More and more often, bloggers are diversifying their blogs these days by adding video posts and by looking to incorporate other forms of streaming media. They do this in order to switch things up, make their blog more varied and sophisticated, and to better appeal to advertisers, many of whom see embedded video advertising as an important online marketing frontier.
But many of these bloggers are too quickly making the jump into video blogging without first taking some of the medium’s unique considerations to heart. If you are one such blogger, or if you are thinking about diversifying and adding video in the near future, you’re going to want to avoid the major mistakes made by people in your situation. Here are a few of the key ones:
Not Knowing Your Audience
When it comes to building a successful blog, the audience is always the most important element of the equation. It is your readership, after all, that drives page rank, clicks through your site, brings in more advertisers, and generally allows you to share your content with the outside world. The audience should be considered when it comes to any decision made on your blog, and the addition of video is no exception. Ask yourself: would your audience appreciate video or are they a more text-friendly crowd? Would video enhance their visit experience and allow your content to be delivered clearly? Can video attract more viewers in your target demographic? If your answers to these questions are not bullish on the addition of video, you probably want to explore other options for the time being.
Not Considering SEO
Many bloggers will add video to their sites without maximizing the SEO benefits of doing so. This is an unfortunate oversight. To avoid making this mistake, look to create text keywords and video archives that can increase click-throughs and boost page rank results. Since Google’s web-crawling bot cannot watch videos, it is important to tag your videos with descriptive keywords that can be used by search engines. Then, make a dedicated section of your site for storing and collecting all your video posts; this will, hopefully, increase sophistication and click-throughs. Finally, don’t forget to embed all your videos – you don’t want viewers to immediately leave your site and watch your post on YouTube.
Not Being Professional
Professionalism is a key in almost every business, and it is a good policy to keep in mind when venturing into video blogging. While the nature of your blog and your viewers may allow you to dress and speak casually in your video blogs, it is always important to insure appropriate background lighting and sound quality. You wouldn’t want your audience to be frustrated by their viewing experience and less convinced of your credibility after witnessing a lack of professionalism.
Hopefully this can help you avoid three of the biggest mistakes made by novice video bloggers. While video blogging offers great potential benefits for many sites, it is nevertheless a move that should be made with a knowledgeable approach in mind.