5 Ways To Use Video On Your Site And Blog

Video has always been a great way to disseminate information to people. Now, it's more acceptable than ever. Hardware requirements have caught up with the ability for most people to view, and record video and easily post them to their blog and web site. If you are in the business of disseminating information, then you need to consider adding video to your site. If you are an author, videos about your book don't have to be confined to the traditional book trailer. You can record supplemental information, anecdotes, even a Video Blog (VLOG) for your visitors.

But with all the talk of video, you don't want to forget the written text. Some people want to read, not watch, for a variety of valid reasons. Also, the search engines will gobble up the text on your site much easier than the video content, making it easier for people to find your content when they search for it.

If you are interested in adding video content to your site, here are some great resources to consider:

1. Record yourself with a video camera- Most laptops are coming with integrated video cameras built right into the laptop itself. If yours doesn't have one, a quick trip to Wal-Mart or Best Buy can provide a host of inexpensive choices for cameras that plug right into your computer via the USB port.
   
   
2. Record your desktop for tutorial training- A cool way to offer video to people is to walk them through a training tutorial by recording your desktop as you narrate. You can use a program that records a section of your desktop, save it to a common video format, and then post it to the web. Camtasia is the reigning video screen capture software, but at $300 it may be out of your budget. For a free alternative, try the open source CamStudio. You may not have all the editing features of Camtasia, but it will produce a good quality video screen capture.
   
   
3. Check out VLOG BLOG for tips and resources on using video- VLOG BLOG has a nice collection of tips to show you the best way to capture video and post them on the net. Most of the tips are done in video format. It's a site with a lot of resources that you may get lost in, but one that you will be glad to know about when you get into video yourself.
   
   
4. Upload video to sites and share with the world- When you have a video ready, you need a way to share it with people. You can do this in one three ways:
   
   • Upload to your site/blog- You can upload your video to your website or to your blog. You have to have some technical know-how to do this: you can position it where you want it to play, determine how big you want it to appear, etc, but it's definitely doable. If you upload the video to your server, then you will use your monthly allotted bandwidth when people watch your videos. If it becomes popular, then you may be charged more money by your hosting site to continue to make it available. However, most hosting services offer more bandwidth than you will ever use (some plans even offer unlimited bandwidth for next to nothing). Check with your hosting service to see what limits on bandwidth you have.
     
     
   • Uploaded to a video hosting site (see next main point below for examples)- You can share your videos by uploading them to a site like YouTube or Viddler and post the link on your site.
     
     
   • Embed the video on your site- If you upload your video to a place like YouTube or Viddler, you can grab the embed code from their page, place it on your blog or your website, and people can actually view your video on your site while it plays from YouTube or Viddler. This is a great option if you are worrying about bandwidth usage since the video plays on their bandwidth, not yours.
     
5. Upload your video to a video hosting site- As mentioned above, there are sites you can upload your videos to to make them available for others. You can grab the codes from these sites and embed thee videos right on your site as well. And each site has varying degrees of control on how you want your videos to look on your site (player style, video size, do you want to offer related videos when yours is finished playing, etc...). Here is a small list of some of the many sites available for you to upload your videos to:
   
   • YouTube
     
   • Viddler
     
   • Yahoo Video
     
   • PhotoBucket
     
   • MetaCafe
     
   • Wikipedia list of video hosting sites
     
   • Chaos-Laboratory's list of alternative sites to YouTube
     

Hopefully, this can get you started on resources you can use if you want to add video content to your site. Video is a fun, easy, informative and an effective way to share content with your visitors. If you want to see how I use video on my site, check out the sign-up page for my free video marketing tips subscription. At the bottom, there's a link to a free video sample. Enjoy!