Monthly Archives: July 2010

Give Your Website Visitors A Reason To Stay

Behind The Scenes, Who Uses Video, , , , ,

I’m sitting here looking at my latest stats from Google Analytics, and I found something very interesting: When a visitor comes to my site as the result of a Google organic search, they stay for almost SEVEN MINUTES! Even when I’m found through a Yahoo search, visitors hang around for just under four minutes.

There’s a video on almost every page of my site. Only two of them are about me or my work. The rest show my clients and how they are using video to enhance their brand, establish trust and credibility or take viewers on a behind the scenes look at their business.

Here’s another stat that’s hard to believe: one of my inbound links brings visitors who stay an average of NINE minutes.

If you buy advertising on radio or TV, you have only thirty seconds to present your message. And with both of those mediums, you’re competing with all the other stimuli that surrounds the user. Plus, it’s extremely costly.

Videos on your website are available 24/7. They’re one of the most cost effective strategies to get in front of a prospect and present yourself as an expert in your field.

If you know a small business with a website, invite them to take a look at their user statistics. Then, ask them to give me a call.

–That’s a wrap.

Behind The Scenes part one – WHAT IS POST PRODUCTION?

Behind The Scenes, , , , , , , , ,

Part of our core message is : “We write, shoot, edit, do post production, then deliver the files to you.” And while I try to keep that core message simple and as targeted as possible, I want to do some in depth blog posts to explain what makes Videos On Your Website a valuable resource.

Every video gets a little post-production. It may be as simple as adding a music track. Oh, wait – did I say simple?

Music should enhance without being obtrusive. All music tracks have to be edited themselves – so that they fit the same timing as the video. Sometimes, whole segments of a music track have to be moved to match scene changes.

Voiceover is part of post production. Being a voice artist for 20 years, I could go into fanatical detail about this. But I won’t. I have another blog for that at ronharper.com. Suffice to say the voice tells the story. Narration entails a lot more than reading.

Everyone likes nice graphics, whether it’s a logo, or a great still shot. But how about a little blip at the bottom of the screen that shows the speaker’s name? That is usually made up of two different video files: a background, called a “lower-third”, and the text file. How big should it be? Where do you want to place it on the screen? Want to match the color to the logo? Those are some of the decisions we make at that point. Still shots don’t always fill the screen, and they need a background. Or, maybe you’d like to start at the top of the still and pan down, or slowly zoom in.

Is the color right on all of the shots? If not, we can adjust it in post. Want a special filter, or other effect – it’s all done in post production.

Come back soon, and we’ll have another peak behind the scenes.

–That’s a wrap.