In recent years, the use of video in marketing has skyrocketed, and for good reason. Whether on your company’s site, social media pages, or around the web in digital ads; video marketing is a great way to get a grand idea across in a short amount of time. Your business can’t afford to miss out on this great opportunity to take your website to the next level. Continue reading to learn what best practices you need to keep in mind before implementing motion video graphics on your site.
Put Your Important Info First
15 seconds. That’s the usual amount of time users will pause to view your video before scrolling along. That may not seem like a lot of time, and truthfully it’s not. But, planning the content in your video accordingly makes all the difference. The attention span of most people scrolling the internet is low, so you want to include your most important points and really convey the sentiment of your video in the first 15 seconds. For example, if your brand sells face wash, you’ll want to include the specific benefits of your face wash and how your company stands out from others in the very beginning.
Make it Engaging With or Without Sound
Have you ever been scrolling through Facebook and happened upon a video in your feed, with people talking but no subtitles? It’s likely that rather than turn the volume on, you just kept scrolling. This is the case for most users on the internet. To combat this, you need to make your video marketing content digestible without audio or add in subtitles. 9 times out of 10, users aren’t going to put the extra effort into turning audio on. Be sure to use enticing visuals and avoid bogging down your video with unnecessary dialogue. And if you have a product, let its features do the talking.
Mobile Responsiveness is a Must
Making sure your videos are mobile responsive is essential. More and more people are using their smartphones to visit websites, and one of the biggest contributors to a high bounce rate is a non-mobile responsive site. If you’re looking to embed a video, you may need the help of a developer to put in the proper HTML or CSS coding so that it appears properly. Be sure to test your site and video on multiple mobile devices and browsers to make sure it’s user-friendly. Avoid using Flash in your videos as well, as this can cause problems on mobile.
Consider Load Time
In some cases, adding video to a website can cause slower load times. Load time is an important consideration, and you’ll want to try to keep yours to 2 seconds to avoid inflating your site’s bounce rate. Choosing the right size for your video can make a difference in load time, so aim to keep it a mobile-friendly size of 640×360.
Give Users a Pop-up
When most businesses embed a video on their website, they end up putting in the masthead of the homepage. Generally, people end up scrolling down the page to find information and don’t tend to spend a lot of time hanging out on the masthead. To combat this, you can add a pop-up to your site with the video in it that appears on the page as users scrolls. This shows visitors that your video is important and should be ignored while making it accessible.
Accessibility Matters
Disabled users may be using text-to-audio software to read through your site, so make your video readable too. By putting the script of your video into the alt-text of the video, these users will also be able to experience the sentiment you’re trying to convey. Additionally, it can help search engines crawl your site, as they catalog this text.
