Four Reasons to Incorporate Video Into Your Website
Videos used to be little more than a cute gimmick for ecommerce, but that’s no longer the case. These days, videos are a crucial ingredient for any business on the Internet with an interest in brand identity, conversions, and SEO. If you’ve taken to content marketing but haven’t yet incorporated videos into your repertoire, you may be putting yourself at a serious disadvantage, and here’s why.
Videos and Engagement
It may surprise you to learn that only one out of every three people learns best from reading written language, and the remaining two thirds of all people are considered visual and audio learners. If the way you convey your message to your audience is principally text, odds are you’re only getting full engagement with one third of your potential audience. This clearly underlies the importance of incorporating audiovisual components into your content.
As one of the most share-worthy types of content, videos are exactly what you think about when someone talks of going viral. One study by Unruly Media found that nearly 40% of viral Instagram content is branded. It’s true that a few sharp images can go a long way towards breaking up the monotony of long paragraphs of text, but when it comes to getting your content shared, picture media pales in comparison to video. 
According to the Wharton Research Center, nine out of ten people will abandon a text-centric website in as little as four seconds. That number drops to as low as six of ten when there’s a video on your homepage. The same study revealed that eight of ten viewers will watch your video in its entirety, and presentations done by video are nearly twice as memorable compared to text and image presentations. It’s also worth noting that the visitors who do stay on your page and watch your video will spend eight times as long on your site than they will on a site without a video. This combination of better comprehension and greater exposure makes the supremacy of video clear.
Videos and SEO
According to Forrester Research, publishing videos online while keeping with all appropriate SEO practices is sharply correlated with high page ranking, with video increasing the chance of being on the first page of Google results by nearly 50%. In consideration of the fact that the first page of Google is the only page used in the vast majority of searches, reaching that spot is a considerable step towards improving your visibility online.
Videos started to be valuable for SEO as far back as 2007, but the rising importance of social sharing due to changes to the Google search algorithm has recently redoubled the value of video. Because relevant video content gets indexed independently from the context of your website, video elements can be incredibly potent agents for your SEO efforts.
Building Your Brand with Videos
Videos are also adept at improving brand recognition. As a means to demonstrate what you can offer, introduce significant figures or ideas, and convey feeling, video is simply unparalleled. According to the 2012 Nielson report, Internet videos have been demonstrated to be more effective than television advertisements because the Internet is a more engaging experience. A similar study by Forbes found that nearly sixty percent of their audience will watch a video on a site before reading any text at all.
Your Bottom Line
Internet retailers like Zappos and OnlineShoes have reported sales increased from thirty to fifty percent for product sites with video. And anyone familiar with the crowdfunding phenomenon should also be able to intuitively understand just what a good video can do for your bottom line. The average rate of success for any given campaign on Kickstarter is around 50%, but that figure drops towards the thirties without a video. To put it simply, videos can give your presentation a voice, and that voice has been proven to be highly effective at getting branded messages through to consumers.
