You may have seen a lot of websites lately starting to use video as their hero backgrounds for their homepages. As technology and web speeds improve, many businesses are realizing the benefits of having a hero video on the front page of their website. A hero video helps your website stand out from the competition and it conveys the whole idea of your services much quicker than words can. It’s also proving to be more effective than the still photos and slideshows that were used before it.
However, video hero done right can look incredible, but if done wrong it can be detremental to your website. This may impact your SEO in a negative manner and reduce trust in your business. That’s why we want to make sure your business avoids the pitfalls by providing you our expertise into what makes a great hero video work.
The Benefits of Using Video For Your Hero
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Now, imagine what a video is worth! One clear benefit of a hero video is that you can quickly convey your services to your target audience within seconds. In our line of services, express concerns about using video in their hero area on their website due to worries about loading speed, but these days video can actually be faster than the more popular slider images.
When done well, there are SEO benefits too. Google’s algorithms are increasingly prioritizing websites with video content while video content is also proven to increase how long visitors stay on your website. The originality of your content is key to making it rank better on Google so make sure your hero video has content that you yourself have taken or you have asked to have been shot exclusively for you. If at all possible, avoid stock video and surround your video on the homepage with quality written SEO content. And most importantly, because of copyright reasons, make sure your material is yours or you have permission to use it.
Recommendations
There are many things to consider before you dive deep into the world of hero videos, but aesthetically high quality content is obviously the goal. How you go about achieving it might be determined by your budget. If your budget allows. If your budget does not allow it, then consider many smartphone cameras today can get the job done. If you can get a tripod or even a selfie stick to get steady footage, then even better can accomplish getting good footage.
A hero video should be shot in landscape and then adapted to portrait for the mobile version of the site because it’s easier to cut off what you won’t use on the sides for portrait rather than fabricating pixels to fill out the sides on landscape. We recommend that your final edited video is no longer than 30 seconds or find a shorter video that loops seamlessly. Make sure to avoid adding text or titles to the video, leave that job to the designers. Most designers will only ask you to ensure that there is sufficient contrast and there are also no drastic colour contrasts in your video, so that when text is added, it is readable.
And finally, make sure you compress the video as much as you can down to the lowest bitrate that looks acceptable. We recommend a 1080p video with a low frame rate of 24 or 25 frames per second and test a few different bitrates between 750k and 1250k. 1MB to 2MB is the usual max file size, if any of this doesn’t make sense then we can help out.
Ideal Content
While it is important to get the technical quality of the hero video right, filming, editing and choosing the right clips to piece together for your hero video is even more important. You want to make sure your video is telling a story of your services and the benefits it brings to the people. Always consider who you are appealing to. People want to see themselves reflected in the content so they can make a connection. Film real customers enjoying real experiences.
Overall
Having a hero video can really boost your website ranking and connection with your audience. By choosing the right video, it can provide a storytelling experience in seconds and in turn build trust.
Our Marketing Team Is Here To Launch Your Business Forward
Green Monkeys Studio can help you uncover the right strategy for your business to accomplish your goals within your budget. If you want to learn more about what we can do for you, we’d love to talk. At Green Monkeys Studio, we pride ourselves in providing you the best professional services that deliver. We provide top ranking SEO marketing and digital marketing services. Need a new website or update your current one? Our design team is here for you to provide top notch web design services; delivering responsive websites that rank on Google. Reach us at (206) 445-1185 or fill out the form below.