Day 29 – Add Some Videos to Your Posts

We’ve been working hard and putting a lot of effort into our blog posts over the past month. Since we’re about to wrap up this 30 Day Blogging Challenge and have been working hard, I thought I’d share something quick and easy with you today.

Let’s talk about adding videos to your blog posts. We’ll cover a couple of different questions you may have including why you would want to include them, how to record and include your own, and how to include other people’s videos in your posts.

Let’s start by talking about why embedding videos in your posts can be a good idea. The first is engagement. Yes, we’ve talked about this a lot. That’s because it is important. If you’re not engaging your readers, your blog can’t thrive. And not all “readers” (I’m using that term loosely), are responding well to text. Yes, a blog is a written medium, but thanks to technology, we have options. We can embed audio and video files into our posts. And if you’re using WordPress, it’s very easy to do.

Keep things interesting for your readers by adding videos where it makes sense. The second big benefit is that it will keep readers on the page longer. We may not always sit down and read a long blog post, but we may watch a video. And that means your visitors stay on your site longer, which in turn will help you with Search Engine Results.

But what type of content should you include? You can record a related video on your phone and then upload it to YouTube, or you can host a Google Hangout Live which will automatically be recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

Another option is to find a related YouTube video that someone else has recorded and embed that in your post. The main thing you want to keep in mind is that the video should enhance your content or your written content should enhance the video if the video is the main reason you put the post together.

Let’s run through two examples to make that a little clearer. Let’s say you’re in the gardening niche and you write a blog post about growing tomatoes from seeds. Your post walks them through the process step by step and one of those steps is to eventually replant the tomato seedlings in your garden bed. You could include a video where you show them how to do the replanting. This would be a good example of a post where the video enhances the rest of the blog post.

Now let’s talk about an example where the video is the main feature. You’ve probably seen these short cooking videos all over Facebook and YouTube. Let’s say you create one for homemade tomato sauce and embed it in your post. You may include a short little text intro, then the video and below it a written recipe for the sauce with short and to the point directions. The text enhances the usability of the video.

Bottom line – you have options! Try it out and see what feels best for you!