On this post I will show you why video marketing is the most powerful way to sell anything online. The online video traffic is increasing every month, video increases conversion to sales and using video is easier and less expensive than you probably think. Should you stop writing and start "filming"?
Many successful individuals, businesses and companies have been marketing with video for many years now, and there's a reason for that - It works (just look at how well Zappos is doing). Here are some facts for you about online video:
- video sells.
- online videos get A LOT of traffic.
- videos rank well in the search engines.
- you don't need fancy camera or video editing courses to do this.
- you can create awesome videos with just your computer (even for free).
Here's Why You Should Start Doing Video Marketing...
I know making online video is scary, especially if you put your own voice, let alone face into play. But don't let that fear stop you. Doing a video doesn't mean you have to film yourself; you don't have to become an actor, just a smart marketer.
The hardest video you ever make is the first one. Once you have done it once, it gets easier and easier every time. Those who have done this already, and use video marketing as part of their business are reaping the rewards.
But let's be honest, it's not like it's any secret, right?
You know that online video works. Maybe you think it's too hard, too expensive or will just take too much of your time?
Personally, I don't even know why I'm not doing more video, even that I've seen the results with my a few gaming videos... But that's about to change.
It has to change.
So perhaps it's time for you and me, to stop sitting on our a%¤es and learn how to do marketing with video, yes? Yes, you will have to learn a couple of new things, but in the end it's not any more complicated than writing a post and publishing it on your blog.
Like anything else, video is not the silver bullet that will make everything work like magic and bring instant results, but the results CAN be amazing, because...
Online Video Gets a LOT of Traffic
Here are some numbers about online video and search in the U.S. (stats via ComScore):
- 33 billion videos were watched on December 2009
- YouTube got 13 billion views
- 1/3 of videos online were watched on YouTube
- Google search is used by 10 billion users a month, all search engines get about 15 billion users.
- The popularity of online videos is not even near its peak
This means that all online video sites combined get 2-3 more traffic than all search engines combined.
What if I tell you it's about 10 times easier to rank a video high in the search engines than it is with a normal page?
When it all comes together, it's not as simple as that (because Google search only shows so may videos versus other web pages for example), but I'm taking 3 times the traffic potential for 1/10th of an effort any day.
You?
Search Engines Like Blogs, but LOVE Video!
Have you seen videos on the search results when you use Google? You probably have, and if you've paid attention you've noticed that the videos pop up quite high on the results, anything between 1st and 5th place, depending on the search phrase (not all searches show videos, but anyway...).
Without going in-depth in search engine optimization, you probably know that incoming links are the most important factor for search engine rankings, right?
For example, videos that are shown on the first page of Google might have about 10 to 20 links. When the web pages appearing below them might hundreds, if not thousands of backlinks.
Would you rather write a blog post, and get at least 100 links to it to get the the post to the first page of Google, or should you make a video, and get 10 or so links to that video (by yourself if you have to, using free blogs, Squidoo and such)?
Online Video in the Search Results
For example, with Google search for a phrase "how to bake a cake"
- There are about 21 million competing pages
- Search phrase gets 33000 searches a month, according to Google Keyword tool
- There are two videos in about 3rd to 4th place. Those videos have 2 and 10 backlinks when I checked.
- The normal pages on top and below the videos have about 30 and 100 backlinks. (and one of them is actually a VIDEO!)
- There are as little as 7 links to ranking pages on the whole first page, with minimum of 600 links to the domain
Here's an example Google Search Results Page (SERP). ...try not to be stunned by my mad skillz when it comes to image-editing and writing with mouse, OK?
for this example search phrase
- You can rank a video on the first page of Google with just 2-10 backlinks,
- When it might take over 100 links for a normal webpage to get the same result, or several hundreds of links to the domain
I also checked several other keyword phrases for same results. For one that gets over 200000 searches a month, there are two videos in 3rd place on the Google search results. One of them has 100 links, the other has 1000. A lot yes, but guess how many links the website below these videos has? - 2 MILLION.
You can get an estimate of backlinks yourself, by taking any URL/link you find from the search results and
- Go to Yahoo.com and enter search phrase "link:example.com" (without the quotation marks and replacing example.com with the link to the page you want to check)
- you'll get directed into Yahoo Site Explorer and see the number of "inlinks" there
- enter in Google: "link:example.com"
Why Video Ranks So Well in Search Engines?
This happens through the power of online video sites and the fact that Google does what's called universal search. Google looks for relevant content from all sources, not just text-based web pages.
And since the domain where the videos are hosted, e.g. YouTube, has so many backlinks that no site can match that. With the domain links, the individual pages, or in this case videos, need a lot less page-specific links to rank well.
Make sense?
There is still need for SEO writing, but if you are not doing video marketing, you are giving away HUGE opportunity (and we didn't even go for the viral potential of videos, just search). The best case is to rank with both your videos and normal pages, but getting the video there is a good start.
Coaching Course to Professional Video Marketing
I learned much of what you saw above from Andy Jenkins' free videos that were available for a limited time at his Video Boss -site.
For a short time, there were free videos on the site, promoting the program, with over an hour full of quality info about making and marketing with video and I learned a lot. In fact, I don't think I've seen such huge amount of info packed into one just for a product launch. But like said, they are not there now :( I'm sorry if you missed them.
The links here (Video Boss) are affiliate links, so if you end up buying (when the program is available), I'll get paid. With that said, Andy Jenkins is a professional video maker and he has done marketing videos for pretty much every "big" Internet marketer and product launch out there, in addition the stuff he has done for TV and movies (he got Emmy for video editing too!). So I'm thinking video marketing course doesn't get any better than this, even that I haven't taken it myself.
I left this information here in-case top-notch video marketing and professional video course (based on the free videos I saw) interests you. You can find out about the program via the official site at www.TheVideoBoss.com. If it's sold out - sign up to the waiting list, so you'll get noticed when the program is available again.
Conclusion
The video sharing sites get 2-3 times more traffic than Google search. Using video is better for conversions, better for sales, and you can even do it for free. YouTube is free, tens and hundreds of other video sites are free. Making a video does not have to expensive, you can do just fine with free video tools, so the only "cost" is your time.
If you are doing business online, NOT using online video for marketing is the biggest mistake you can do right now, since marketing with video is much easier that you think and the potential is enormous. Even if you use it "just as" a way to increase blog traffic, using video can potentially capture a lot more readers, subscribers and even buyers to your blog.
Here's more posts like to this:
