How Video Can Boost Your Website's Performance-Featured.jpg

How Video Can Boost Your Website's Performance

Your website has an important job: communicate your brand’s message and get users to convert. How you define a conversion might differ; you might classify a conversion as a direct purchase, or by a user clicking through to another page.

No matter what your ultimate marketing goal is, you want to do everything in your power to make sure your website is doing its job effectively. Have you considered adding video content to help drive conversions? If not, then read on.

Video is not only changing the way websites are built, but also how users interact with websites, browse, convert, and more. The number of people watching videos online only continues to grow. In fact, video is predicted to make up approximately 80 percent of all global traffic by the end of 2019. More people are interacting with brands that create video content consistently, and many consumers now expect to learn about products or services through a brand video. Forty-three percent of consumers say they want to see more video content from marketers.

So, if you’re not creating video content and using it on your website, you’re missing out on a whole audience (read: consumers) who are anxious to learn about you and what you have to offer. Let’s take a look at just a few of the ways video can help boost your website’s metrics and increase your performance KPIs for maximum return.

6 Ways Video Helps Improve Your Website’s Performance KPIs

If you’ve ever gone to YouTube to watch one video and ended up spending hours on the site, then you know the power of video. Let’s break down exactly how adding a video to your website can boost its overall performance.

1. Video increases organic traffic to your site.

Google loves video. When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), video is a not-so-secret weapon that companies everywhere are using to boost their organic search traffic.

Search engines prioritize results that answer direct user queries. Videos can answer these questions in an easy-to-digest format that more users engage with. The folks over at Moz found that including video on your website can help you increase backlinks (links on third-party websites that point back to your site) by almost three times more than average, which drives more high-intent, relevant organic traffic to your site.

Website traffic is often seen as a vanity metric (how many users land on your site isn’t nearly as important as what they actually do when they get there) - but that doesn’t mean this metric should be discounted altogether. Ninety-three percent of online experiences start with a search engine, so it’s important to do everything you can to appear on the first page of search results.

2. Video increases dwell time.

When looking at websites with videos on-site, 80 percent of marketers say video has increased dwell time. What is dwell time?

Dwell time is the amount of time a user spends on a page after landing there directly from a search result. It’s one of the major factors that affect your SEO ranking and is a good measure of how engaging your website content actually is. Improving this metric can boost your overall brand awareness and recognition, and is a great bonus no matter what your main website goals are.

On a related note, video content also does wonders for increasing the average amount of time users spent on a particular page on your website. As soon as someone hits “play” on one of your embedded videos, you have captured their attention. The entire amount of time they spend watching your video counts as time spent on page. If your page only includes text, it’s likely your users won’t spend the same amount of time reading that they would be watching your video. If your site’s pages contain a wall of text, some users may lose interest and quickly hit the “back” button.

3. Video lowers landing page bounce rate.

Another performance indicator that shows you how engaged and interested your users are in your content is your “bounce rate” - which video has a huge effect on. The bounce rate refers to situations where a user lands on one of your pages and then “bounces”, or navigates, entirely out of your site right away. Since this signals a lack of interest in content, then it is important to find ways to decrease this number - an engaging video can do just that.

When video content is included on a page, the bounce rate can improve by 34 percent. This means that visitors are 34 percent less likely to bounce away from a page when it includes video. This could be because video engages users enough to continue browsing and navigating to other areas on your site. Or, if your video includes a strong call to action (CTA), users are more likely to follow through, which keeps them busy on your site.

4. Video increases click-through rate.

There are two ways you can define click-through rate (CTR) here: whether or not someone clicks to play the video, or if someone clicks another link that you encourage them to click on from the video itself. It’s a metric commonly used in video advertising but is also an important marker of how user-friendly and clear your website is in general.

Without video, you rely on the words and graphics on your page to encourage users to click on particular links or CTAs. But pages with video have been shown to increase on-page engagement, which naturally boosts your CTR. Plus, providing valuable information also engages the user’s curiosity and desire to know more, meaning they’re more likely to click on any relevant links.

5. Video helps to engage mobile users.

A large percentage of your visitors are viewing your website on a mobile device. Optimizing your site’s mobile experience is crucial if you want to reach your target demographic and get them to convert.

A study showed 50 percent of people in the U.S. view content on their mobile devices and over 36 percent said they watched videos over 5 minutes long on their phones on a daily basis. If you want to keep up with the increasing use of smartphones and tablets, then you should strongly consider incorporating video on your website.

Your best option is to ensure that your website flows smoothly and guides your visitors exactly where you want them to go. By adding properly sized and responsive video content, your visitors will not only stay on your site longer but also have a better experience and convert at a higher rate.

Pro Tip: If you’re able to hook a mobile visitor through video, you also have a great opportunity to retarget them with ads.

6. Video increases return visits.

One of the best ways to measure your website’s performance is by tracking returning visitors. Whether your goal is increasing brand awareness or conversion rates, return visits show a high-interest level in your brand, what you offer, and even customer loyalty for users who have already converted.

Luckily, video production is a great way to keep visitors coming back. Videos presented in a series, - such as training modules, tips-and-tricks videos, or multi-part educational videos - can keep users coming back long-term. Adding a video (even when it’s not part of a series) can increase the added value that your site provides, which increases your trustworthiness and raises your overall credibility.

Boosting return visits is huge. By aiming more of your marketing efforts toward returning visitors, you can increase your overall ROI by up to 15 times. These are huge gains compared to the money you may spend on new customer acquisition.

Wrapping Up

If you made it this far, you already know the power video holds. It’s an essential tool in any marketer’s tool belt and, when used correctly, can help improve your marketing goal success rates and your website KPIs all in one.

But we know - video can seem like an expensive way to do that. From pre-production to filming, to post-production and more - video is a big deal. You can’t afford to not invest in creating the right video. People everywhere are watching videos, and brands just like yours are adjusting their marketing budgets to start creating the content they know pays off big. Don’t get left behind! See how you, your website, and your brand can all benefit from adding video into your marketing mix today.

Originally published on 5/6/19