Not a lot of small ecommerce sites use video yet. It’s a shame, because video has promoted sales for larger retailers, and bloggers big and small already know the draw of video-based content. Videos can engage customers, drive additional traffic from other channels, and even boost your SEO rankings. It’s also easy to make – you don’t have to have professionally-produced videos, just professional content. All you need is a digital video camera, a video editing software package, and the time and patience to produce the video.
The Benefits
Engaging Customers
Videos engage customers by giving them something new to “do” on your website. People are different – some (like me) prefer to read text and look at pictures, but others like the more real-world feel of a video that shows people using or demonstrating the product. Zappos.com is one of my favorite sites because of the way they accomplish this well. The videos are simple, with an employee demonstrating the features of the product (shot against a white wall background), but they are very engaging because they get to the point. Take a look at almost any product on the site, and click the “LARGER IMAGE & ADDITIONAL VIEWS” link to see the product video.
Driving Customers from New Channels
Videos can also be distributed to other channels on the web and used to drive new customers. Creating a YouTube channel for your videos will help define your brand, and as your channel gains subscribers, you’ll get more visibility to your channel and eventually to your own website. Facebook is another great place to publish videos, especially if you already have a fan page. Facebook makes it easy to upload videos from your computer in both regular and HD formats.
The SEO Benefit
How are videos good for SEO? The main reason is that they lower your bounce rate and increase the time a visitor spends on your website. If Google notices someone search for “widgets”, click to your site, and immediate come back to “Google” and search again for “widgets”, it contributes to LOWERING your site’s ability to rank well for the term “widgets”. A video entices the visitor to spend more time on your site. So even if they do leave without seeing another page, they don’t do it quite so quickly.
The Content
One of the challenges you might face is what to shoot a video about.
Product Demonstrations
We’ve already discussed how Zappos uses videos to demonstrate the features of its products. SimplyPiste is another example of a company filming a person showing the features of the products. Another example is Fat Brain Toys, who includes both a product demonstration and a ABC News coverage video for their product Reptangles.
Company Culture
OK, not to beat a dead horse or anything, but Zappos also has a great YouTube channel where, instead of product videos, they show humorous videos that bring their unique corporate culture to the eyes of millions. Titles range from “FUNNY JUSTIN BIEBER PARODY!!!” to “Beard Gang!!! VERY FUNNY!”. But in addition to the funny videos, they also have clips from the Rachael Ray show and CBS Sunday Morning when they had coverage of Zappos.
Wacky and Weird
BlendTec is infamous for the way it has driven traffic to its store from a second website called Will It Blend? BlendTec bought a domain name and a bunch of stuff you don’t normally put into a blender, and created videos of employees testing whether these items could be blended in a BlendTec blender. They’ve blended everything from the dreaded Vuvuzela to an (at the time) hard-to-get iPad. The videos are crazy and entertaining, and BlendTec has gotten a ton of press coverage for their antics.
Roger Ach says
Good post ! Take a look at the end-to-end Video Apps @vADz.com. vADz Social VideoCommerce makes it easy, economical and effective.
Each vADz is SEO-tagged and automatically published to the web for visibility. Then, each vADz generates a shortened vADzLink to your #VideoCoupon or #VideoAd to be used in Direct Marketing on eMails, Texts/SMS, Tweets, Facebook and Craigslist.
I welcome your comments. Thank you.
Susan Petracco says
Roger, that’s an interesting approach to video and to advertising. I like how you can put together different elements to the video. IMO it’s learning to create the videos that’s the hardest part.
Home Online Work says
Personally, I hate sites, where I have to watch a long video instead of reading the information.
But I think, for most people it’s easier to watch a video than to read an article. And they will spend several minutes on your site even if the information is useless for them.
Susan Petracco says
I am the exact same way! I rarely watch videos other than trailers for movies I’m interested in. A transcription of the video is really useful, for both people and search engines. I notice SEOmoz does a great job with this.
Jerrick says
One thing you need to know that video also able to focus on SEO. Nowadays youtube become one of the source to bring traffic with free.
The video you upload, you may put your design banner and or google adsense there to bring traffic to your website.
Beside that a video is easy been share in social network .
I believe that video do help in SEO, bring traffic and lead higher conversion rate. Since picture able to help in SEO than why not a video that giving more interaction and human touch.
Susan Petracco says
True, Jerrick – video is like the next dimension of photography. (Wow did that sound Star-Trek-geeky, but you know what I mean!)
Andrew says
The idea with video is very good, cause many people like to get information by wieving something, because it is much easier than reading and more informative than listening.
Susan Petracco says
You can definitely get more tone and nuance from video, and I have to admit – it’s more fun.
Frank Zweegers says
Video is indeed a good drive.
Corey says
Thanks for the info. I don’t think that bounce rate contributes as much as you mention to ranking
Zac says
Great article. A lot of useful information but I also find it difficult to attract potential customers to view the videos.
Brian Kinkade@superior homes says
This is so true. Video really drives more traffic to your website. It is one way to attract your targeted users to visit your site and it is one of the most powerful techniques in SEO. You just have to make sure to engage to your users and give them valuable content.
cryogenic vessels says
Nice useful post regarding use of videos for SEO. Really videos are used for bringing the traffic to your site.