Running a company online means you need a strong website. With so many other pages on the web, you have a lot of competition for gaining your prospective audience’s attention. One of the best ways to improve the value of your website is to include video content.

But putting up videos on your page isn’t always enough to attract credible attention. You must be strategic about the video content you upload if you want to improve your site’s worth. To get the most out of your videos, here are five ways video can get your site more attention.

1. Video Keeps Your Viewer on the Page

When a visitor comes to your website and is greeted with only text, they may be quick to leave. After skimming through your content, they may return to the search page to look for something else. Not only can boring text make you lose a potential customer, it hurts your bounce rate — pushing your page further down the search results list.

Video keeps your visitors on your page long enough to capture their attention. If they don’t need to read an entire page of content but can watch a video and get the same information, they are more likely to learn the full extent of who you are and what you can provide.

2. Video is Easily Shared

Customers love sharing videos they enjoy with friends and family members. When you share a company video on your website or social media pages, there is the potential for that video to go viral. The more shares on your video, the more eyes on your company and the more customers you can connect with.

Each time your video is shared, you create a link back to your website. The more links you have going to your page, the stronger Google will assume your content is. Viral videos can dramatically boost both your exposure and your search engine ranking.

3. Videos Promote More Sales

If you sell certain products, displaying them in a video may increase your sales. Certain products that may be difficult to use can be featured in how-to videos, making them more appealing to customers.
 
Don’t believe us? This one video that cost $4,500 built this company into what it is today.
 

 

Other e-commerce websites may want to take advantage of video for displaying clothes or other products that look different in motion than on a still mannequin. By using videos to show what the clothes look like on an actual moving model, customers will better understand what they’re buying and if it’s right for them. This can improve sales while also reducing the number of items returned.

4. Videos Give You Access to Other Search Engines

The most common search engines we use include Google and Bing, but they’re not the only search engines around. While we may think of YouTube as a type of social media platform, it is actually considered one of the most popular search engines online today. To appeal to searchers on YouTube, you need to create videos and host them on the platform.

When you host on YouTube, you can optimize your videos for certain keywords or phrases like you would on Google or Bing. This means your videos will appear when a user searches for those phrases, improving your chances of getting noticed by YouTube users you hadn’t considered reaching before. You can also use your YouTube video throughout social media and your website, pushing visitors to your YouTube page to check out other videos you’ve created.

5. Videos Allow You to Show Your Personality

To connect with your audience, you want to show your personality in a creative way. By creating videos that give you a better opportunity to connect with past customers and potential new customers alike, you can really show off your brand through a great video.

Video allows you to get creative with showing who you are. Using digital features like green screens or animation can provide you with different video options that look more professional. They’ll grab more attention and improve your chances of going viral.

6. Video Can Give You a Premium Spot on Search Results

Standing out on a list of search results can be difficult, even if you have made it to one of the top three slots. Lately, rich snippets are getting the most attention from search engine users. To create content that appears as a rich snippet in a search engine results list, consider creating a video.

When a video appears as a rich snippet in a search engine results list, visitors will be more likely to click it because they can automatically tell whether it fits their needs. By seeing a preview of the video right in the search engine list, you eliminate the risk of someone clicking your video only to return to the results page, improving your bounce rate and keeping the visitors that click through entertained.

7. Video Improves Time Spent on Page

Search engines look at more than just your bounce rate when deciding which pages have the most value. They will also look at the amount of time a visitor spends on your site. If you have a video that keeps your audience on your site for a specific amount of time, your average time on site will be quite high.

This indication of time spent on your site tells search engines you’re providing the information the searcher was looking for. This will improve your search engine ranking and keep you within the top list of results on a page.

While you want to include various kinds of content on your website, using video is the way to go. From an introductory video about your company and your values to product explanation videos, come up with some interesting and exciting ways to feature video on your website. You may be surprised at how much value they actually bring to your site and your company.

Author

Lexie Lu is a designer and writer. She loves researching trends in the web and graphic design industry. She writes weekly on Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.