Video clips tend to dominate search engine results and one of the reasons for this is that it seems that many of us prefer watching rather than reading about a product, allowing them to see just what it can do for them.
It should not come as a surprise that the option to buy YouTube subscribers is popular amongst savvy marketers, who know that getting your promotional or product video up the rankings, can help to greatly improve sales conversion rates.
Here is a look why product videos could be good for your business.
Video takes priority
An important point to remember when you are looking at how to get noticed on a search engine like Google, is the best way to achieve your aim is by giving it what it is looking for.
There seems to be a reasonable amount of research that points towards a potential bias that Google might have for video content. It seems that Google structures its search engine results in a way that provides you a blend of results, but with a potential emphasis on video, images and other mediums, in addition to what you would class as regular search result returns.
What this means that if you are using video content and you optimize your video in just the right way, you will be giving yourself a decent chance of Google rewarding you with a higher ranking in the results.
If you wanted to take a cynical view of this bias, you could point to the fact that YouTube is owned by Google, which would hardly make it a surprise that many of the highest-ranked video content originates from YouTube.
Whatever your view on that “arrangement”, at least if you know how the search engine is likely to work, you can take advantage by putting keywords in your video filename, description, title and tags, for an extra visibility boost.
Impressive conversion rates
The nirvana of marketing is high conversion rates, so it pays to take notice of any advertising medium that promises to deliver some impressive figures on that score.
The question you will no doubt want an answer to, is can product videos increase your conversion rates?
There are a number of E-commerce operations who are already big fans of product videos and one housewares e-tailer (Stacks and Stacks) for example, has said that their visitors were over 140% more likely to buy a product after viewing a product video, than those that did not.
Products videos don’t have to be a hard-sell scenario to work. You might put together a series on how-to instructional videos that show customers how to fix problems or use your product in the right way.
Whichever way you approach it, the general feedback is that you can expect visitors to stay on your pages for twice as long when they have video content to view, and on top of that, they are seemingly more likely to make a purchase after watching rather than reading about your product.
A creative edge
As you might expect, increasing your conversion rate is not just a case of uploading a product video on YouTube and your website and watching the cash roll in, if only.
You will have to work on trying to find a creative edge, so that you can stand out from the crowd and appeal to your customers, by giving them what they want.
Some companies employ live video chat personal representatives on their website, so that you can talk to someone face-to-face and ask a question or advice about a product. Another angle is to try and get your video to go viral, which is never going to be easy of course, but when people start sharing content in numbers, it can have a really positive effect on raising the profile of your business.
Video can add a personal touch
There is no reason to consider that the use of video is purely impersonal experience, as video does actually offer you the opportunity to add the sort of personal touch that you normally only get when you walk into a small store at a local mall.
A quick greeting video that plays when someone visits your website, can help to replicate this personal touch and it is a move that does not go unappreciated amongst a lot of customers, who seem to like the chance to put a face to the company.
If that helps to turn them into a loyal customer, then that is just one example of how using video content could boost sales.
Jacob Austin works as a business consultant on branding and managing for start-ups and medium businesses. His insightful articles appear on business blogs.
