Should I use video on my website?

Yes, you should use video on your website. The End. 

Only joking. While we could end it there, we wouldn’t want to leave our readers feeling shortchanged. Instead, let’s take a look at why you should use video on your website. It doesn’t matter whether you run your business through your website or simply use it to showcase your work; every type of website can benefit from using video. 

So, why should you use video on your website?

Video is more personal

There are fewer,if any, more powerful ways of connecting to your audience than through video. Putting a face, voice, or both to your business is so much more powerful than text in many cases. Visuals and audio cues such as body language, eye contact, and tone of voice work together to evoke much more emotion from the user than what’s possible through text.

Although text is vitally important to have for both SEO and the user experience, combining text with high-quality video content is a harmonious combination.

Video tells a story

While text’s primary function is to inform or educate users about your products and services, video content allows us to create stories that your customers can relate to. Indeed, users retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.  Through video you can combine audio and visuals to relay the history of your business, provide a tour of your store, interview real customers who have benefited from your services, and much more. As humans we’re natural storytellers and natural listeners, and video provides one of the best ways for us to indulge in these aspects of being human. 

Videos cater to the dwindling attention span 

Let’s face it, the average attention span of the general population is far lower than it once was. While our ancestors spent their time reading newspapers and books, we spend our time scrolling through Instagram or TikTok, allowing our senses to be assailed by something new every few seconds. It’s rather depressing, but it’s the reality of the modern world, and it’s important to change with the times. 

There is also the 8 seconds rule to consider, one of the pillars of UX (user experience) design. This rule basically dictates that you have 8 seconds to engage a user on your website before you’ve lost them. While not gospel, it makes a lot of sense. It’s also  been backed up by experts for decades – the 8 second rule existed long before websites. What better way to capture your audience’s attention than through video? 

Video keeps users on your website for longer

We might expect users to take longer to read through the text on our website rather than through watching a video, but the key difference is that users are much more likely to finish watching a video on a website than they are to read even one page of text. Dwindling attention spans and all that, right?

While this might not seem like a big deal on the surface, having users stay on your website for a good length of time is actually quite huge. This is because our Grand Overlord Google can see how long users spend on websites, and rewards those sites with the longest times by making them more visible on the search results. That’s right – if users are engaged with your video then it can do wonders for your SEO. 

Video is the most popular type of online content

Did you know that, on average, people watch over 16 hours of online video per week, a number which is only going up and up. If we consider the fact that most people will also spend a good seven hours asleep and the same amount of time at work or school, that’s a massive number. When you also consider the fact that YouTube has over 2billion active monthly users and is the second most popular website on the entire internet – only behind Google itself – then you can begin to understand just how popular video content is. With the staggering popularity of video content, which will only grow as time goes on, it would be inadvisable not to consider video as part of your web strategy. 

Active Internet Marketing (UK)

Interested in video content on your website or social media platforms? Here at Active, our resident video editors are experts in their craft, combining their understanding of what makes users tick with creativity and all the latest video editing software and tools. We’ll also ensure that all video content is optimised for the web so your site doesn’t suffer from slow down or dwindling responsiveness. 

For more information about our web video, SEO, or web development services, please get in touch with our team on 01604 765 796, or via our online contact form.