Getting started making videos is not as difficult as it first sounds. You don’t need a fancy camcorder and fancy acting to make an online video. Start with simple things such as a product description or testimonial. This can be done with a simple photo and an audio recording.

How Popular Is Online Video?

Alexa is a reasonable watchdog for what's popular online. Generally Google, Yahoo and MSN are the top 3, but YouTube sits at top 4. 15% of ALL internet traffic goes to YouTube.

YouTube

Youtube has increased significantly in popularity – that’s why Google paid so much for them. The average time of Youtube was 26 minutes, and its increasing. With over 300 video hosting sites online, there are 30 that grab the majority of thetraffic. So why is YouTube so popular?

Video Viewing Increasing

People are spending a lot of time watching video online. According to comScore, over 70% of USA Internet users streamed video during March 2007.

You will reach more visitors with video that text – 3-4 times more people will connect with video that scroll through a page.

The most watched video on Youtube has been viewed more than 60 million times – and its only some guy dancing!!!

Another recent edition on Youtube by Len Foley – the bionic burger. In just a few months it has received over 300,000 views. This video has gone viral. He made it in less than 4 hours for $82 – generating over $1400 in membership fees per month from this one video. He has now repeated this success formula with other videos.

Other success examples include:

Humanitarian videos tagged with big names drives a lot of traffic to site

Marriageadvice.com used video get traffic to site – keyword load them. Hired videographer for a day and made a whole pile of 1-2 minute videos, and loaded them to Google Video – his site is now #1-3 in Google Search Results.

Realtors should be using videos on Youtube t o market homes – only 100 on video site for 31million results on Google.

Benefits of Video

Just create ANY video and follow a couple of simple techniques the search engines find the video, index it quickly [as little as one hour!!] but at a max – 48 hours. Using keyword loading [using keywords in your title] it will show up in the top 30 listings almost immediately, many in the top 10.

The advantages of using video are:

Credibility increases
Believability increasees
Very persuasive

Creating Your Video

Design

Effectiveness of video is in – AAIDA [ infomercial formula]

Grab attention – create emotion by getting them to associate with the pain of the problem.
Agitate – make them feel the pain
Generate interest in the message – by telling them you can fix the problem, what would it mean to you.
Create desire – if I could show you how to do it
Get them to take action

And Remember - The success of video depends on how you name it – use keyword loaded titles

Audio

I use a simple free audio editing tool called Audacity - you can download Audacity here.

Hosting

Don’t host video on your own site. Use free video hosting sites and embed the video onto your web pages.

Key Elements

Make an OFFER!!! – the most forgotten element. Provide a bonus, make it scarce, give something away free to get email address, BONUS, DISCOUNT, SCARCITY, PAYMENT.

Get an 0800 number that only costs $5-6 a month to leave a voice mail. Get assistant to check once a day and follow up.

Add your web address – they have to know where to find you.

Make the transaction easy

Photo Testimonial

Take a photo of someone
Dial into a testimonial line to record audio or do it live
Match the photo and audio and load to website
Voila - you have an audio testimonial

Video Testimonial

Follow the same process using a video. You can either video the person or add their audio to static product shots put into a slideshow.

Video Hosting Sites

Also submit audio file to podcast directories

Odeo.com
Yahoo podcosts
Podnova.com