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5 ways to use video on your website

Posted on: 19th January 2022 | 4 min

It’s a well known fact that using video when marketing your business is beneficial in many ways. It can help increase your SEO and overall visibility online, it increases the amount of time people will spend on your website; and done well, it can considerably increase customer engagement and even sales. Not only that, but it’s great content that you can use on a number of different platforms, in a variety of different ways, whilst addressing a few different goals – from engaging with your clients, to driving traffic or even sales back to your website.

We can vouch for video being a fantastic tool ourselves too. We have used it extensively in the past to create showreels, case studies and even explainer videos for clients when they needed additional support. We’ve used it on our website and if you follow us on Twitter or Facebook then you’ll have seen it there too. We also use it in client meetings, networking meetings and even exhibitions to showcase what we can do. And it continues to play a big role in future marketing plans for this year too.

“More than 150 million people view videos online every year, most of them ripe to hear your business’s pitch if you produce and market your video effectively.”

Vern Marker

But that’s all well and good for those already using video. But what if you’re not, where do you start? We’ve put together a few suggestions on how and what you can do to start using video in your business. Do you have areas of your business, products or services that could benefit from one these suggestions?

1. Promotional Videos

Promotional videos are without a doubt the most popular route and often the easiest way to introduce video content into your website. These videos are designed to promote either your business or a specific service or product you offer. Some companies let you into their offices and show you how they work and promote themselves and their culture. Others may just showcase their work or the new app they’ve developed; showing you how easy it is to use, or perhaps a specific service that they are currently pushing. Using videos to showcase products on e-commerce websites are particularly effective. People often want to see the product ‘in real life’ before they make a purchase and a simple product video can give them that option (Firebox.com do this very well).

2. Onsite video/animation

With web standards constantly improving, it’s now possible to include video elements as part of a design. Just as you might use a large background image, this can now be video and can take a website to the next level. You can also include animation as part of the website interaction. For example, animating a button when the user hovers over it or clicks it. Little details like that can add to the overall experience of a website and make it a lot easier to use. While this isn’t strictly video, it’s using animation to elevate and improve your website for those who use it, which can only be a good thing.

3. Video tips and advice

If your industry is one people find complicated or confusing, such as accounting or financial advisor perhaps, you can offer your customers quick tips and advice using video. This is great for generating new content that your customers will respond to and want to see. These types of videos can also be great if you run a restaurant for example and want to show people how to prepare one of your simpler dishes or even show how their favourite dishes are created. If you find your customers tend to ask you how to do this one thing all the time, you could create a simple how-to video to guide them through the process; helping them and freeing up the time you might normally spend guiding them through it yourself.

4. Vlogs

Video blogs or Vlogs can be a great (and cheap) way to interact with your audience/customers. Talking to people about you or your business on a regular basis gives people a fantastic insight into what it is you do. Giving people access to a behind the scenes look at your company or events you attend or organise can be a great and easy way to increase engagement with your customers. Great examples of these can be found when looking at athletes. F1 drivers in particular seem to do this very effectively with little more than their phones.

5. Video testimonials

Nothing sells your business like a good customer testimonial. We all know that people will sooner trust the review of someone they perceive to be a genuine customer (like them) that they’ve never met over any ‘self-promoting’ copy or content on a business’ website. So get your customers talking about what you do and why they like it.

There are many options when it comes to introducing video into your marketing and these are just a few suggestions on how you could get started, as well as exemplifying how some companies have already incorporated video into their marketing, both online and offline.

Can you think of any other ways video could be used? Or do you already use video in your marketing? If so, how effective have you found it be? Let us know below.