Lacking any information to the contrary, many businesses still think that all they need to do to get new clients is to put their name and face in the Yellow Pages or online social directories, get some professional looking business cards, a website and Voila! It’s the old adage build it and they will come.

Trouble is, that’s what their competitors are doing also and in this day and age, it’s just not enough.

Does Your Business Stand Out Online?

Most advertising on the Web follows a time-honored format, although some might call it a time-worn format as it does little to differentiate itself. You can bet that a high percentage of this advertising will be ignored and the money spent on it will be wasted.

So how does a company stand out from the crowd online?

Thanks to an oversupply of similar text, claims, and presentation coupled with a short 21st century attention span your website has less than ten seconds to move a visitor to action. If it doesn’t, that visitor will click away to another site, and then another. Therefore, it’s critical that you find a way to break through the noise your competitors are making. But even that’s not enough.

Statistics show that even the best-looking websites generate conversion rates of under one percent, so for every 100 visitors you do manage to get, less than one will call or email you. Sound bleak? Thinking of redirecting more of your advertising budget back to the Yellow Pages? Don’t. You’re on the right track you just haven’t leveraged all the power available to you online.

One-to-Many Communication. On-on-One Feel.

Most websites are little more than electronic versions of Yellow Page advertising. For the most part, they don’t encourage interaction beyond the obligatory “Contact me for more information” plea. These sites don’t encourage trust any more than their print counterparts. They don’t give visitors the warm-and-fuzzy feeling that a face-to-face meeting would. But they can.

Searching for a local service provider online can be a daunting prospect, but even more daunting than the search is deciding which provider to use once you get to the page, especially since most websites promise the standard good service, competitive pricing and high quality.

So how does a business differentiate itself from the sea of competition? Web video makes this possible on a grand scale. Thanks to rapidly improving technology, it’s easier than ever to add that warm-and-fuzzy, face-to-face element to your site, replicate an in-person interview, and offer your visitors an opportunity to check you out before picking up the phone. With Web video, you can present an interview that addresses all the questions and concerns of potential clients. You can keep them on your site longer and give them insight into the “business behind the business.” In a way that wasn’t possible even a few years ago, business owners can now speak directly to their audiences and showcase their personalities and areas of expertise. This is especially helpful if you are a professional service provider.

Any business that relies on conveying trust-ability will benefit from this type of web marketing. Really, it’s one-to-many communication with a one-on-one feel. It’s the perfect ice breaker and an efficient means of generating the interest and trust needed to compel potential clients to make an appointment and do business.

A high-quality Web interview placed strategically on your site is a huge timesaver for you and prospective clients because you reach a wide audience in minimal time. Potential clients get the information they need to pre-qualify and pre-sell themselves before they call.

Online video delivers some of the best ROI of any advertising medium today and if set up properly, actually ranks higher than text now by the major search engines like Google. Short of spending valuable face time with a potential client (often times a poorly qualified potential client) there is simply no better way to forge a personal connection with them. With that in mind, here are 10 tips to help you get the most of your online video marketing efforts.

10 Tips for Making the Most of Online Video

1. Make Sure Your Video is Professionally Done.

This is an absolute must. The whole point here is to establish credibility and trust, but you’ll do the opposite with a poorly executed and produced video. Yes, many of the videos you find on sharing sites are mediocre at best, but that is changing rapidly as companies begin to see the value of promoting themselves in this manner. In fact, a recent Permission TV survey found that 67% of 400 hundred top executives intended to focus their online marketing efforts on video in 2009. The rush is coming find a personable, engaging interviewer and a top notch production crew to really stand out.

2. Submit Your Video to as Many Outlets as Possible.

While YouTube is the clear leader here, there are many other video sharing sites worthy of consideration. Here are some others you won’t want to pass up:

• Google Video • Yahoo! Video • Daily Motion • MySpaceTV

• MetaCafe • Revver • Veoh • Blinkx • Break

3. Embed Your Video on the Front Page of Your Site.

Don’t hide what’s going to become one of your most effective selling tools on a dusty inside page. Get it out front. Customers and search engines will love you for it.

4. Find Out What Search Terms Your Potential Clients are Using

and Put Them in Your Video’s Title.

If you don’t know what words clients in need of your services are typing into Google and other search engines, get professional help or use some of the resources featured on this page. Once you’ve identified these terms, use the most popular in your video’s title.

5. Make Your Tags and Descriptions SEO-friendly, too.

Most video sharing sites let you tag videos with keywords and post a short description, so get the most out of these by sprinkling in the search terms you’ve identified.

6. Don’t Forget Your Thumbnail.

A thumbnail is a still shot from your video that appears along with search results. Don’t waste this opportunity to present yourself in the best light possible – choose a key moment from your video, preferably one where you’re smiling as you speak with your interviewer.

7. Link Back to Your Site.

Put your URL near the top of your video’s description. You’ll get a higher search ranking and potential clients will quickly learn where to go for more information.

8. Interact With Your Viewers.

Most video sharing sites allow viewer comments. Use this opportunity to answer questions, respond to comments, and further promote your business.

9. Consider a Pay-Per-Click Campaign.

Natural search engine optimization, while effective, takes time to bear fruit. In the meantime, you might want to jump start the process with a pay-per-click campaign that gives you a sponsored search listing. You can learn more about PPC advertising at:

• www.google.com/intl/en/ads

• sem.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/searchenginemarketing

• advertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising

10. Add New Content Often.

Search engines look for it and so do potential clients. Keep your content fresh and up-to-date and keep visitors coming back for more.

With an ever-increasing stream of competition, it’s more important than ever to stand out from the crowd. These days standing out means maximizing your online presence and leveraging the technology to present the unique advantages of you and your firm. There’s no better way for a growth-oriented business to build a solid and secure future than by using effective and affordable online video.

Use these free resources to get a handle on the terms that potential clients are using to search for you right now.

• Wordtracker • Google AdWords • Keyword Discovery • KwMap • Google Trends

——————————————————————————–

Diana D’Itri is co-owner of IDR, LLC, a media production and marketing company. Since 2002, Diana has helped business professionals all over the U.S. to differentiate themselves from their competition and increase web conversions through online and cable television broadcasting. www.idrbroadcasting.com

 5 Powerful Reasons WHY Niche Content Sites Are Being Considered The Way To Go In 2006
This article explains the importance of Niche Content Sites, how to profit from them, and 5 powerful reasons WHY you should get started with them in 2006. "Content Is King"... and will remain 'King' for as long as the Internet exists and is for this very reason WHY you'd be smart to build a network of these sites for yourself to profit from for years to come.Let me ask you this... "What do most people go online for?"If you said "INFORMATION" - then you are absolutely right.And besides, that....

 Secrets to Affiliate Millionaires – 5 Affiliate Marketing Strategies for Your Success » Video Tutorial
There are so many approaches and affiliate marketing strategies to run the successful affiliate marketing business. Within this article, you will discover and learn how to start, build, run and grow your affiliate marketing business for your success with low cost. With those strategies and steps, you are in the great position to success in affiliate marketing business with limited budget. Many studies show that there are a lot of free affiliate marketing strategies on the internet. However, the problem of most new affiliate marketing entrepreneurs who have a limited budget is that they....

 A Clear Path For Starting Your Own Online Marketing Business
Finally, you will understand clearly the steps you need to take to create and grow your own highly profitable online business. If you are frustrated, swamped under a mountain of information and just want plain answers, then here are the exact steps you need to follow right now. There are thousands of e-books, seminars, info-packs, coaching programs and guru's offering great programs to teach you how to start and grow your own online....

 Blogs Can Boost Your Online Business Income : Video Tutorial
WHY BLOGS CAN BOOST YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS INCOME Its been quite a long while since the creation of blogs. Now, if you've been actively surfing the web, you should realized that the numbers of blogs are increasing drastically. Many sites that you've surfed are blogs. Did you wonder why is it that so many people are using blogs as their official site or platform for their business? If you have a blog for whatever purposes, then you will know that blog is a very easy to create kind of website, and search engines like them.....

 Online Piracy
Online piracy has developed along with technological advancements. The increasing broadband speed available to home user at low price and the development of new software had brought online downloading to a whole new level of high speed and superb quality. As we all knew that internet piracy had grow enormously from the past few years, this trend had to be stopped and people have to be aware that pirating online or downloading pirated....

 The Truth of guaranteed sign ups
I've got a confession to make... I have been into guaranteed sign ups business for a long time but I realised many people do not know how sign ups really work. In short, there is two ways: The correct way and the incorrect way. :) If you want to know how guaranteed sign ups work, here's how it works. First the incorrect way: There is a company that "hires" over thousand of people as their member and they are all "PAID TO SIGN UP". In short, this company pays $0.10 to $0.15....

 Top Internet Marketing Techniques
by Edward Rizzo The Internet offers many means of affordable marketing, often with full-color imagery to go along with text. And multimedia components add some spice to the mix and increase online visitors and purchases. Here are some top Internet marketing techniques to help increase your sales and income. 1. DIRECTORY - Create your own directory on a specific industry topic, placing your own ad or banner along the top. Then invite others to add their website links via a link exchange program, listing themselves in your directory. This will result in lots of free advertising for you as your directory....

 How Can I ‘Really’ Make Money Online?
This is the age old question. Funny to think that anything about the internet could be 'age old' but here it is. Ever since there was an internet for us all to use, people have been trying to profit from it. Many people have succeed, many are still trying. There are plenty of scams out there promising you instant riches for only $137. The seller of this scam will show you proof that his method works by revealing his bank account. Of course this works for him, he's selling the scam. His bank account is not proof that his ideas will....

 Great Tips on How to Make Your Website
I believe computers are the greatest thing ever! Dont you just love all the things you can do with a PC or a MAC? And what matters so much is not what they can accomplish but that they can accomplish it from our homes. I simply love the fact that I dont have to go out to a secret government agency just because I want to get access to a computer. Today all it takes is a few hundred dollar desktop PCs and an Internet connection. There are many things you can do online and you can even make your....

 Nobody Signing up for your Newsletter?
Question: Why is nobody signing up for my newsletter? I know that's where the money is, but I just can't get anyone to sign up. What can I do? Signed – Yoo hoo… Anyone there? Dear Yoo hoo… Anyone there? Please don't feel badly. I actually get this question a lot in my consulting business. It's a very common problem and, fortunately, one that you can start improving today. Here is the short version of the checklist I go through with clients when examining ways to fix this problem. 1. Where do I sign up? The first thing I do when I'm helping a client....

 Donald Trump is the hottest brand on the planet but not in internet biz-opportunity market!
What a luck he doesn´t operate in internet biz opportunity market. If he would, we others would have no chance. His mega brand would have eaten us all! Why I picked Donald Trump as an example is, that he has done an excellent job in brand building. Trump needs his brand in order to be able to market his many businesses, among other things his Atlantic City Casinos. He has learnt, that the famous....

 How to find Readers for a Business Blog
Later today I’m speaking to a couple of groups of business people about the power of blogging and social media to help market a business. One of the question I’ve already been told to prepare a question for is - How do you find Readers for a blog? The question is of course one of the most common ones that I get and the answer is far more complex than I could possibly answer while on a 45 minute panel - there are a myriad of techniques for growing a blog’s readership (I’ll link to some posts I’ve written on that topic....

 Is an E-Commerce Solution Right For Me?
This article examines how useful an online e-commerce solution would be o your business, what alternatives there are and exactly what is usually included in such a package. By the end of the article you should be a little more confident on making this decision for your business and a little more informed next time you speak to an affordable web design company representative. The rapid growth and popularity of the internet has seen many businesses not only grow and strengthen online but be completely developed from nothing. There are millions of potential customers waiting online no matter what your field and tapping that vast market becomes....

 Keep Them Coming Back – Update Your Site
Them Coming Back - Update Your Site by: Richard Lowe, Jr.If you are anything like me, your website is a reflection of yourself. It contains your thoughts and communications, exposed to the entire world at all times. Look at virtually any non-commercial web site and you will get a glimpse at the person behind the monitor. I look at web sites all day long, and I am constantly amazed by the things that people reveal about themselves without saying anything. Is the website well organized or just a jumble of images and text thrown up at a moments notice? Is the....

 How I submitted my internet marketing articles to only 20 sites but within no time 16,000 other high traffic websites had also posted them
There is no internet marketing chore that I enjoy more than doing a regular google search to check the viral effect and progress of my online marketing articles. Within a recent short period I saw the number of websites where my articles are listed grow by a staggering 16,000.The full implications of this is that without me lifting a finger 16,000 more websites, blogs and their pages, with search engine prominence, now contain my articles. This means that even if just one person in the entire month reads only one of my articles in....

Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.problogtips.com/10-tips-to-grow-your-business-using-online-video/3111/trackback/

Posted by Jaron in the catagory of... Video Blog Posts

No Trackbacks »