Everyday people are using the Internet to research products, services and business before they buy, and search engines give priority to websites which contain video.

So your website could get a lot more hits, and visitors often stay much longer, if you have engaging video content.

It might surprise you to learn Google-owned Youtube is the second most popular search engine on the internet today, after Google itself.

Not only that, websites with video content are far more likely to have inbound links from other websites, blogs and social media.

The other big benefit is what’s known in the sales game as ‘conversion’ – turning and enquiry into a sale.

Storytelling through video

Before you pull out your iPhone and start shooting though, you need to consider a few things:

• What is the story you’re trying to tell?

• How will the video be paced (start, middle, end)?

• Who will present the video (actor, business owner, narrator)?

• What’s your budget?

The cost of video

Commercial videos are a bit like cars – sure, you can buy one for $500, but you can also buy one for $1,000,000, and most people would agree you get poor value for money at both ends of the spectrum – the cheap car isn’t worth the hassle, the million-dollar car won’t repay the return on investment.

With video you need to consider turning your story into some form of script, which can then be built into a shot list of video, graphics and photos.

Then it’s time to do the actual shoot before time in the edit suite puts it all together into a final product which should be engaging, entertaining and informative.

Image | A Ducati XDiavel in the Adrenalin Images Studio for a video shoot