January, 2009

Effective Websites Newsletter

Happy New Year!

This issue contains articles about search engine optimization (placing well in search engine results) and ways you can save money by updating your own website.

I'd also like to invite you to take my "What Are Your Questions" one-minute survey. Take the survey and get your questions answered in an upcoming newsletter.

Dave Salahi

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Engage Your Website Visitors with Video

I probably don't need to tell you that the growth of video on the web over the past year or so has been explosive. Websites large and small have been adding video to create more engaging experiences for their visitors. Now that over half of the U.S. population has fast internet connections video on the web is an idea whose time has come. For many target markets, especially those in Orange County, the penetration of high-speed connections is even higher. Adding video to your website can help make your website more effective in several ways.

People like consultants, real estate agents, personal trainers, coaches, and medical and legal professionals all need to connect with their clients on an emotional level. In these types of professions establishing a good personal relationship with the client is often essential. While a website can inexpensively provide a wealth of information about your services and your credentials the presentation can be rather impersonal. This is where video can help. Recording a short video introducing yourself and your business can begin to establish that personal relationship. You can begin to build trust and a comfort level so that when people make that initial contact they feel they almost know you already.

Making contact with professionals can sometimes be a daunting experience. For example, when a website visitor is considering making a call to a marriage & family therapist or an attorney there can be a degree of anxiety around making that initial call. Knowing that a friendly professional who understands their situation will be at the other end of the phone can make it easier to make that call.

Video can also be a good way to demonstrate a product. Advertisers spend billions of dollars on TV advertising every year for good reason — it works. You may not have the budget to hire actors and produce slick graphics but you can still create engaging videos that show your product in action. For some types of products seeing the item in operation is much more convincing than reading about it.

And for businesses with products or services that require instructions to use, video tutorials can be a great way to go. Most people hate to read technical manuals. By providing information in a video format it can be easier to digest. Showing a procedure step-by-step can be a painless way for people to learn how to operate software or other products.

Tips on Taping and Producing Your Video

• Be friendly and smile. Speak as you normally would to a client or prospect.
• Look directly at the camera and speak clearly.
• Memorize your script. It's distracting if you have to keep looking down at a piece of paper.
• You'll want a good quality video. Make sure your videographer will be paying proper attention to lighting and audio. Make sure there is no noise in the room where you're shooting. Have an attractive, uncluttered background.
• Keep it short. People's attention span on the web is limited. A minute or two is sufficient for many purposes.
• Make sure your videographer or web designer encodes your video with an appropriate level of compression. You want the right balance between good quality and fast downloading.
• Don't have it start playing automatically. That's off-putting to most people. Provide a start/pause control and a volume control on your video player.
• Choose appropriate subjects for the use of video. Some things are more suited to video than others. Make sure that your subject will benefit from the use of video.
• Consider readability if what you're showing is a computer screen. For showing a computer monitor you probably don't really want video but there are other similar technologies that can show a sequence of steps with or without narration while showing sufficient on-screen detail.

People are coming to expect video on websites. Having it shows that you're up to date and are able to make good use of the latest technologies. Depending on your business, this can be a plus in and of itself. And, if you're in a business where forming a personal connection with your customers is an important part of your working relationship, video can be a great way to do that.

With the continued decrease in the cost of equipment and software, video has never been more affordable for the small business. For businesses in Orange County a good resource for finding videographers and video producers is the Media Alliance of Orange County.

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What Are Your Questions?

What are your burning questions about internet marketing? Call me at 949-362-0842 or email me at dave@artistic-webdesign.com with your questions. Or fill out a one-minute survey on our website. Then watch for the answers in an upcoming issue of this newsletter.