When a person searches online they operate in a very different way to a customer who walks in from the street. An online browser usually has a specific thing that they are looking for and they search for it. They want to get relevant information as quickly as possible. Their attention span is very short and they can click away in an instant. The reasoning for this is obvious. You are one of probably thousands of sites that could help them. If you don’t do what they want quickly they can move on at the click of a button and look at the next search result. They have no loyalty to you and time is of the essence. Video is an important tool in the battle for people’s precious online attention.
Here are a few of the reasons why online video is important
1. Online video is important for search engines
Video is important with optimising your website for search engines like Google. There are lots of ways video helps with this. I go into greater details about this in my other blog posts.
2. Online video is important to get onto YouTube
YouTube is now the second largest search engine behind Google – an important fact to remember! If you don’t have a video you can’t be on YouTube and you can’t reach any of the people who are searching on this huge website.
3. Online video is important to get external links
By having video on other sites you can link traffic back to your site by using external links.
4. Online video is important to get useful keywords
The keyword “video” outranks nearly any other keyword you can think of. For an example run this test. Go to 
/ and type “video” into the top spot. See how many words you can find that have a larger global search rate. Post answers in the comments. PS when I tried it, “video” even outranked “porn” and “sex” although after some searching we found “lyrics” a tiny bit higher. For website keywords “youtube” and “facebook” are pretty much neck and neck.
5. Online video is important to social media/viral marketing
Social media often thrives with video. It is easy to share a video and a well created video has a lot of potential to go viral – more than a blog post and far more than a website! Videos can be shared via Facebook, Youtube or even good old email!
6. Online video is important because it is often the user’s preference
Many people prefer to watch video than read text. It is a quick way of getting media rich information about what they want to know. They may turn off from a text/image only site.
7. Online video is important because video is emotional
Video material can often pull on people emotionally more effectively than text or even a photograph. Music, expression, tone of voice… all these things connect with us. Emotion is an important marketing force.
8. Online video is important because video gets remembered
By combining sight and sound video reaches us on multiple levels and as a result “sticks” better. Scientists have found the more senses that information engages the more of it is retained (see graph). It’s important people not only view but remember your content!
9. Online video is important because video can be the most appropriate medium
Some things just work better as a video. Things like testimonials from clients. It’s one thing to have a printed paragraph of someone singing your praises but to see and hear a normal person enthusiastically ooze about your brand… that’s an entirely different thing!
10. Online video is important because with video you can be a star and build connection
If you can appear on a video and a viewer hears you speak, sees your body language and senses your passion, she will feel connected to you. We invest energy into celebrities and personalities because we feel that we somehow know them. Simply by being viewed online you will be building a connection with the individual and earning some important loyalty from them, even if they are unaware of it!
11. Online video is important because video can create an interactive world
Video is more and more commonplace online. People are familiar with it and consume a LOT of it. It can be hard to compete without an equal footing. Text and images will always be the mainstay of a website but in all likelihood you have that already. By not utilising video as well you are probably missing out on a lot of searches and clients you might otherwise have reached with your marketing efforts.
About Andy Laferme
