Online video’s popularity has grown exponentially in a short time, thanks to video sharing sites such as YouTube. The increasing availability of high-speed Internet has also had a hand in making video so popular. Adding it to your home inspection website can greatly enhance your visitors’ experience.

Video can also be a tremendous asset to your website. It’s much easier than you might think to make professional-looking videos to showcase your products and services. Your site visitors can watch these videos at their convenience, and if they like them, they will often recommend them to friends and colleagues. For added exposure, you could make your videos available for embedding with YouTube or another video sharing service.

Here are a Few Ways to Instantly Use Video

Get Testimonials from Your Home Inspection Clients. There are flip cameras you can buy from Staples, Office Depot, or Wal-Mart for about $119 that will allow you to take high quality videos in a snap. After you record it, you slap into your computer’s usb port and it’ll do all the converting for you… Here is an example of a video clip shot with a $99 Small Wonder RCA Camera — A testimonial from a home inspector’s client right after the inspection:

Make informational videos on topics relevant to home inspections. Just go to youtube and type in home inspector and see how many educational related videos show up…. Type in your city, such as Houston Home Inspector and you’ll be surprised at what other inspectors are doing!Take a look at this guy giving a video home inspection tip: click here

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Video Sharing Sites

YouTube has not been around all that long, but it quickly became one of the most popular sites on the Internet. The site makes it easy for anyone to upload videos to share with anyone with a computer who cares to watch them, and it provides viewers with a wealth of entertainment and education opportunities. Sharing your videos on YouTube and other sites definitely has some advantages.

YouTube’s immense popularity can potentially result in lots of people viewing your videos. If they find videos they like, they can embed them onto their own sites or blogs. That will result in an even greater audience, and some of them may choose to embed your video on their sites as well. You can see why some marketers love the idea of video sharing!

There are, however, some disadvantages to putting your videos on sites such as YouTube as well. One of the biggest concerns of marketers is that video sharing doesn’t require users to come to your site to view the videos. That means that while your videos may be wildly popular, they might result in very little traffic to your site. It’s important to give viewers an incentive to visit your site once they are finished watching the video. Alternatively, you can change your videos’ settings so that they can’t be viewed on the YouTube site or embedded elsewhere, but that will limit your viewership.

Another problem with uploading your video to a video sharing site and then embedding it on your site is that it will bear the logo of the video site. In most cases the logo is very unobtrusive, but it can still seem rather unprofessional, particularly on technology-oriented sites.

Embedding Video from Your Own Server

Those who do not like the idea of uploading their videos to sites such as YouTube can upload them to their servers and embed them from there. This gives you more control over your videos. There are, however, some drawbacks to this approach that you should be aware of.

One problem with embedding video from your own server is that it will usually require visitors to have a browser plugin in order to view it. The type of plugin depends on the movie’s file type, but they are usually free to download. The problem with that is that users often simply do not take the time to download plugins. They won’t have the incentive to do so unless they are really interested in the content to be viewed or they feel that they may need the plugin again in the future.

It’s also important to remember that video files are usually very large. Making them available directly from your server can take up valuable file storage space, and it can also drain your bandwidth. When you upload videos to a video sharing site and embed them from there, you use that site’s storage space and bandwidth.

Whether you should upload video to a video sharing site and embed from there or keep it on your own server depends on several factors. If you don’t mind having another website’s name pasted on your videos and don’t want to overtax your server, video sharing could be the best option. But if you want to ensure that users have to come to your site to see your videos and prefer not to provide free advertising for a video sharing site, hosting your own videos might be the best way to go.

The Don’ts of Audio and Video

Using audio and video on your site can greatly enhance your visitors’ experience. It gives them alternative ways to receive information and makes your site more interesting. But it is important not to push these mediums on your visitors, because it may actually be a turnoff for some. Here are some things to look out for:

* Try to avoid using audio or video that automatically starts when a visitor arrives at your site. Most people want the power to choose when they watch video or listen to audio on the web, and if that is taken away, it could leave a bad taste in their mouths.

* If you’re embedding videos, don’t put too many on any one page. This can cause slow load times, and possibly even browser crashes, for users who do not have the fastest connections or the newest computers.

* Don’t take a “one size fits all” approach. If you’re streaming audio or video, offer options for those with slower connections alongside the standard options.

* Don’t forget to seek input from your website’s visitors. If you’re considering audio or video but have not implemented them yet, consider doing a user survey to find out how they would like to see it used. If you are already utilizing audio and video, ask them if they feel you are using it in the best way possible. You’re providing these things for the benefit of your users, so it’s crucial to make sure that they are in fact benefiting from them.

It’s important not to alienate anyone through your use of audio and video. The idea is to give your users more options, not to make things more complex or decrease usability. Keep in mind that there are still a large number of Internet users who are accessing the web through dial-up connections.

Why Bother With Text When You Can Use Audio and Video?

With all of the possibilities that audio and video have to offer, one might think that plain old text would be outdated. But even though these things add a great deal to the Internet, there still is, and probably always will be, a place for the written word.

The World Wide Web was founded on text. And while text is no longer the only thing you can find online, it is still what the Internet is based on. It’s what the search engines use to determine whether a page is relevant for a given keyword, and it’s what people want when they are seeking information that they can share easily.

Text is currently the only medium that allows for easy searching. This is not only important to the search engines, but also for the average user. This may change in the future, but currently you can’t type in a search term and skip to each instance of it on an online video or audio recording. But if you’re on a web page and need to find a specific word or words, you can simply use your browser’s search function to go directly to it.

It’s also important to consider that there are people who use text-only browsers to access the Internet. Those who are blind often use browsers that read the text on a page aloud, and if there is not sufficient text to describe what the page is about, they may seek information elsewhere. In addition to this, there are users who do not have sound cards or speakers, rendering audio useless and video usable but silent.

There are many things online that need to be presented as text. Doing them any other way just doesn’t make sense. For example, you probably wouldn’t want to access your bank account information as an audio file. And you might not benefit very much from your digital camera user guide being presented in video form, although videos showing specific picture taking and maintenance techniques might be helpful.

Text is still an important part of any web page. Audio and video can great assets to your website, but in most cases they shouldn’t completely replace your text. Text is still favored by many Internet users, and it gives the search engines more to go on when they index your site.

Text Can Be Portable, Too

Online audio and video are becoming easier and easier to take wherever you go. They can be downloaded to watch later on your computer, or you can put them on portable audio and video players. But text doesn’t have to be bound to the Internet or computer screen either.

When people find information that is valuable to them online, they often want to save a copy of it for later reference. They can bookmark the web page, but subsequent changes may move or eliminate the information they want. They can save the page in question to their hard drives, but few people do. Making it easy for your site visitors to take your words with them is good for business.

Here are some ways to accomplish that:

* Offer printer-friendly versions of popular pages. Your site design may cause pages to print out poorly, especially if you use frames. Making it easy for users to print pages that look like they should will allow them to easily archive information for future reference.

* Consider putting certain information in PDF format. This is the file format that is often used for ebooks and brochures, and it provides easy readability. It prints out nicely if your users want a hard copy. And there are now portable ebook readers on the market that allow one to save his ebooks and other PDF files and take them with him wherever he goes.

* Provide options for mobile web users. A growing number of people access the Internet through cell phones or PDAs, and text messaging is very popular as well. While it’s not practical for some webmasters to bother with this, it is worthwhile for some to set up mobile web pages or text alert systems. If your website offers up-to-date information such as news, weather, or account information, your users could benefit from mobile options.

The many recent innovations that utilize text indicate that it is still a medium that should not be ignored. While it may not have the potential for personality of audio or be as visually stimulating as video, it is easy to transfer and doesn’t require any special software to use.

Audio and Video Should Complement Text, Not Replace It

One of the most important things to realize about audio and video is that at this point, they often don’t translate into money as quickly as text can. Utilizing audio and video is more about making a name for yourself and building your brand than immediate monetary gratification. It helps generate traffic to your website and boosts your business’s image.

This is another reason why text is so vitally important on any website. Audio and video can enhance a website or sales letter, and they can go a long way toward convincing a visitor to become a customer or client. But ultimately, it is usually text that seals the deal. At the very least, text is the most effective way to instruct visitors on how to order or sign up.

Audio, video and text can work together to make your website nice to look at and listen to, as well as highly functional. Each medium appeals to visitors in its own unique way. Taking advantage of the multimedia opportunities available online can boost your site’s popularity while making it more useful.

I hope the information here has been helpful. If you have questions or comments, feel free to post below to discuss!