Ways to Use Videos on Your Website

You’ve likely noticed that more and more videos appear online each year. Google now offers an option for videos at the top of search results, and many websites feature videos. Brands use them to market on social media as well.

The number of people using videos online is staggering. About 78 percent of people watch online videos each week, and 55 percent state they view online videos on a daily basis. By the year 2020, 80 percent of all online traffic will be video viewing.

With such strong trending toward videos, you’ve probably thought about adding more to your website, but you may not know the different ways you can use video to pull in your site visitors. Here are six strong options.

1. Sell Your Product

If the main goal of your website is to sell a product, then a video is a must. One study showed that 80 percent of people remember a video ad from the past month, and 46 percent took action after watching a video. If you want to show off a product from all angles and show the uses of it, creating a product video should be one of your first steps.

 

Fix Asphalt features a video on their landing page that highlights the asphalt services they offer. They feature processes to fix or complete projects involving asphalt, concrete or pavement maintenance. The video highlights how their service solves a problem.

2. Tell a Story

Does your company have a unique background story? On a given day, in a given minute, about 700,000 Google searches occur, and 100,500 digital words flit by the average person in a day. If you want to stand out, you have to find a unique way to connect with consumers. Telling your own story is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal, and what better way to make it memorable than through a video on your website?

3. Add to the Aesthetics of the Design

It takes the average person just 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about the overall design of your website. Some users form an opinion in only 17 milliseconds. You have the blink of an eye to grab the user’s attention. Present them with something that pleases them visually and makes them want to stick around. Adding a video to your landing page gives readers a break from the text and shows something desirable to the user.

 

Joe’s Garage Coffee uses a looping video to show the process of creating their private label coffee and how it’s superior to that of their competitors. The looping video adds some interest to the background that immediately shows the user what the company is about and why they’re special.

4. Incorporate Embedded Videos

While it might be tempting to add a video to your website and stream it from your server, doing so isn’t always the best choice. Most web designers prefer to embed videos from sources such as YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia. You can upload a unique video specific to your business or use one of the videos on their site with sharing permissions. Using other videos to enhance your message expands your ability.

In particular, if you own a very small business, you may not have the budget to create a video that shows how to install a new furnace filter or any other topic. However, someone else may have already produced that video, and you can simply share it. Just make sure the video you share isn’t from a competitor.

5. Create Product Marketing Videos

Showcasing a product via video allows the user to see the item from all angles and see if it’s for them or not. It’s the next best thing to seeing the product in person. This 360-degree view of a product helps consumers decide if the product meets their needs. It should help cut down on returns and unhappy customers too.

Nine Line Apparel does a good job of highlighting their products in videos. Not only do they show the product, but they show it in use. In the video above, the guy keeps dropping his bottle of beer until the Nine Line hoodie arrives. Suddenly, he has a pocket to hold his beer bottle. It’s presented in a humorous way. However, the other features of the hoodie are also highlighted, such as the thick material and long sleeves.

6. Provide a Vlog

Your website likely has a blog already. Why not make the content a bit more dynamic and add videos to your blog? You can create videos that go with a blog topic or blog posts that are videos. Topics should help solve a problem for your typical customer, so look at questions you receive on a regular basis, and answer them for readers.

The great thing about adding videos is that you can use them on your website and gain traction via social media. YouTube has a massive audience, as does Facebook, so sharing videos on those sites is a great place to start.

Get Creative

Figure out new and exciting ways to implement video on your site so that site visitors see that you have something special to offer. Whether you add videos as part of your looping background or go into detail about the history of your company, each video adds a different element to your site and makes it more interactive for your users.