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It’s no secret that adding videos to your website can make your pages gleam. However, many site owners slow down their site with faulty videos that have huge file sizes. As a result, pages take longer to load, and viewers turn away.
‘Video optimization’ refers to the process of tweaking your video’s settings so they display well on the web.
If you have a website, you need to learn about video optimization. It can make or break your site. Besides, videos are supposed to give users a better experience – not a worse one!
We’ve answered all your video optimization questions below, including:
Why video optimization is more important than ever in 2021
Which video formats are the best for the web
Why slow loading speeds should be avoided at all costs
What does it mean to optimize a video, and why does it matter?
Video is everywhere on the web. In fact, 720,000 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube each day – and that doesn’t even include videos uploaded directly to websites!
With so much data coming from video uploads, some users are bound to face slow internet speeds. In fact, 19 million Americans – that’s about 6% of the U.S. population – still don’t have access to high-speed internet. As a result, users face choppy videos and frustrating buffering symbols.
As the uploader, it’s up to you to make your videos easy to watch. In fact, this is one of the most important things to consider in video marketing.
That’s where video optimization comes in.
To optimize a video is to pay attention to certain properties of a video on your site to improve the user’s experience.
Video optimization includes these steps:
Considering your video’s file size
Compressing HQ videos
Choosing the right video format
Cutting unnecessary components from videos to reduce their size
…plus many more tips and tricks.
By paying attention to video optimization, you’ll keep your bounce rate low and keep visitors engaged with your site’s content.
Why Slow Load Speeds Should Be Avoided
Slow loading speeds create a snowball effect that leaves visitors irritated and sites looking like a ghost town.
When someone clicks on your website, they expect to see your page fully loaded – and fast. The average person’s attention span is believed to be eight seconds, and you don’t want to waste any of that precious time showing the visitor a page that won’t load.
Sites that load slowly also give the visitor a negative impression of your brand: your site is sloppy, so your products and services must be too.
As a result, visitors will click away before your site is done loading. Your conversion rate will be low, and your bounce rate will be high – these outcomes should be avoided at all costs!
Instead of letting these happen, it’s important to learn about tricks like video optimization. That way, visitors will have a clean, smooth experience when they visit your site – and they’ll be more compelled to support your brand.
Which Video Formats are Best For the Web?
In order to keep your site’s videos running smoothly, you’ll need to think about video formatting. Every video file has a specific type or format. Fortunately, plenty of video software packages often recommend file types based on your goal – in this case, your goal would be web playback or web optimization.
Most site owners post videos that have either MP4 or WebM file types. Both are high-quality, load fast, and look great on mobile.
Optimize From Every Angle!
Your Video Files
You’ve created the perfect video – it tells your brand’s story, it looks great, and every second counts. Your file size still seems too high, though. What should you do?
Your best bet is file compression. There are plenty of tools that allow you to shrink a file’s size without reducing its quality.
We also recommend converting your file to an HTML5 format. This allows you to share video without using a plugin, which will make everything run smoothly and load faster.
Your Pages With Video Content
Make sure that the page that hosts your video is also optimized.
When video pages aren’t optimized well, they often fail to get indexed or crawled, and don’t find their way to eager searchers.
For that reason, you should make sure to place your video on the page strategically. Don’t hide your videos behind buttons or underneath mountains of text. Make your video easy to find, and free from clutter.
We also advise against putting two or more videos on one page. This will dramatically slow your site down – plus, Google only crawls one video per page anyway.
Your Videos’ SEO Aspects
Loading times aren’t the only thing you should pay attention to.
Like every other part of your site, videos can improve your SEO score. This is particularly true when someone’s search indicates that they’re looking for a video (i.e. they’ve typed “how to…” to find a tutorial.)
Here are a few ways to boost your SEO score through video:
Use keywords, as you would with written web content
Fill it in! Title, description, and tags are super important
Use an engaging thumbnail – videos with a thumbnail get 40% more engagement
Add a transcript, both for accessibility and for search purposes
Also avoid posting the same video across multiple pages on your site. If you do that, your pages will have to compete against each other on SERPs, and you’ll only end up hurting your own score.
A great website opens the door to your brand or business. It tells your story and turns visitors into customers. Video marketing offers one of the most effective ways to do that.
In order to market with video effectively, you need to know how to optimize video. With the tips we’ve listed above, you’ll reap these benefits:
Your videos will load quickly, giving your site a smooth user experience
Your bounce rate will stay low, as visitors will stay on your page
Visitors will quickly learn about your brand through your videos, and your conversion rate will skyrocket.
Read More: How Videos Can Add Value To Your Website
