Video, why should I add it to my website?

I don't know how many people I have told to add video to their websites and still I see the same old stuff and nothing new. I really think that sometimes my suggestions are an exercise in futility and nobody is listing. Well, I should not say that, maybe they listen, but few actually take the time to do it.

But adding video to a website today is important. It is important to rank in the searches and it is important for your customers.

We started replacing help pages with help videos a few years back and everyone has loved it. You can never convey in a help page what you can with a video. And lets face it, even kids today would rather watch a 5 minute video of someone pushing their grandmother off the roof in a shopping cart than read a book about what not to do.

So video is a very strong medium, very powerful and today very easy to create.

As you can see by our website, we have embraced video with "Mark's 2 Cents", our cool intro video and countless explainer videos around the website. In fact we have hundreds of videos across many websites because we see how it has helped our business.

To make it easier for everyone, we added support for adding videos to pages right in our page editors. So now you can quickly add your youtube videos or videos from any other popular video network in just a click or two.

So my question is, why are so few people actually doing that?

I told a contractor last week to take some video, "just use your cell phone", while you are doing a job, explain what you are doing and show people you know how to do it.

If someone goes to your website and a competitor and you have a video, showing yourself actually doing the work and they don't, you are 50% more likely to get the business from that customer. And if your competitor has the video, chances are you just lost that potential customer.

For one, people want to see and hear who they are hiring before they even call for an estimate. And secondly, just like kids, people would rather watch a 5 minute video than read a whole page of text.

And come on, while books like Starwars and Startrek are great they are pale in comparison to the blockbuster movies.

So having a video of you working is way more impactful than just telling people you are great at your job.

Now, I still write articles as well as creating the 2 cents videos because I know how important text is in the searches. So the video does not replace the text you need on your pages, but it does change the users experience.

Of course, a bad video could be worse than not having a video. But hey, it takes like 10 minutes to make one and if it is not right, just take another 10 minutes and do it again.

You don't have to set up a studio or hire a camera man, lighting tech and makeup artist. Just prop up the camera and film yourself with a message or while you are working.

Millions of people do this every day. They create videos on how to fix a toilet or how to build a bird house and post it online. Hell, people are learning more every day on youtube than they did in school.

So why are you not doing it?

Wouldn't a millions view on youtube help your business?

Everyone is worried about getting found in the searches, and here is another opportunity passing you by. Videos are part of the search results, so if you make a video on how to change a tire on your car, people will watch it and they will see how nice you are and bring their car to you when they need repairs.

It is just one more tool that everyone needs to use to help their website get traffic and ultimately grow their business.

Google is now working with technology to read convert the audio portion of the video to text and using that text as keywords in the searches. So having a video is just like having an article in the mind of the googlies.

Now, I have seen the transcripts and they are very off point and sometimes have nothing to do with the actual video at all. But the point is, that is the direct we are headed, video is here to stay. People use Vine to post video tweets, use phones to send video of just about everything back and forth.

So you can either use it or lose it.

If you wait long enough, you will be back where you were with a website, a day late and a dollar short.

So get started today and add some video to your website, you wont regret it.