We all know that images are more likely to be clicked on and convert, but a video is even more powerful. Video only has benefits: It's great for SEO, it increases conversions and most importantly, it builds trust between retailers and consumers.
As the internet has become faster and its reach has widened, more and more consumers have turned to videos as a way of checking out products and making informed choices. Videos are almost vital tools for owners of e-commerce websites because they allow potential customers to get a better insight into the benefits of a product and so increase conversion rates. Quality video and site images used together have been shown to increase cart size by an impressive 174%.
1. Videos tell a detailed story in a few seconds and increases conversions
While there was once a time when producing good content involved large and expensive cameras and powerful editing suites, advancements in technology now mean HD-quality clips can be produced at low cost and sites such as YouTube can be used for free hosting. Product videos on product pages are the obvious place to start. But don't risk a bad experience, it is worth investing in quality videos that people will share. This doesn't have to be expensive and should increase conversion rates.
Zappos uses videos on a huge number of its product pages and found sales increased by between 6 and 30% for products that included video demos.
2. The SEO scoop on video
YouTube is, of course, a huge search engine to get found on so it's important to build awareness there with exclusive YouTube content. YouTube has even changed the way it ranks videos on its own site, with those which are viewed for longer given priority of those which might have a lot of views but have a high bounce rate from a SERP perspective, hosting video content on your own site will increase both your rankings and your conversions. There are three reasons why:
- Time on site: The more time consumers are on your site, the better for SEO. On average, consumers spend two minutes longer on retail sites with video.
- Repeat visitors: When users come back to your e-commerce store, it shows search engines that your site contains valuable information. Consumers are 45 percent more likely to return to websites with product videos.
- Social sharing: Social sharing is important for SEO, and videos are more likely to get shared than text or images. Invodo found, 52 percent of consumers said they shared a product video within the last three months, and over 20 percent had shared 5 or more times.
3. Effective videos will reduce returns
As all e-commerce retailers know, offering free, or cut-price returns is one of the only ways to compete with e-commerce giants like Amazon. To counteract against the hefty price of offering returns, clear product demonstrations, especially for apparel retailers, can help this. Net A Porter use videos in almost all their products and have reduced their return rate.
In an age where people are looking for content to share, it is quite easy to get your video out there to a wide audience and studies have proven that people are more likely to click a video link on their timeline than one that leads to a text-based web page.
