Videos are booming in popularity online, so many business owners can be forgiven for thinking that videos could be a great way to drive traffic to their website. However, there are a number of reasons why videos can actually drive traffic from a website without the site owner even realizing it. Here are some of the main reasons, and what you can do about them.
* Poor quality video
* People looking miserably uncomfortable on camera
* Poor content
* Poor user experience
* Poor match
* Too much hype
* Too boring
* Recommended videos sections
Poor Quality Video
If you are going to make a video, you need to make sure that the content is of a reasonably high quality. You need to buy a good camera or webcam and a decent microphone. The audio quality must be good enough for people to hear it easily. You need to check your sound and lighting to make sure the user is having an optimum experience. Videos that look too “homemade” are not likely to impress your prospective customers.
People Looking Uncomfortable on Camera
A lot of people are shy and self-conscious. They want to use video to market their business, but look nervous and their delivery shows. Solution: Use PowerPoint slides about your product, with images of it, and add a voiceover.
Poor Content
This refers to what you actually put into the video. Script the video in advance to make sure that it covers all the points you wish, and is of sufficient interest for people to want to stay until the end rather than click away from your website.
Poor User Experience
A poor user experience can be defined as the video not playing back well. This can often happen if you try to play the video directly from your website rather than from a quality streaming service such as YouTube or Dailymotion. Video files are extremely large and often pop, jump or skip as they play. They can also play very slowly and the sound can be compromised as a result.
If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it will make matters worse. To give the best user experience, upload to your video to YouTube and then embed your video at your site.
Poor Match
Poor match refers to the content or style of the video not being suitable to the topic of the video or to your business. For example, if you are a serious software company selling extremely expensive products to corporations, videos that look homemade will not be effective. The mismatch will cause people to click out and look for other solutions.
Too Much Hype
There’s nothing more annoying than commercials where the person builds up the product without offering any real information. There’s no need to shout and scream to sell well. Focus on your customers and how your product helps your users.
Too Boring
Some videos can have too little hype and just end up boring. They can also be long-winded, with poor visuals and a dull script or presentation style. For example, if you are doing video interviews, try to make sure you don’t just have “talking heads”. Break up the back and forth between the two or more people at the interview with some high quality supporting visuals.
Recommended Videos
YouTube is great for embedding your videos to your site, but one feature that might drive traffic away is the recommended videos thumbnails at the end of each video. In some cases this can be a good thing, because it might recommend more of your videos. On the other hand, they might be videos produced by other people, in which case you will be losing traffic.
The best ways to overcome this is to do the following for each video you create:
* Create playlists based on themes
* Use end screens
* Use cards
Use these tips to ensure that your videos continue to drive traffic to your site.
