Certain elements of video search engine optimization need to be tackled up front regardless of how many videos are included on your website. These VSEO elements must be completed for a single video or a hundred.

Additionally, it’s important to work through these various steps in their proper order before your site and its videos are submitted to the search engines for indexing.

The heavy lifting, however, is really done one page at a time. Each page that contains video must be properly coded so the search engine will “discover” the video when it attempts to index the video.

In other words, once you submit the site for indexing, the search engine crawlers (bots) will scour your site looking for the videos. Certain code must be present on the page to assist the bots in locating your video. Once the bot locates the video it can be added to the index.

This is where much of the work of VSEO is perfomed. Page by page. Creating the proper code needed to assist the search engines in locating the video.

The good news is standard search engine optimization (SEO) work can be performed at the same time. This usually reduces the costs associated with the SEO process.

If you are considering an SEO project for your site, you should consider having the VSEO work performed first. This can help to reduce your overall costs and speed your project to completion a bit faster.

This is one of the issues that frequently arise when clients view their video. Part of it is an east-coast, west-coast sort of thing. Easterners are more likely to gesture while talking. On the west-coast, not so much. Westerners tend to be a little more laid back. Having lived on both coasts I can attest there is a real difference in styles of communication.

So, what’s a virtual spokesperson to do?

The first rule is don’t distract from the message. Let’s face it. If people are watching the gestures of your video spokesperson, you got problems. Hopefully viewers will be so totally engaged in the message they won’t see the virtual spokesperson windmilling their way through the presentation.

Eye-tracking studies show that online users focus on the face of the speaker almost to the exclusion of everything else on the screen. And, usually, just about everything else on the screen is a distraction from the message. Gestures, too, can be a distraction.

On the other hand, simple and relaxed gestures can help to sell the message. It’s perfectly alright for the virtual spokesperson to accent the presentation with hand gestures. If they appear natural, fine.

Our advice is, generally, go with the actor. Select the actor for the various tangible and intangible qualities that make sense for your business and your message. Let the actor carry the message with or without gestures. Trust the actor and the director to deliver the best performance.

Some actors do a better job of integrating “natural” gestures into their performance than other actors. Some actors struggle with gestures because they don’t feel natural to the actor.

Try this experiment. Watch the actor as he/she was shot…with the arms and hands in full view. Then use a sheet of paper to cover the actor from the shoulders down and watch the video again. How did you feel about the presentation? Did the gestures sell the message? Or did they distract?

Likely you felt neutral about the gestures. Hopefully you were engaged in the message and not the delivery.

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It has a lot to do with social media. Our real selves are laid bare on Facebook and Google+ and other social media sites. It’s tough not to be ourselves on the Internet. The audience today can spot of fake more quickly than 20 years ago. That’s a good thing. It also posses a challenge when selecting your video spokesperson.

iSpeakVideo clients select a video spokesperson from our roster of nearly 100 actors. Many of them are very talented actors. Being a talented actor, however, is different from being a talented spokesperson. And the talented spokesperson who may work exceptionally well for one site or campaign may not do as well for a website in a different industry or with a different image.

So, when faced with 100 choices how do you select one that is authentic?

Often clients fall into the trap of selecting a video spokesperson that presents the image they think people want to see, rather than selecting a video spokesperson that reflects the authentic nature of their company or enterprise.

Every company has it’s own personality. Think Apple versus Microsoft. Ford versus Audi.

Your video spokesperson, to be accepted as authentic, must reflect your company’s personality.

A janitorial service my present a highly polished presentation to prospective clients that mirrors their focus on the details. Your virtual spokesperson should reflect that style. A law firm my present a style that is more relaxed and personal; perhaps reflecting the personal nature of its counsel. Then your spokesperson should reflect that style.

The style of your video spokesperson must reflect the true style of your company or ultimately your spokesperson will be viewed as unauthentic. Avoid falling back on the stereotypical image of your profession or industry.

Online users will judge your company or business by the totality of its online image; social media interaction, blogging, web design. If your video spokesperson’s style runs counter to the totality of your online image, the audience will see through the effort.

Early in my career, I had the good fortune of studying at a professional scriptwriting program at UCLA. One of the keys to good scriptwriting, I learned, is creating an “authentic voice.” An authentic voice is one that sounds and feels real.

Often we receive scripts from clients so thick with industry-speak that it sounds like it was written by a thesaurus for a dictionary. The need to stuff as much industry jargon as possible in the presentation strips the conversation of any authentic voice.

This is jargon used in the trade. Buzzwords. If you’re in the biz (whatever biz it happens to be) you know the buzzwords and probably use them to communicate with associates and vendors. Prospective clients, however, may not know, or care, about the jargon and it will likely get in the way of good communication.

The tech world is full of jargon. One of my favorites is MFD, which means “multi-function device.”  So, we use an acronym to describe a bit of jargon which needs further explanation.

Trade jargon is only one of the impediments to plain speaking. The other is the platitude.

The marketing department is often home to most platitudes. They are the staple of ads on television and radio. “Our service will exceed your expectations.” Really? “Our prices are very competitive.” And my favorite. “We are the best in the industry.”

And, of course, you can combine the trade jargon and the platitude; “Our MFD is the best on the market.” Ouch.

So, what to do. First, keep it simple. An MFD isn’t a multi-function device. To the average listener, it’s a printer-copier. (One device providing multiple services or functions.) Strip out the trade jargon and keep it simple. The exception to the rule is when you are speaking to a trade audience who likewise uses the jargon.

For example, a client providing services to attorneys, spoke of their fast turnaround on “translation of foreign language depos” — “depos” in the legal trade means depositions. Attorneys will understand this shorthand. Mere mortals will not.
Secondly, be specific and avoid platitudes. “We have the lowest prices.” becomes “Our prices are 40% below the industry average.” The specific example or fact replaces the trite and overused slogan. The fact is interesting and stimulating. The trite slogan is boring and will be ignored.

And, of course, edit. Edit. And edit some more. Cut to the chase and make it authentic. If you need help, just ask, we have the best cutters in the industry

Most of the video was standard marketing fare with the usual claims. It was generally persuasive and had the requisite call-to-action. But it was four minutes.  

We trimmed and cut and restructured the presentation down to a minute and fifteen seconds. All the key points were covered and the call-to-action was more direct.

The client balked because the script was only a minute. The client argued the product was expensive and the presentation had to be longer to be effective. (Mind you the price was never mentioned in the introduction.)

It’s an argument we hear from time-to-time. To be effective it has to be longer. Our response is usually the same. To be effective it has to be relevant.

Relevance is the key. After about thirty seconds the viewer will switch off the video if its not relevant. The longer the piece the greater the commitment required of the viewer. And if the subject is not relevant to the viewer they won’t make the commitment.

What is relevance? Basically the video has to answer the question(s) bouncing around the viewers brain. They clicked on the video for a particular reason…to answer a particular question. Will this help me? What will it cost? How do I use it?

Every time someone clicks on a video they are looking for an answer. Even if they click on a video about dancing kittens they are seeking answers. Will I like this? Will it be funny?

When the video has answered all the questions or when the user no longer believes the video will answer his/her questions, the video becomes irrelevant and the user clicks off. It’s just about that simple.

If you can deliver your message and your call-to-action in one minute, do it in a minute. If it takes three minutes, fine. But the longer you take to get to the call-to-action the greater the risk the user will find your message irrelevant and click off before the call-to-action.

Be relevant or be gone.

This exchange always begins with a conversation.

The buyer and seller engage in some form of conversation before the transaction is made.

The conversation grows in importance as the size of the exchange grows. The larger the transaction the more important and extended the conversation will be before the exchange is completed.

This gives us the first immutable law of conversion.

The size of the conversation between buyer and seller that precedes the transaction is in direct proportion to the size of the transaction itself.

Every commercial transaction has a conversation that is relative to the size of the transaction. This holds across the Internet and is true for every type of product and service.

Consider these two obvious examples.

You go online to download a song for 99¢. You have a conversation. It’s short and direct. You type in the name of the song. You check the listing for the name of the band. You click to sample the song. You verify the price. You make the purchase. The conversation is short, but you do, in fact, have a conversation.

Now go online to reserve a hotel room for a convention. You go to your favorite site and check availability of hotels near the convention. Is this hotel closest? Is it clean and safe? Is the price right? Can I get it for less? What if I change my mind? You might even check more than one site online. Finally you make the purchase. The hotel conversation is longer and more involved.

The 99¢ song download and $200 hotel room both require a conversation prior to the transaction. The risk associated with the song download (and consequently the time invested) is minimal, so is the conversation.

The hotel room purchase is a much larger (in dollar terms) than the song download so the conversation is larger.

The size of the conversation is relative to the size of the transaction.

Knowing this first law of conversion, allows you to approach your conversions from a different perspective. And likely, to be more successful at closing on your conversions.

Rather than viewing your conversion as the end target, view conversion as a process. Think about the type of conversation you must have with the potential buyer. How will you shape and direct this conversation? How involved or comprehensive will this conversation be?

Think of this process as a conversation and you will win not only a conversion but a new client, customer, or patient. Listen to them and treat them well and you might have a client for life

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Well, that depends. The talented founder is probably talented in many ways. Most successful entrepreneurs are. They have to be. But that talent may not extend to on-camera work. The question of “Owner Versus Professional Spokesperson” however goes beyond the simple issue of on-screen talent.

We’ve seen many owners or senior executives who had the ability to be the front man or woman. This can work because it provides a sense of authenticity and customer connection that you don’t always get with a spokesperson.

With a small company, heavily identified with the owner, this may be useful. For example, in the case of a service firm providing support to the local community, having the owner present may help to forge better connections with the community.

On the other hand, if your company is small but growing, having a professional spokesperson can add a bit of depth to the company.

While many owners are “okay” on screen, “okay” doesn’t really cut it. A stilted performance, or worse, can work against the very message of competency and professionalism you are trying to instill with a video.

A “bad” performance doesn’t have to be glaringly bad to miss the mark. There are subtleties that a good performance drives home. These are the intangibles that the camera captures.

We once did a very expensive shoot for a client with the President and founder of the company. He was a sales guy; very personable and outgoing. On camera he was terrible. Stiff. The shoot was a bust. We had to tell the client not to use the video.

There are ways to shoot an owner or senior executive that makes their performance natural and comfortable. These can be used in presentation videos or other projects where the performance is edited along with graphics, images, and background music.

For example, an owner might do a product demonstration video. This provides the authenticity of having the founder in the video, but the format (edited with images) can soften the presentation and have a greater chance of success.
One other consideration is cost. Dragging the owner into the studio every time an update is needed can get expensive and time consuming. Studio expenses are usually higher. If the video is going to be updated with some frequency, use an actor you will save money.

As a general rule, our advice is to use a professional spokesperson. The end result is almost always better. A talented performer can deliver the desired performance regardless of the message and style.

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