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Business & Finance | July 29, 2009

Use video to drive website traffic

Deb Kirby's photo
Salt Lake City Internet Business Examiner
Drive traffic with video
Over 70 percent of the online audience watches video on the Internet, according to a report by Forrester Research. By 2013, Forrester predicts 81 percent will be watching videos. Have you developed a strategy for using video to drive traffic to your website?
 
Here are five rules Forrester identified to break through the increasing video clutter and increase web traffic:
  1. Just like your text content, optimize your video. Search engines have blended specialty searches for video, images and blogs for several years and nearly 40 percent of online users use search engines to find videos compared to 19 percent who use portals and 11 percent who go to video destination sites.
  2. Create wide distribution. Don’t just post a video on your website. Widen your audience by partnering with video portals and vertical sites catering to your audience. In fact, when reaching a targeted audience on vertical sites, your click-through rate should increase dramatically.
  3. Complement video with text. Create a full experience by adding text on your video page with an article, viewer comments and reviews. Putting the video in context will help achieve a higher click-through rate.
  4. Reduce video load time. You’ll have to find the right balance between load time and production quality. Fast loading video is an important selecting criteria for 53 percent of broadband consumers.
  5. Encourage sharing. Make the most of your investment by making it easy for viewers to share your video. Viral distribution happens when viewers send to friends via email (23 percent), recommend via IM (14 percent) or directly embed on a blog or social network page (11 percent). Create a video worth sharing to take advantage of the viral effect.
 Before you get excited, take time to set realistic goals, identify your target audience and create a distribution plan.
 
Have questions about search engine optimization? Contact me at email.
 
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Salt Lake City Internet Business Examiner

Deb Kirby is a freelance writer and consultant who uses current Web strategies and techniques for SEO copywriting. She works with clients to create...

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