Welcome back. Here in Part II of the article series on the concepts you need to know about using videos to enhance your dental or medical website, we are going to discuss what to do with the videos once you have produced them, as well as what NOT to do.
1. Don’t Over-do it! Videos should be used as an adjunct to your existing content, so try to keep the videos as relevant as possible to the topic of the page where they are placed. And unless absolutely necessary, don’t put more than one video on each page.
2. Consider your Audience. Personally speaking, I HATE it when I open a web page and there is audio and video content blasting at me – especially if I just so happen to have had my speakers up for listening to music. The last thing you want to do to a patient or prospective patient, is to startle them with loud audio and video that they may not know how to turn off or pause to adjust the volume. There are some marketers who believe that audio and video should start playing as soon as a patient reaches your page, and I simply disagree. Get the patients to your website, and let you website’s content guide them into adjunct content such as the videos.
3. Do NOT host the videos yourself – use an online service such as YouTube or Vimeo (more about this in Part III of this series).
4. Keep the videos short. Generally speaking you want to keep your videos between 2-5 minutes. If you make the videos too long, the novelty will wear off and the patient will lose interest.
5. Add a written transcript. I’ve written an entire article about this topic, but you should have a written transcript of your videos on the same page whenever possible. Doing so will enhance the SEO of that page, will allow people without video to still access your content, and will let people who simply want to “get to point quickly” read the content.
6. Optimize for Search Engines. Be sure that when you post your videos on your hosting service (again – more in Part III), that you use a descriptive title with keywords, along with a description. I know it’s time consuming, but you need to detail the content as much as possible in order to take full advantage of your videos.
7. be consistent in your branding and your theme. Remember that you are a professional, and while it’s ok to change your video style on occasion, try to stick with one theme or style of video to reflect and reinforce your brand. For example, consider always using the same video theme, fonts, and (SHORT) introduction music, logos and text.
In the final part of this three-part series, I will discuss YouTube and VImeo, and the basics of hosting your dental office videos online.
