Getting More Juice From Your Online Videos - Part 1

As difficult as the COVID-19 pandemic has been, there's no denying that we've all learned a few things that we won't un-learn after the chaos calms down and life gets back to normal. For example almost anything you want to purchase can be shipped or delivered. Many people have broken their cabin fever by taking long walks, which is great for physical and mental health. And we're all a lot more comfortable with virtual communications, especially on Zoom, so expect a lot more working from home and a lot less unnecessary commuting.

A specific trend we've seen is small business owners and entrepreneurs embracing their roles as "content creators," holding live interview-style events and recording them on Zoom (or Facebook Live, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc.). It's a great way to boost your messaging and build your brand as an authority in your field, especially if you do it on a regular schedule and start to  build an audience. 

Too often, though, content creators don't leverage this marketing asset to its fullest. They simply host the event, record the video, post it on their website, and push it out through social media. In my opinion, that's like buying an expensive smartphone and then only using it to... well, make phone calls. Whether you only use it to make calls or have a hundred apps loaded onto it  (a few of which you actually use), the phone costs the same.

With videos, one of the missed opportunities I see all the time is that the content creator never has the video transcribed. If you have a transcription, you can post it on your website, which benefits you in a couple of important ways. First, it gives the user the option to read it instead of watching the video, which they may prefer if they're sitting in a cubicle and don't want everyone within earshot to know they're watching a video.

​Second, the transcription is relevant written content that the Google algorithm just loves. So if your business relies on traffic to your website to generate leads or online sales, posting the written transcription will help boost your rankings. And if you're doing it frequently, even better because fresh content is always great for your SEO.

Getting a written transcript can actually be done for free, if you're willing to spend some time on it. You can even get a head start for free by uploading the video to YouTube, which then posts a machine-generated transcript you can use, although it will need quite a bit of cleaning up.

A better option would be to purchase a transcription through an online service, which are inexpensive and easy to find on Google. For about a dollar per minute, you upload the video or provide the URL where it lives, and within a few days, it's done. Once you have it, simply post it to your site, preferably with the video (or a link to the video), and you can feel great that you've taken full advantage of the video you created.

Part 2: Follow Along As I Put This Strategy To Work (Coming Wednesday)

---