Adding videos to a website really makes it seem to come alive. Professional videos are able to get your message across far more quickly than what a person can read on your website, providing extra information and credibility about products or services. They offer a “human touch” to the people visiting your website.

Nowadays, it’s really easy to add videos using video hosting websites like YouTube (see our Web Design and Tours and Tales video pages). These videos can be embedded into your own website, and when a person clicks PLAY on the video, the streaming server (e.g. from Youtube) downloads your video onto the viewer’s computer and starts playing it instantly.

As an example, check out our Breakaway to Hurghada in Egypt trip report on our Tours and Tales website.

 This (Do-It-Yourself) video on our Floorstyle.nl website shows people how to laminate their staircase. As you can see, a thumbnail picture can be added to a page on your website, with an external link to the video on YouTube. A new window is opened up that fetches the video’s page on YouTube, which starts to play the video.

 Videos should enhance your message

Because some people aren’t able to download Internet videos (for security or technology reasons), videos are meant to enhance the text in your website, not replace it. If people have a slow Internet connection like dial-up or ISDN (yes, these connections are still being used), then it is very unlikely that they’ll be able to enjoy watching Internet videos, because the video will break up when watched or hang while downloading.

How long should a video be?

Because of the varying Internet connection speeds, the length of videos should be between 1 minute (to make the message meaningful) and 3 minutes, with a maximum of 5 minutes, making sure you get your message across as quickly and efficiently as possible.

You can watch the videos we’ve made at Tours and Tales & Marvic Web Design (hosted by Youtube).