7 Things You Need To Know When Creating Video For Your Homepage
Video makes websites more engaging and search engines favor sites with video on their homepage more than just text and images alone.
Creating a video for your homepage also gives the opportunity to create social media films, giving your brand consistency as it’s possible to create a years worth of social media off the back of filming your main video. This can give you content that is consistent and on brand throughout the year. Video can relay so much more information than text alone and engages your audience directly, building trust and displaying your commitment to providing a quality service.
1) What Is It You Do?
- Think about what you offer and boil it down so that you can sum it up within 1 or 2 lines
- Try to make this as succinct as possible.
- Too many messages can have detrimental effect on the audiences understanding of who you are and what you do.
2) Video Length
- When including video on your website, make sure that they’re not too long. Studies show that after 2 minutes, audiences are less engaged and may “turn off” before your call to action.
3) Research
- Look at what else is already out there and find good examples of what others have done.
- These can inspire creative thinking as well as inform you of the things not to do.
- Take a look at competitors.
- How do they present themselves?
- A quick google video search will present you with thousands of results, both good and bad.
- Your homepage is where your audience go to first, so you need to capture their attention straight away.
4) Call To Action
- This is vitally important.
- This is what you want the viewer to do once they’ve finished watching the video.
- Do you want them to get in touch?
- Buy online?
- Drive traffic to your website or blog?
- Follow on social media?
- It doesn’t sound important but a call to action helps to engage your audience, focussing their actions in the way that is most beneficial for you. Without it, the majority of people would just move on.
5) Design The Page Around The Video
- Make sure the homepage is designed with your video in mind. You don’t want to make a top class video only for it to end up badly placed on the page, the wrong size or in the wrong format. You want it to perfectly blend with your home page.
- Place it near the top, so that it’s one of the first things visitors to your site see.
- Make it the right size so that it’s comfortable to view but doesn’t dominate the space.
- Have your video start automatically on opening the page. Even something so simple as pressing play can put some people off.
6) What Is Your Target Audience?
- Who are you targeting?
- The audience you are trying to appeal to will have a big effect on your approach and finished film.
- Appealing to everyone can overly generalise what you want to say and create mixed messages.
- Narrow it down.
- Give the people you really need to be in front of, the information they require. It’s those you want to build the relationship with.
7) Choose The Right People For The Job
Of course, these days, with the equipment and software that is freely available, anyone can create videos. But is the finished product going to be of a quality that gives people confidence or will it end up doing your brand a disservice.
- A commitment to quality video puts you out there as professional and trustworthy.
- Be sure to research thoroughly the candidates that may be creating your video.
- How long have they been doing it?
- Have they got past experience of what you require?
- What else can they bring to the table?
- Also, decide on your budget beforehand.: This will enable videographers to develop a pro active approach and advise on how you can maximise your available budget. You will also get more value for money as a reputable videographer will look at the long term goals and help develop a strategy as well as content that can be used throughout the year.
If you’re considering using video as part of your website, give us a ring on 01685 876700. We don’t bite and are always happy to chat and advise.
