3 Examples of Why Your Blog Needs Video

Stop creating the same old blog content with basic text and boring stock images!

As bloggers, we are all familiar with the usual text and images that make up our content. However, as the internet continues to expand and get more creative and advanced everyday, basic text and images will only get you so far.

The important thing to remember is that there are over 300 million blogs in the world today. If you want to stand out from the crowd and create content that simply isn't a waste of time, you need to be original and cater to your audience across all platforms. 

One of the best ways to do this is through the use of online video.

Right behind Google, YouTube is one of the largest search engines in the world, and it generates billions of monthly impressions not only for the videos hosted on their site, but also for the sites and resources these videos may lead to.

In this article I'm going to highlight three effective ways that you can start implementing video into your blog. It doesn't matter if you blog is for fun or profit, personal or business — video is simply one of the best ways to create premium content for your audience that gets attention.

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Create an “About Me” Video

How many times have you visit a blog and wanted to know more about the person or brand behind the site, only to be sent to a long story page that never seems to end and is filled with boring self-gloating information? Probably quite a few times.

What many people are surprised to learn, is that the “About Page” is actually one of the most visited pages on their site. Having a video of yourself speaking to your audience, building that personal relationship and letting people see the real person behind the site is a HUGE value.

To see a great example of how this can be done, head over to John Chow's about page and see how he breaks down his life / business story within the content, but also created special videos to highlight his personal success and testimonials from others as well. It's simply one of the best about me pages in the industry.

If you don't feel you have enough accomplishments or much of a story to highlight in your about me page video, just make a short video on your story, who you are and why you created your site. While you may not think it's a big deal, I'm sure your audience would love it!

Explainer Videos Deliver Your Message Fast

When creating a web site or blog to help your audience solve a problem or giving them a service or product to buy, one of the best ways to get their immediate attention is to offer them an explainer video.

Explainer videos are great because they target your exact audience while giving them an overview of exactly what they are looking for.

This is something I've personally started doing across my sites and a great example of this can be seen at Blogging.org. If you wanted to read through the 3,000+ words of content on the page, great! However, most people don't have time for that, so I had a great explainer video created on what blogging is, why you should have one and how to get started with one of your own today.

The great thing about explainer videos is that they are relevant to nearly every web site, blog or niche out there. When I visit a new service web site for the first time and want a good idea of how their service works, I always look for an explainer video. If they don't have one on their main page, I'll likely end up leaving their site.

Lastly, creating an explainer video does take a decent amount of work. There are software solutions to create your own videos, but it does come with a learning curve. You can see a complete walkthrough of how my explainer video above was outsourced and created here.

Video Makes Your Content Come to Life

Knowledge and data is power. However, not many of us have the time or patience to sit and read through endless data points and resources. While this type of data-rich content may perform well for search rankings and getting more links to your site, it's likely that most of your audience won't stick around to read everything.

For this exact reason, infographics have done extremely well over the years — but this type of content delivery can still be done even better through the use of video.

Here's another example for you.

Designhill.com is an online marketplace for graphic design work and they recently came out with their own white paper on interactive content and how startups can use it to gain more attention. Instead of relying just on their audience downloading the white paper and hoping for the best, Designhill has also been creating infographics and interactive videos to get their data points and message across to new audiences.

After watching the video above, you will soon appreciate how much better video works for delivering your message and keeping the user engaged. If I was to provide you with a document of all these same stats, you would probably be bored after just a few seconds. With engaging video and moving images/data points, it keeps the user engaged as they continue to learn through both visual and listening versus just reading straight text on a site.

How Can Video Improve Your Blog?

Now the question for you is, how can you start using video on your web site or blog? While you may not have a need for an explainer video at the moment, I'm sure all of you could use an “About Me” video. If you already have one in place, excellent — you are already on your way!

Feel free to leave any comments or questions below. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the best about me, explainer and tutorial videos you've seen across different sites!

Additional resources:

• The Ultimate YouTube Tips, Tools and Tutorials Roundup
• 5 Must Have Tools You Need to Get Started on YouTube
• CowboyStudio Photography & Video Portrait Umbrella Continuous Triple Lighting Kit
• 30 Days to a Better YouTube Channel: A practical guide to creating a highly subscribable channel