Creating video content for your website – why it is so important, and how you can get it right!
Catherine Bowden - 20 June 2017
Over the last few years, we have seen a real growth in businesses using video content on their website. As the online world grows and changes, it’s important to keep up with your competition, and more and more of our customers are asking us whether they should consider some video content as part of their online presence.
Our answer is a definite yes! We love video content at Wagada HQ. Video content is a fantastic way to help boost your search engine rankings plus it gives your website a really contemporary feel. Video content also shows that your company is fresh and innovative and it is a great way of getting the message about your product or service across to potential customers. But it’s also important to get it right. When it’s done well, video content is a real asset to your site and to your digital marketing repertoire, but if done badly it can look unprofessional and even damage your business reputation.
First of all, we’ll take a look at the benefits that video content can bring to your business and then we’ll talk about how you can create engaging, professional content for your website.
Why is video content important?
Video content brings your company to life
When you use video content you literally bring a static page to life. Whilst great content and high-quality images are still really important, having an element of video content on your website will help your customers to understand what your business is all about. You want your customers to trust you and often in a small business, you are the face of your company. By appearing in a video you can help your customers get to know you and understand what your business is all about. If you have a team, get them involved, so that potential customers can engage with all of you before they even meet you. Lots of companies use written customer testimonials online but a video testimonial can increase their authenticity, as viewers will be able to see the enthusiastic way that happy clients talk about what you can offer. You can even use a 360 video tour of your premises to let customers check out your business from the comfort of their own sofa!
Video content is a really important SEO ranking factor
Google loves video content. The reason being, that well-produced, informative, engaging video content is an important signal to the search engines that you have rich, interesting and engaging content on your website – and content is deemed to be the most important ranking factor!
Video content adds value to your customers
One thing that Google wants to see from websites is that they really add value to their customers’ lives. Websites that are purely sales driven or lack creative content are likely not to rank as well as sites that can demonstrate to the search engines that they are going over and above what is expected to help their customers. This is where video content can be vital. You could use a video to demonstrate how to use one of your products, provide tutorials relating to your area of expertise or have team members doing online vlogs about subjects that would be of interest to your users. You can be as creative as you like but make sure that your video content will benefit your customers in some way.
Video content is great for social media
Whist it’s brilliant to have great content on your website, you also want to get it seen! Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are some of the best ways to get your content shared. However, with so many blogs and memes flying around the internet, it can be hard to stand out. Video content is really engaging and if you create a fabulous video – whether it’s a bridal hair tutorial or a funny sketch – you could find it going viral. A great example of this is how the ‘mannequin challenge’ took off earlier this year. These videos of businesses attempting to pose like mannequins became a really popular social media trend (and we even did our own Wagada HQ version!) Take a look at what your key online influencers are sharing on their social media and keep on top of the latest videos trending on Twitter, to help you create video content that others will want to watch and share.
How to get your video content right
Do your research
If you are spending time and money on creating video content, you want to get it right! You need to be sure that it is something that will be helpful and relevant to your customers and will encourage them to share your content. You’ll also want it to encourage customers to keep on coming back to your site. So do your research beforehand. Ask your customers what they would find helpful, take a look at what competitors or large brands are doing and do some research on Facebook and Twitter to see what video content is getting large amounts of likes and shares.
Take time to plan your video
Once you have a good idea of what type of video content you want to place on your website, then you need to plan it carefully. You might want to think about where you are going to film it – in your offices or on location in your town or city. Perhaps even on site with a customer. You’ll also want to consider who will be involved and if you will need any props to help you out.
If you are going to be speaking in your video content, it is a very good idea to write a script to make sure that you have covered all the key points that you want to include. You should also book in some time to do some practice runs as if you are not experienced in being on camera, it can be harder than it looks!
Hire a professional video company
We think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well and this definitely applies to video content. Unprofessional content with shaky footage shot on a mobile phone can look really bad on your website and could damage the image of your business. That’s why we recommend hiring a professional video company to help you out. They will have all the latest equipment to create stunning video imagery that will work well with your branding and will help you to achieve the content you are aiming for. Although there is an initial investment, it is well worth it to get your video content right.
As you can see video content is great for your website for so many reasons. It can help with social media engagement, let customers understand what you have to offer and offer them valuable information about your services and products. It can also boost your website in the search engine rankings and help you to gain more business. But of course, you have to get it right, so take the time to understand what your customers want and plan a slick and professional video that will complement your marketing strategy.
