With the rise in popularity of video sharing sites like YouTube.com, video is becoming more popular than ever. It’s easy today now that pretty much every smartphone is equipped with video capabilities and small high resolution digital cameras are inexpensive. Plus, editing software can even be free if you use open source software.
Video can bring another element to your blog, giving your visitors a richer experience. By combining images, sound and text you’ll be able to give your views more information, connecting to them on a more personal level (eye-to-eye) than ever before. You’ll find new ways to communicate to your target audience when using video.
But, there are some things to consider when using video to improve your blog.
* Place video judiciously – Don’t turn your blog into a video-only blog or a vlog. Many people are reading your blog at work, or in a place that they can’t always listen to a video. You want as much written content as possible on your blog that attracts search engines, which then attracts the reader to your website or blog. Video after video will rarely achieve this without the written word.
* Write supporting content – Speaking of the written word, always post text with your videos. A transcript of the video is actually the best way to do it. This way, if a person is not able to view the video they can still glean the knowledge from the words you’ve written.
* Place video after content – First put some written content explaining what the video is about, using keywords to describe it, then place the video, then after the video place the text transcript of the video. This ensures that visually your blog is pleasing, but textually it is a keyword-rich blog that will attract a lot of traffic.
* Create high-quality video – Don’t skimp on creating videos that are high quality. It’s okay if there are minor issues and mistakes, but plan out what you’re going to say, and use editing software to help you perfect how it looks. You don’t have to have expensive equipment to produce a professional high-quality video these days.
* Keep videos short – Most videos should not be more than three minutes long, with the small exception of cooking videos. If you can’t explain what you want to in three minutes, your topic might not be focused enough. Clean it up and try to condense it down. People have short attention spans and will not watch much more than three minutes.
* Host elsewhere – Right now the most popular place to host video blogs is on YouTube, but there are other places, too, like VideoPress. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. YouTube is free but brands your video for YouTube. However, you can get more traffic to your blog if someone sees your video on YouTube. VideoPress has a fee, but you can brand your own ad-free videos and embed them easily into your blog.
Adding video to your blog will bring life to an otherwise text-based world, just like adding graphics and other images can. But, do remember to not overdo it. Write supporting content before and after your video, care about the quality, host the video off your blog to maximize speed, and keep each video short and sweet.
