When it comes to video content on landing pages, marketers tend to either totally crush it, or completely bomb.

Your landing page videos may fail for several reasons.

Typically, this is because the videos on landing pages are:

Too long.

On the wrong section of the landing page.

Missing a key component (like a call-to-action).

Don’t make these same mistakes!

This article will explain why landing page videos are so important, and share 11 landing page video best practices that will help increase conversions.

Why You Need a Landing Page Video

Ten years ago, having a landing page video was a high-end novelty.

In 2018, there’s no doubt having a landing page video means increasing your chance of converting.

In fact, having a landing page video can increase conversions by 80 percent (if you do it right).

According to a 2017 HubSpot survey, more than half of its respondents said video was the one element of content they wanted more of.

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Video beat out ebooks, blog articles, and podcasts.

Why?

Well, a lot of us get lazy and just prefer watching videos over reading.

Forbes Insights found 60 percent of us would rather watch a video than read.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people spend more time on landing pages with videos – and those videos help those consumers make purchase decisions.

In addition, 70 percent of marketing professionals now believe that video converts better than any other medium — one modern landing pages can no longer ignore.

Let’s dig into best practices around how you can cash in through your own landing page videos.

1. Your Videos Should Educate

If someone has already landed on your website, there’s a good chance they’re there to find out more about your product or brand.

It’s a golden chance to educate them on your product.

Having a video full of fluff is worse than not having one at all.

When Marcus Taylor, CEO of BrokerNotes and Leadformly, added video to their home page, they saw a steady increase in signups and a drop in churn as a result:

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“16 percent of all visitors to the Leadformly site watch the video, which has increased not only on-site engagement but the number of paid signups we receive by 34%. Anecdotally, we’ve also seen a reduction in customers signing up to use Leadformly who didn’t understand the product or may not be a good fit, which consequently helps to reduce churn and supporting bad-fit customers.”

Think about your landing page video as an elevator pitch gone digital.

In under a minute or so, you should try and get across:

Who you are.

What you do and why you do it better than your competitors.

Why you are different.

How all of the above will help your prospect and solve their pains.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Hardly!

Condensing all that information into a 1-2 minute video is anything but easy.

Automated email follow-up software Rebump is an awesome example of educating prospects through a landing page video:

This video is exactly one minute long, it condenses all the awesome parts of the product in a short time frame and manages to be convincing at the same time.

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All the ingredients for a great landing page video.

2. Your Videos Should Have One Clear Goal

Many landing page videos are a jumbled mess — trying to stuff six goals into a single landing page.

Don’t be that company.

Pick a clear goal for the video and weave it through the content.

Map out what you want your video to achieve.

Do you want the person watching it to click on a link?

Buy your product?

Sign up to your list?

Make that message loud and clear.

Here are some examples of common goals:

Click-through to another page of form.

Buy directly from the landing page.

Download a lead magnet, tool, or app.

Share the content to their friends and audiences.

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3. Put Your Video Above the Fold & Highlight it

To increase your conversion rate, place the video above the fold for maximum impact.

What is the fold?

It’s just a fancy way of saying the area of your landing page that’s visible without scrolling.

Artificial Intelligence platform Inbenta has had their landing page video firmly above their landing page fold since they began.

The company said the average conversion rate of their landing page was 1 percent, but prospects who viewed their landing page video converted at a whopping 15 percent.

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The company also uses another technique with their video; it’s displayed in a video lightbox.

This not only enlarges the video when it’s clicked, but it dims the background.

This technique has a proven track record of increasing conversions by another 20 percent over traditional video offerings.

4. Always Include a Strong CTA

Having an awesome landing page video without a clear call-to-action (CTA) is like throwing money down the drain.

With conversions, you really do have to lead the horse to water.

A strong, clear CTA should define the next step in converting your customer, so they don’t have to figure it out themselves.

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For example, your landing page video is geared toward marketing your company’s new ebook. Then your number one goal is to get downloads, right?

Don’t include any other CTAs apart from downloading the ebook, either throughout the video or at the end of it.

Instead, preach your chosen CTA to your prospects.

A simple “Download My Ebook” CTA is strong and clear.

If you’ve done all the hard work of creating high-quality videos, you should really do the same with your CTAs.

It will give your audience a simpler path to begin their journey down your sales funnel.

Dollar Shave Club is known for their quirky marketing techniques, but their CTAs really are genius.

They’re a good example of having a product that doesn’t work to a timeline, so they need to try and sell it without being a sleazy second-hand car salesman.

No, it isn’t your average landing page video. (It’s even better!)

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But there is one clear message — $1 razors every month.

And you need to sign-up to get them.

Enough said!

5. Keep It Short!

You know how we keep mentioning one-minute videos?

Well, the time frame you have to capture a chunk of your audience’s attention is actually only 10 seconds.

Visible Measures did some research and found more than 20-30 percent of your viewers will click away from a video in 10 seconds or less.

The remaining 70-80 percent will give you 30 seconds of their time, on average.

But the real crux is what happens if you cross that one-minute mark:

As you can see from the Wistia research above, prospects tend to drop off at the 60-second mark.

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Videos that are 5 minutes or longer also have a steady retention rate, until about the 13-minute mark. By that point, though, you’ve already lost about 20 percent of viewers.

Some videos are geared to long-form education or product sales. Which is great as well, if your content is engaging.

Key takeaway: If your videos aren’t short, make your longer content worth watching.

6. Always Use a Strong Thumbnail

Your video thumbnail plays a crucial role, just like the feature image on your landing page.

Making sure your video’s thumbnail is enticing and highly relevant should be checked off your list before you ever upload it.

Remember, even if your video is highly relevant and compelling, if your thumbnail doesn’t communicate that — your visitors won’t play it.

What makes a good thumbnail?

A close-up of a person’s face (i.e., the video’s main character).

An image that portrays emotion.

Simple but strong text.

An image that actually reflects the content of the video.

Consistent style (like the example below).

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Embedding your logo into the video may be a strategy worth considering if you change up your landing page video from time to time.

It creates consistency in your videos and thumbnails, which will carry across to your landing page – even when you update your video.

Your thumbnail can increase your video’s CTR by up to 15 percent, so you can’t afford to ignore them.

7. Always Use Closed Captions

Your landing page video should be easy to consume by everyone.

Closed captions are a tool that can help you make it more appetizing and allow users to view your video without thinking too hard.

Let’s say some of the terminologies in your video needs to be clarified, or you want to provide guidance and make sure viewers stick through the entire video.

Closed captions can help with both of these, and keep your video consistent throughout as well.

Some video file formats automatically support closed captions. For instance, an .srt movie file will allow you to edit your captions in your software before you upload it

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Other file formats (e.g., .mov and .mp4) make it more difficult to add in closed captions.

Take this into account when making your video.

Using closed captions is a must.

For a more in-depth look into closed captions, check out this ultimate guide from Rev.

Bonus tip: Using closed captions can also significantly boost SEO. More on this shortly.

8. High-Quality Production Shows

This may seem obvious, but making sure your video is high-quality should be a top priority.

This doesn’t just mean the sharpness of the video itself.

Including a script, for example, can really help the entire production feel more high quality.

With the wealth of amazing video marketing equipment now available to us, people expect a quality experience.

Anything less and they’ll just leave your landing page.

If you are going to do your videos in-house, it’s worth investing in high-quality equipment.

Basic equipment includes:

A steady camera.

Microphone.

Box lights.

Editing software.

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9. Autoplay vs. ‘Press Play’

While some guidelines say using autoplay is foolish, as it’s an interruption technique, it can also increase conversions.

So which is right for you?

The only way to figure that out is to test it yourself:

If you’re dead against auto-playing your landing page video, you still have a few options to increase your conversions.

Test out a silent, full-screen version of your video that acts as a background to your landing page instead.

Or, add a giant play button to your landing page video thumbnail just to really get your message across — that your video is a must-view.

And if they don’t click play, they’re missing out.

10. Optimize Your Video for SEO

We all want to rank on the first page of Google.

You can re-use your landing page video content, add it to YouTube, and optimize it for SEO to do just that.

After all, a video is 52 times more likely to show up on page one of Google than a blog post, not to mention some people will actually use video search for content.

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As video continues to grow as the widest source of consumed media, its importance to search engines and SEO is growing with it.

Google ranks content on how useful it’ll be to the searcher, so creating a video that solves a pain point is essential to ranking high.

Just follow these tips:

Only have one video per page, and tag/categorize them properly.

Use optimized metadata.

Have full transcriptions of your video and add them to the HTML of your landing page to boost your keyword search.

Host the video on your own domain.

Get YouTube’s help: not to host your core video, but to direct referral traffic to it through CTAs.

Give the option to embed your video to others. Any content sharing is a good thing for your brand.

Test your videos and keep an eye on them. Keep the ones that perform, and dump the ones that don’t.

11. Compress Your Files for Shorter Load Time

Marketers often shy away from placing videos on their landing pages as they think it’ll affect loading times.

The concern is real, as a slow-loading landing page can cost you customers.

If your landing page doesn’t load within two seconds, some of your prospects will have already left.

Video can massively slow down your landing page loading speed if you haven’t compressed the file properly.

Luckily, you can do this easily and for free.

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Applications like Handbrake or VLC Media Player are super simple to use and will compress your video without stealing its quality:

How do you check your video isn’t hurting your landing page speed?

Use Google’s free speed test, which breaks down where your page is losing loading speed and why.

Increase Landing Page Conversions with Video

By now, you’ve probably realized having a landing page video isn’t really an option.

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People simply want more video in their lives. And it’s easy to see why.

It’s bite-size information that’s easy to consume and, luckily for you, easier to turn into conversions.

Following best practices such as producing short, high-quality video will not only feed society’s digital appetite, but also increase your conversions.

More Resources:

Image Credits

All screenshots taken by author, December 2018