Adding Video to Your Website or Blog

In recent times we've all heard and read lots of information about adding value to a website or blog with the addition of video content. In the early days (not so long ago) it was thought that by just including lots of written information relevant to your site would be enough to cause a stampede of visitors to your website or blog.

As time moved forward, we learned by upgrading our sites and blogs with logos, graphics and photos coupled with good functionality we could also improve the traffic flow to our site or blog.

The most recent tactic we've all heard about is to do On-Page and Off-Page SEO. This is a set of tasks that require us to select relevant keywords and phrases and employ them in certain fashion to our sites and blogs. This by all means is an important method for improving traffic. The secret is out however, everyone including your competition knows the value of SEO. SEO is being used just about everywhere it can be making the task of improving traffic more difficult once again.

Just starting to emerge and rapidly gaining popularity, is a new phase of Internet marketing known as video marketing. Increasingly, more and more websites around the internet are using video to increase their value and boost traffic flow to their site. Think about the last time you logged into one of the major news or commercial sites. You very likely were greeted with a professional-looking video that either started up on page entry or provided an option to view the video. Isn’t it easier to watch and listen than to have to read multiple paragraphs or even pages of information?

You may not have thought about it but that video made your life just a little bit easier. And that is the concept behind adding video content to your site our blog. If your site is more enjoyable and it's easier to obtain information from your site  vs. your competitors, then guess which site gets the most traffic?

With the advancement of technology, creating video content for websites, blogs, iPods, iPhones, YouTube or other venues has become much easier than in the past. It use to be that you had to hire a video production house to create, process, host, and post your video at a cost of thousands of dollars. But not anymore. Now with the many desktop video applications and low-cost equipment commonly sold for personal use, you can have that same kind of professional video quality on your site or blog for a price that’s right for your budget.

So what are the things needed to create a video suitable for posting on my site or blog? Well I’m glad you asked.
In order to answer this question one very fundamental question must be answered. Will the video be one of live action as in a motion picture or will the video be one of a controlled sequence of computer generated graphics? In essence, do you want to capture a real time action event or do you wish to make a recording of events and graphics that take place on a computer screen? 

For recording a live active event you need:

• A good video cam recorder.
• Video Editing software.
• Optionally, a tripod, and or extra lighting if recording in low light conditions.

For recording or capturing a computers screen:

• A PC software application that has the ability to both record and edit active screen events.
• Psst, you do not need a video camera for this.

We live in an era where video content is everywhere. Our cell phones, music devices, TV’s in every room, and of course more and more video on the internet. It is much easier for people to watch a video that shows them how to do something rather than take the time and burn energy to read about it.

Adding video to your site or blog will provide a much higher response and many more satisfied visitors. When you can make things easy for your site visitors the probabilities of sales conversions are much more likely.