Should your website include video?
A lot of small business owners debate whether or not they need video on their websites. On one hand, it looks pretty cool, and some would argue that it makes it easier to communicate a specific point. However, I currently agree with Steve Rubel in his article titled “Why Text Remains King of the Web“. He points out that text is good for these 5 reasons:
“1. Text is scannable – according to Jakob Nielsen users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average site visit and 20% is more likely”
This is very true because I recently had someone send me an email to look at a company she was recommended (http://fortunevideos.com). On this website, there is no content and the video is 45 minutes long! Who has time to watch the whole thing? I definitely didn’t and there was no way to scan the video, so basically 0% of their message was able to reach me. “
“2. Three letters: SEO – For all that Google Universal Search has done to elevate video, search results are still largely made up of text and everyone wants better SEO”
Again, very true. I couldn’t even find the website for www.fortunevideos.com on Google because there is no text on the website so it doesn’t have any rankings for any keywords related to their product. I tried searching “Make Money with Prepaid Legal Services” or “Prepaid Legal Services” and I couldn’t pull them up anywhere. Google can’t tell what your site is about unless you state it clearly in text!
“3. The workplace – It’s much easier for cube-based workers to read text on the screen and get away with it vs. watching long videos. Watching videos (even work related videos) screams ’slacker’”
This is very true. I’ve worked at places that block YouTube because they don’t want us watching videos online. Also, text is silent, so your co-workers won’t hear the sound blasting from your speakers.
“4. Mobile Devices – Yes, of course you can put a video on an iPhone. But it’s work and requires planning. Text is easier to pull up in a nanosecond”
Anyone who has a new smart phone knows how easy it is to make them freeze. Pulling up regular websites would sometimes freeze my HTC touch phone (which I DON’T recommend), but pulling up video would definitely never work.
“5. Distribution – Nothing flies like text. It’s so easy to cut and paste it and send it somewhere or to clip and re-syndicate it via email, RSS or social networks”
Again, very true. Although many people have high internet speeds, computers are still known to crash randomly and it’s much harder to download or transfer video files than it is text files.
In conclusion, it is still very important to integrate video in 2009, but make sure while you’re doing that, include lots of text around the video to summarize what the video is about. Also, you might consider attaching a text file next to the video that summarizes the video word-for-word so that the concept can be shared by users who want to forward or syndicate the text.
For more information about what a small business should have on its website, please call our office at 1-866-430-0457.