its products, and services. A good homepage video will entice the visitor, making him want to move on past the homepage and explore additional content.
Advanced Usage: Whenever possible, your videos should include a Call To Action. Generally, this will be in the form of a slate with very specific instructions, like “Click Here for a Free Consultation”. Depending on where you host your video (we do not recommend hosting videos on your own server), you will have different capabilities for Calls to Action. In a YouTube video, for example, you cannot include a link to a specific page of your website. With other hosting providers, like Wistia, this action is possible.
Get the size right: How big (or small) should your homepage video be? I think the best advice is to let content dictate size. If a video has very little text or small details, a smaller video (about 350px wide) will work perfectly. If you need to show more detail, a larger video is ideal. You might also consider opening your video in a lightbox-type window, so you can keep it smaller on screen but still show your detail. When choosing the right side, pay attention to the overall layout of the page. Make sure the text and graphics around your video all play nicely together, each having its own space but not jumping out in a negative way.
2. About Us / Contact Us Page
The Basics: The About Us page is a great page to fill with employee interviews, a guided tour of the office, or even testimonials. The video must expand on the content, not just repeat contact information or list facts. The video needs to have a call to action so the visitor will be motivated to write you an email or give you a call.
Advanced Usage: Visitors viewing this page may have already been to the services page, or are more curious about your company before diving into the details. Make sure to create a video that wows them. Focus on creating great content – what’s your company’s message? How can you tell your company’s story? – then work with a video production company that can translate your story into a succinct, well-produced video.
Get the Size Right: On your About Us or Contact Us page, you can devote a bit more space to your video, as it should providethe information visitors are seeking without forcing them to read long paragraphs. Since this is the perfect place for your fancy corporate video, take the opportunity to highlight the video – and the opportunity to show instead of tell.
3. Product or Service Pages
The Basics: The pages of your website that feature products and services can get a bit dull. There are only so many combinations of paragraphs, bulleted lists, images, and call to action buttons that a single website can use. Creating a video that is specific to one product or service is an easy way to showcase the features and important content that are easy to skip when written.
Advanced Usage: The visitors that land on this page are curious about your business, have a need for your product/service, and want to learn more. They are probably more advanced in the sales cycle than someone who is reading your blog, so feel free to provide them with detailed information that will help them make a purchasing decision. Many video marketing statistics cite video as a key conversion point for sales.
Get the Size Right: Let your video shine, but don’t make it overwhelming. I recommend keeping it to one-half the width of your page content. Bulleted lists can be particularly difficult to lay out next to a video, sometimes it makes sense to spit the video and lists 60% to 40% instead of 50/50.
4. In Blog Posts
The Basics: Blogs are built for video! This is where you can put your less sales oriented videos and focus more on customer interaction and detailed content creation. Interspersing your written entries with video entries is a great way to diversify your blog content and attract a new audience. Good videos for blogs include how-to videos, basic webinars or slideshows, and detailed information about a very specific topic. Blog videos don’t have to be long.
Advanced Usage: Create a series of videos. It might be over ambitious to post one a day, but a weekly video-blog feature is great. The team at Wistia produces a feature called “Top Hat Tuesday” where they give one valuable video production tip- while wearing a top hot. How’s that for alliteration?
The Size: Feel free to let your video take up the full width of your blog post! Let it be the star!
5. Landing Pages
The Basics: Landing pages, the pages on your website with forms (subscribe to our newsletter, download this white paper or eBook, etc) are one of the most frequently neglected places to use multimedia content. You can use a video to give a slightly more detailed preview of the offer – show a few pages of the eBook, have the author talk about the value of the white paper, or just use a voice over with imagery to describe the premium content in detail
Advanced: Use your landing page video to speak directly to the persona you’re targeting this gated content for. The more specific, the better. Use their language, directly address their concerns, and focus on how your content can help them.
Size: You can go big, but absolutely make sure that you’re FORM is the highlight of the page. The more you detract from the form, the more likely it is that your conversion rate will not increase.
Key Takeaways:
It’s all about content, but there are going to be times you want your video to have a high production value, too. The more visible a video is, the more attention you should pay to production. But don’t publish videos you think aren’t of high quality just because you don’t think they’ll get a lot of views. Do the best that your time and video production budget will allow.
Don’t stress over the size and placement of your video – do what looks best with your content and consult a web designer if you have any questions.
Call your visitors to action whenever possible, whether it means sending viewers to a new page of your website or including language like, “Fill at the form to the right to get started!”.
Provide a complete experience for your customers starting today!
