Adding video to your site can increase conversions

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that on March 1st, we launched our redesigned site and added on a brand new video. It was something we’d been thinking about for a while. Video is huge, and our thought was that it would allow us to have a more emotional connection with our potential clients if they could see and hear us.

And I was right.

Now that it’s been more than a month since we launched the new site and new video, I took a look at our stats and was pretty surprised at what I saw. We track conversions on your site. A website conversion is simply when a person does what you want them to do on your website. For us, it’s when people submit our “Request a Quote” form. In February we did not have a video on our homepage, and in March we did. The result? We saw a 28% increase in conversions.

A 28% increase! That is a pretty significant increase in my opinion. Conversion are how you know if your website is working for you. Conversions are how you get customers. Conversions are the most important aspect of most websites. And we had a huge increase.

Was it all because of the new video?

I can’t say for sure. On the same day we launched our video, we also launched our completely redesigned website which we think is pretty rad. Having a great website also plays a role. I just can’t say how much. Could it be a normal fluctuation in traffic/conversion patterns? Of course, this is always going to be something we consider. With many businesses, there are ebbs and flows in activity. Ask any gym owner, they’ll tell you that January is a pretty busy time. Accountants can count on busy times in March and April. Our service doesn’t tend to peak at exactly the same times, but we do notice a general upswing in January-March and then again in September-November. But nothing that huge.

I took a few minutes and checked our conversion stats from this time last year. In 2015, we had no increase in conversions between February and March. So the new website and the new video definitely made an impact on our visitors.

I want a video! What do I do next?

Video adds a real personal touch to your website, but there are ways to do it right and do it wrong. When we decided to do a new video, we knew right away we needed to hire a professional, because we don’t do video. And while we thought we might be able to put one together that was passable, that wasn’t going to meet our standards. We wanted something good.

We also knew we had a message we wanted to share. We didn’t want a commercial. We didn’t want to talk to the camera and talk about how great we are. We wanted our customers to get to know us, who we are, and how we work.

Tips for getting your own video:

• Hire a professional. Be sure to look at their video portfolio too. If you don’t like the style of their videos, then it may not be a good fit. Be sure you like what they do, and be sure they understand what kind of video you want.
• Find other videos you like to share with your videographer. It’s important that they know what style of video you are going for, to help them plan to get the best footage.
• Figure out the message you want to share. What makes your business special? Why should someone hire you and not someone else? That’s the message you need to get across.

There’s no guarantee that adding video will have a huge impact on your business. For us, we saw a big change, and I feel like the investment was really worthwhile.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gdlqQO8RUos%26rel%3D0