It’s no surprise I guess, when you consider how the moving picture revolutionized the world of entertainment, that the use of video clips, segments, and full-on tutorials (in some cases), is going to attract Internet users visiting product websites.

There’s something extremely engaging about “lights, camera, action” that stirs us and enthralls us and keeps us hooked, and it works on websites just as it does at the movies or on the TV screen.

But it’s not only the draw of video that makes websites more interesting to stay tuned to, but the fact that when it comes to optimizing your website, those with video make it far higher up the Google listings than those that don’t feature moving images, talking heads, and spoken messages.

According to one study, a marketing website with video was over 50 times more likely to achieve a page one listing than one without, with further evidence supporting the claim that 41% more people are likely to click on universal search results that feature video than those that rely on plain text. 

Another survey (Comscore) suggested that on average, a person watching video on a website stayed 2 minutes longer than they did on a website of plain text only.

The bottom line is that websites with video make it higher up the Google listings because relatively speaking there are still fewer sites using video over ordinary text-focused pages (so it’s no surprise that YouTube has some 80% of the video-results market!)

The point is, if you haven’t quite caught on yet, that video is proven to be “stickier” than conventional website content when it comes to attracting people to your website and making them stay longer.

And Here’s Another Eye-Popping Stat…

80% of the videos that Google lists in its search results are INFORMATIONAL.

This suggests that pure “sales” videos are not a big draw, and in fact can be quite the opposite. If it looks like a run-of-the-mill advertisement, people are going to be turned off. That’s easy to understand because we are bombarded with advertisements every second of the day through other media. That is part of the overall attraction of entering cyberspace – the knowledge that we can avoid ads if we want to (well, maybe not avoid – but at least ignore.)

Thus, using INFORMATIONAL video content makes the viewer feel she is learning something without being sold something. It is an important distinction to make, and is why ensuring that you have good quality content should be part of your overall website marketing thinking.

It’s not that hard to learn to do, and it’s also something that can be easily outsourced fairly inexpensively. There are plenty of people who will put together a short video and get it submitted to YouTube and other video sharing sites for under $100. It won’t win an Oscar, but it will boost your page’s rankings.

One study found that a product page with a video is 53 times more likely to get to page one than one without a video.

Wow.

Now if somebody would just slap me around a bit and get me to post some of the videos that we’ve already created, I’d appreciate it.  See, we aren’t immune from “overwhelm” either!

Scott