How Engaging Is Online Video?

Very.

In October 2009, Eyeblaster reported that creative was the key to more engaging rich media ads. Based on the research firm’s “Online Video Advertising: Doubles Engagement, Boosts ROI” bulletin, video grabs attention and has a lasting impact.

Rich media ads with video had a higher dwell rate than those without, and almost double the dwell time.

This translates to fewer impressions needed for the same results. For example, Eyeblaster found that two exposures to a video ad campaign produced the same dwell rate as three exposures to nonvideo rich media ads.

Unsurprisingly, in-stream banners were most likely to be fully played. They far outpaced the start rate and fully played rate of all other video ad formats.

Other creative decisions also influenced effectiveness. Video ads initiated on rollover performed best, followed by auto-initiated ads. Ads that only began playing when a user clicked did worst.

The performance of video ads also varies according to the content it appears with. Video ads did best when placed next to e-mail, news, finance, sports and music, but fell behind in social network and gaming environments.

Ask an Expert: Video's a great way to get traffic to your site

By Steve Strauss for USA TODAY

Q: Steve — You always seem to write about making your small business unique — so as to set yourself apart from the crowd. That seems like good advice, but easier said than done. In my case, my small business is a website, and most websites are more or less the same, so what can we do? — JD

A: What if I told you that there was a surefire way to make your website standout and POP. .. would that be of interest to you? And what if I further told you that this method is inexpensive, easily accomplished, and even so, has a 50 times greater chance of landing you on a Page 1 search result?

I thought that would grab your attention.

What is the secret ingredient, that magic potion, you ask? The answer is — video.

It turns out that of all the things you can do on your website to engage viewers, create more page views and get higher search engine rankings, adding video just may be the best. As I said, Forrester Research did a test and found that when search results are blended (that is, they include text, video, images, news, etc.) videos that are search engine optimized (more on that in a moment) give you a 50 times greater chance of ending up on the all-important first page of a search result.

Now that is what I call standing out from the crowd.

But here's the catch: You can't just add a video to your site and expect a great search engine result for that page. The video must be search engine optimized, that is, it must contain key words in the file names, captions, and so on. That same Forrester blog indicated that less than 20% of all online marketers search engine optimize their video.

That offers a tremendous opportunity for you.

So I spoke with Benjamin Wayne, the CEO of the great video website Fliqz. Fliqz offers affordable, branded video solutions – everything from video hosting, and SEO tools to search engine submission. He explained that offering video content on your small business site actually serves three functions:

1. It helps attract new customers by virtue of the SEO factor

2. It engages them, and

3. It helps convert them into paying customers.

But again, just adding video to your site is insufficient. According to Wayne, if you want your video to be picked up and analyzed properly by Google and the other search engines, you must not only add SEO keywords to it, but you must actually "submit the video to Google using XML tools." Fliqz helps with that too, giving you an easy way to submit your video's URL.

Maybe you are thinking that it is enough to put your video on YouTube and embed the YouTube player and URL into your site. According to Mr. Wayne, that too is insufficient. "The traffic and the rankings will be applied to YouTube and not your site," he says. So the best practice is to add your video to your site and submit your URL and keywords to the search engines.

And don't make the mistake of thinking that you have to create an expensive video for this to work. In this YouTube era, people are used to watching videos that are less than perfect. Of course yours must be professional and add to your brand, but that does not mean they must cost a fortune or take forever to create.

The second advantage of video is that it engages your audience. When you have video on your homepage, 50% to 80% of your visitors will click that first. So video becomes a very effective tool for reducing your "bounce rate" – the amount of people who come to your site, take a quick look, decide it's not what they are looking for, and surf on.

And the final thing video can do for you is to help increase your conversion rate – that is, the number of people who visit and then end up buying something. According to Benjamin Wayne, by using video instead of just text as part of your call to action, your conversion rate can be increased multi-fold.

He gave me the example of a rental property website that decided to vastly increase its use of video: It offered guided tours of each of their properties, and then near the end of each video, up would pop a link that said "Rent me now!" As a result, both the site's traffic and conversion rates increased dramatically.

Web 2.0: It's not just for the big boys any more.

Today's tip: Another very good business book that I recently received and read is The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life by Gehse Roach. Roach explains how his years as a Buddhist monk and the principles he learned helped him build a multi-million dollar diamond business. It is a compelling book – for not only how to be an ethical and highly successful entrepreneur, but how those principles can change your life, your business, and the world.

Google and Bling to start including Twitter and Facebook in Search Results

Last month it was announced that both Google and Microsoft are putting together formal plans with Twitter and with Facebook to start including them in searches on google.com and bing.com. THIS IS HUGE!

Since Twitter hit the scene people have been grappling for the best business use of it. Some argue Twitter is a mass media tool, some argue it is best for one-on-one or small group communication, others might argues it is good for running specials and events. Quite frankly these are all good uses. The challenge is finding the right approach with it for your business and sticking with it. At least that has been my challenge.

But if everybody’s “Tweets” are soon to be indexed by search engines and start appearing as listings in peoples’ search results, this could be as far reaching as having the ability to literally search the minds of everyone in the world. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration but it does mean you would be able to search the conversations that people are publishing to their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

You thought blogging made it easy for the every day guy, gal, or business to have a voice, think of what Twitter and Facebook will make possible once this information can be sought out on search engines.

Roger Stix, Producer

Atlanta Business Video