One of the most effective ways to use video to promote your business is to create a how-to or explainer video. For the most part, customers don’t want to watch a long sales pitch. They might sit through a 30 second pitch if you make it funny or interesting enough, but if you want to keep them engaged for a longer period you will have to offer them something relevant and useful that answers a question they are seeking answers to.
Information is a treasured commodity online, and a well-produced how-to video can sell your product or business more effectively than a traditional commercial – without “selling.”
There are several different things you can do with a how-to video. For example, you can:
- Demonstrate your product or service
- Show diverse ways to use your product or service
- Give customers a behind-the-scenes look at how you make your product or delivery your service.
Any one of these can make for an entertaining and informative video. With that in mind, here are some tips to help you make a how-to video that your customers will engage with.
- Check out your competition. Do some YouTube searches to see what other how-to videos are around, and try to find a new way to present your information.
- Demonstrate using steps if possible. Even if your demonstration is going to be largely visual, write down step-by-step instructions before your go into production to make sure you are not missing anything.
- Once you have written down the steps, have someone who is not familiar with what you are explaining check it out. You are probably very familiar with your subject. When you are, it can be easy to skip over important steps or explanations because you take them for granted. Incorporate your reader’s questions into your written explanation. Keep refining it until you have it exactly right and everyone understands your concept.
- How are you going to visually demonstrate what you have written? Brainstorm some ways to make it interesting or entertaining. Don’t worry about anything being “wrong”. Take examples from dissimilar products or services that you could use yourself.
- If you are demonstrating a product, focus on the benefits it will provide to your customers. Remember, customers care about them, not you. Interview current customers and ask them what the top three reasons they chose you were. This can uncover details into what you should focus on promoting.
- Write a script (or hire someone to write it) incorporating your instructions and the visual ways you will demonstrate them. Even if it is casual, this isn’t the time to “wing it”.
- Invest in good production. Having great video and sound quality will keep people watching. A poorly-produced video may have the opposite effect from the one you intended. Lots of people promote an amateur look to make things more “believable”. This has been proven wrong time and again.
- Optimize your video for search engines. Use a target keyword in the file name of your video and in the meta description when you post it on video-sharing sites.
- Write a transcript of the video to include on your page or video description box. There are lots of services that can handle this for you and do it cheap.
- Have a release plan for your video. Figure out where and when you are going to share it. For example, you might share it on your website, post it on YouTube, and share it on your social media sites.
SEO Video Optimization Tips
Yea! All done! You’re ready to take a nap and let the money roll in right? Not yet.
Creating a short and compelling marketing video is a great idea for any business, but in order to get the best return on your investment, you will need to optimize your videos.
Here are some SEO video optimization tips to help you:
- Put your target keyword in the file name of your video. Google’s search engines give the most weight to keywords which appear in prominent places (titles, URLs, etc.) so do yourself a favor and put your main keyword in your file name. The file name becomes part of your URL, so you’re killing two birds with one stone.
- Include your primary keywords in your script. Don’t overdo it, but choose one or two keywords that you want to optimize for, and use them in an organic way. Since you want to target “local” consumers, be sure to include the city/state with your keywords.
- Make sure your video content is relevant to your customers. Search engine algorithms aren’t only concerned with keywords – your content must be useful and relevant as well.
- Don’t just put your video on your website – share it other places, too. When you post it on YouTube and your social media sites, you increase its visibility.
- When you post your video on other sites, make sure to include your chosen keyword in the meta description of the video.
- Allow your video to be rated on YouTube. If it receives high ratings, it will be more visible to search engines and can also help to encourage viewers to share your video.
- When you post the video on your page, include a written transcript of it beneath the video in the description area. Then, edit this where you can to include local keywords relevant to your area. Not only will this give you another mention of your primary keyword, it may also help you to increase conversions locally.
- Add an RSS feed for your videos. It will also make it easier for search engines and news aggregators to index your site.
- Have a separate landing page for each video on your site. Search engines can read individual pages more easily, and having multiple videos on one page can be confusing for viewers, too.
- Make it possible for other people to embed your video on their sites. When you do that, you encourage sharing and increase the chances you will get relevant inbound links – a must for SEO.
Conclusion
A well-produced how-to video, that is optimized to rank well in the search engines will increase your authority status, educate your target audience, and boost your bottom line as a result.
For more tips and ideas about creating videos that get noticed and turn viewers into customers, just give us a call or fill out the contact form on the site.
About the Author
Erik Cocks owns and operates Plain White T-Shirt Marketing in Tampa Florida. Erik is a Duct Tape Marketing Certified Consultant and a Tampa SEO for Growth Certified Consultant. He helps businesses become more profitable without the staff and expenses and takes consultative to developing a complete marketing system that’s proven to work and decrease client acquisition costs.
Source: SEO For Growth