Internet Videos for Your Website

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 about products or services. They offer a "human touch" to the people visiting your website.

Nowadays, it's really easy to add videos to a website, using websites like YouTube (see our Web Design and Tours and Tales video pages). When a person clicks PLAY on your video, the streaming server downloads your video onto the viewer's computer and starts playing it instantly. These Internet videos can also be embedded into a page on your website. For an example, see 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 with these two examples (above right and below left), a thumbnail picture can be added to a page on your website, with an external link to the video on YouTube i.e. it opens up a new window that fetches the video's page on YouTube, which starts to play the video.

Land Rover Driving Experience - watch the Discovery LR3 drive over a log cabin and 4x4 ramps

Gain your visitor's trust by offering them a risk-free glimpse into who you are and what you do. This helps people decide on whether they'd like to do business, or not. This LR3 video shows off a number of things: the amazing capabilities of the Land Rover Discovery 3 a talented driving instructor an incredible 4x4 driving experience

What would you like your Internet video to showcase about you, your products or services?

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.

How do you get a professional Internet Video?

Our clients are welcome to create their own videos, and give us the video URL to add thumbnail links and/or embed the videos onto pages on their website.

Alternatively, clients are welcome to commission us to create Internet videos for them. We offer basic script-writing, filming, editing, voice-overs and online publishing. The cost of filming, editing and publishing a video depends on how much work needs to be done.

How much does an Internet Video cost?

Contact us today to find out about getting a professional Internet video for your website. Make your website come alive!

This video message was created for the 2007 CITES conference held in The Hague, The Netherlands, at the request of Friends of the Elephant (a Dutch non-profit organisation). It features Dame Daphne Sheldrick of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, as well as the orphaned and rehabilitated elephants that Daphne and her team take care of.

The video footage (approximately 30 minutes) and photographs were provided on DVD and CD respectively, which we used to create the 3-minute Internet video. We wrote the story-line and did the voice-over, adding the music and fades. We uploaded the finished video privately for Daphne Sheldrick and Friends of the Elephant to approve. They gave it the thumbs up and were very enthusiastic (giving it a five-star rating). We then made it public on YouTube. While the conference was being held, Friends of the Elephant added a link to it on the home page of their website.

Hosting videos on your own website

Another option for adding videos to your website, is to host them directly on your website. The upside of hosting videos on your website, is that videos can be changed and re-uploaded. Perhaps you'd like to change the script or part of the video footage? Or add a photograph and update a title?

On websites like YouTube, videos can only be uploaded or deleted and cannot be changed. This prevents unscrupulous people from switching a popular decent video to one that's a little shady, thereby abusing the system.

The downside to hosting videos on your own website, is that videos take up a huge amount of space (in comparison to web pages and photographs) and also use up a lot of bandwidth (every time someone downloads it to watch it).

Another minus point, is the time that it takes to start playing the video. Normal Internet hosting servers are not streaming servers, which have a different technology, so they are unable to download a video and play it at the same time.

When videos are created, they can be set to download to the buffer on the viewer's computer and then start playing, instead of waiting until the entire video has been downloaded first. This isn't as fast as having the video hosted on a streaming server (which is very expensive to own / rent).