If you’ve been interested in Internet Marketing for any length of time you’ll probably be aware already of how powerful video can be.  However, many of us avoid it due to the costs and complexities of getting setup with good quality camera equipment, lighting, editing software and so on.  Apart from all this, many people simply don’t like to be on camera!  I hope I can show you then, that it doesn’t need to be this complex and the video is within reach of any of us.

Why is Video Important?

First of all though, let’s take a moment to look at WHY video is so important to Internet marketers.  The key here is search engine rankings – in particular, Google.  Search engines love video and if you upload a short movie to any of the popular video sites (such as YouTube) you’ll find that it’ll get ranked very quickly – particularly if you use your keywords wisely.  I recently created a video for one of our niches and uploaded it to just 6 sites and within 24 hours, it was on page 1 of Google for our main keyword!

OK, but What About the Costs?

As I already mentioned, video doesn’t need to be expensive.  Sure, it would be amazing to be able to go out and buy a top-end pro-spec camcorder like this Sony, but who has that kind of money???  And that’s without any lights, microphones etc!  We need to be conscious that we’re creating short, informative videos for the Web – not a blockbuster film for your local movie theater.  The purpose really is just to get the message across in a cost effective manner, and crucially, to get links back to our revenue generating sites.

So What Are Our Options?

The deciding factor is whether you want to go for captured video footage, or whether screen capture works for you.  Regardless of which you decide, you’re going to need a microphone.  You can opt for something relatively inexpensive here, however I would urge you not to skimp and to look at something like the amazing Audio-Technica AT2020 USB mic which will give you studio quality and plugs straight into a USB port without the need for any fancy audio hardware.

Now that we can record professional sounding audio, we need to consider our video capture solution.  If we want to simply capture what we’re seeing on our screen, the best software for this in my opinion is Camtasia.  It’s quite expensive but is incredibly powerful and will do pretty much everything you want including some very slick editing.  If budget is an issue, then you could consider the free CamStudio software, which is based on the original Camtasia product.  It’s nowhere near as versatile as Camtasia, but if you’re happy doing what you need to do in a single take, then this might be a good start.

The other option then is to buy an inexpensive camera.  There’s been a lot of buzz around the Flip HD cameras, but in my opinion, the new Kodak Zi8 is far superior.  These little cameras will produce perfectly adequate results for Internet marketing purposes and won’t need you to take out a second mortgage to pay for them!

Remember, it’s the content that’s important – not how flash the video looks.  In fact, do you not find that the really flashy, clever videos can often detract from the message that they’re trying to convey?  Keep it simple and your videos will work for you and help you to get the rankings that you desire.

I’d love to read your thoughts on using video in Internet marketing.  What products do you use to create the videos?  Do you use a camera, or do you like me, prefer to stick with Camtasia?  How do you upload your videos?  Do you use a service like TubeMogul or Traffic Geyser, or do you do it all by hand?  Please let me know in the comments.

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