Can a small business benefit from web video marketing without a website?

If you are considering having a professional web video produced for your business then it is not necessary for you to have your own website. I am not suggesting that you don’t get a website at all, but if you currently do not have a website for your video or if you are currently upgrading your website, that should not be an obstacle to getting a promotional or marketing video produced. An obvious question arises. How do you promote your products and services with your web video when you do not have a website? Your video can be uploaded or hosted by several free online hosting companies. YouTube is probably the best known video hosting platform, but there are several other venues such Google Places, Yahoo Video, MetaCafe, Viddler, Blip.TV, or Vimeo that will host your business web video for free. At the same time, it is recommended that you optimize your video for search engines so that you are found when  people are looking for your products and services. When selecting a video production company you may want to inquire if they have experience with SEO (search engine optimization).  This is of particular importance for businesses who currently do not have a website or a website that is temporarily down for an upgrade. These video hosting  companies also have plenty of bandwidth, and there are several advantages versus hosting the video on your own website if you chose to go that route.

What does SEO actually do for your web video?

Well, uploading a video to YouTube is actually fairly easy and commonplace. However, adding titles, headlines, descriptions, and tags may not be as obvious and simple.  Using headlines, etc. correctly is critical to getting found in YouTube and Google.  Let’s take YouTube as an example.  After you have uploaded  a video to YouTube for example, you are asked to select a title or headline for your video. Interestingly though,  it may not be beneficial to put your business name in the title, unless you have a nationally recognized brand name. Even putting a brand name into the title is debatable.  Here is what I mean, let’s say you are a gift basket company. Instead of entering your business name as the main title or headline, try adding “Great Gift Basked Ideas For Corporate and Business Events”.  In other words, try to understand what a person looking for your product may actually be thinking as they enter a search term into Google. Then, go ahead and add an accurate description of your business  in the description area and use terms which people may use to find your products on the internet. At this point you want to add the full name and location of your business. Tags are also important, and in the tag area enter phrases such “gift basket, gifts, ideas, mother’s day”, I think you get the idea. Tags are also very important for search engines when they rank search results.

The bottom line is that you do not need your own website to benefit from web video marketing. A small business can certainly generate leads and increase sales with web video and proper search engine optimization. If you decide to build a website at some point then the website would provide you with an additional way by which people can find you on the internet. Particularly, if the website is well optimized for search engine ranking.

Hope this answer was helpful.