The Little Black Book of Online Business: 1001 Insider Resources Every Business Owner Needs

Chapter 73. Video

With worldwide broadband access approaching 240 million subscribers (see oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband), the addition of video to your site has entered the realm of practicality.

However, since that represents roughly a sixth of total Internet subscribers, you should still design your site such that your low-bandwidth visitors are not excluded.

This means your site should be able to convey your message even if none of the video components are activated, or you should supply low-bandwidth alternatives. Simply reducing the size and bit rate of your video can reduce its download time by a factor of 10.

You should definitely test how video content and bandwidth requirements affect your sales conversion rate.

The first step in adding video to your site is, of course, to produce the video. Depending on the purpose of your video, this can be a live recording or a full-motion screen capture.

For live recordings, the simplest method is to use either a digital camera with a movie mode or a webcam.

SIDE NOTE For professional-quality production, you'll need more sophisticated equipment, including a camera, lighting, and possibly a green screen setup. I refer you to Perry Lawrence at www.askmrvideo.com for those kinds of questions.

See "Screen Capture" for full-motion screen capture resources.