Pop-up Video Intro. on Site

[Alston]

As I said on another thread, you have to A/B test stuff like this to see what works for your site.

Every once in a while you will find that breaking the rules makes you more money.

Getting the opinions of others is a good way to start, but if it really matters, A/B test with Google Website Optimizer or some similar tool.

 

[nathan.lee]

I have a question regarding videos and it has been on my mind for a while.

Would a "Video Page" be worthwhile where I put all of my videos (I must have about 20) and let them click on what they like? Or would it look like a garbled mess?

Roy must win tonight.

A dedicated video site or page is a great idea. Just make sure the layout is clean and easy to navigate plus the titles of the videos should be relevant to the content. (sounds like common sense but you'd be surprised by some of the stuff I've seen) The SEO potential for videos is also a huge plus. We started with just a Youtube channel but it was difficult to manage content so we launched a dedicated video site. Check out www.freeannuity.tv for an example.

 

[ksigmtsu]

Instead of using a pop-up video on the main page, why not use a transitional slideshow in javascript. They work on all platforms and look very nice, and are much less aggressive to the user.

Nivo Slider - The World's Most Popular jQuery Image Slider

Novo slider is a jquery plugin, its low overhead, runs on everything, free, pretty easy to install, has a wordpress plugin. It won't piss off anyone unlike something playing automatic audio.

The worst offense of a website is automatic audio, it makes me want to get away from it as fast as possible. I wear a headset turned up to phone volume, if your site plays auto audio it likely blasts so loud it hurts my ears. If you're going to do that, you should offer visitors a choice, otherwise I guarantee your bounce rate goes up.

 

[mynarky]

As a consumer I'd say they're hacky. Have one that says "click here to play" is fine, but auto-play is so lame.

 

[Sales71]

As a consumer I'd say they're hacky. Have one that says "click here to play" is fine, but auto-play is so lame.

I have to agree. I would not want the video to auto start when I go to the site.