Question On Product Review Video Production
-
We are looking to make reviews of many of the products we have on site (staff reviews). The only problem I am having is our products are not stored at our office (nor can they be as they weigh hundreds of pounds and are super expensive to ship).
So what would be a good solution to show in the video? Should we just do a slide share of still shots of the products with a voice overlay or try something more of a hybrid that uses a whiteboard?
The products themselves cater to gardeners and the DIY crowd so it doesn't need to be super involved.
-
Hi Erick,
This sounds like an interesting conundrum - but I'm sure you'll be able to find ways of making it work.
Echoing some of the previous two comments, I agree that it would be ideal if you can unite the staff and the product in some way - be that sending staff to a warehouse/studio somewhere or just doing "test" videos going forward when you try out a new product.
However, if this is not logistically possible, you have a couple of options:
- Chroma Key the staff onto a studio image of the product
This is essentially like doing a weather video for your product - getting a nice image of the Product in the warehouse against a white background, recording the staff member against a greenscreen and then removing the green in post production in order to lay them over the product image. There are tons of tutorials online to help with this - but it will require some level of production skill to get it set-up right and look believable.
- Mix footage/image slide-shows of the product with footage of staff reviews
Here you could instead just intersperse quality images of the product with VO and footage of the staff member talking http://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/slideshows.php this is a great little tutorial which explains how you can get a slideshow looking nice an professional with Aftereffects - but you can do similar with Motion and other editing programs. I would ensure you always have some visual appearance of the staff members in this video type - otherwise it may appear like you have just hired an actor to do VO and you won't be displaying the personality and product knowledge that is required to make a decent product video. You'll also need to ensure the images you use are unique and in a similar style, using any stock product photography to build out the video will look unprofessional and make it appear like you are pure affiliates without any product expertise.
While both these options will allow you to mask and get around the physical distance between product and the staff experts, but only if you retain some level of production style and quality between the two bits of footage. This means with either suggestion, you will need a photographer/cameraman to get to the warehouse somehow. If this isn't possible - then I think you are in a bit of a tricky situation. You could just do talking head videos with a short introductory sting featuring a standard product image - but this would ultimately result in a sub-par product video. This doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't create anything, especially if you are creating the videos mostly for the opportunity to get rich snippets, but you should be aware that bad product videos can lower conversion rates as much as good videos can increase them.
Hope that's useful.
Cheers,
Phil.
-
I was working on a website on cell phone reviews several months ago and had the chance to view a number of mobile phone review videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites. The most effective videos involved showing how the product works such as the display, the camera, or the software. Some would also directly compare a phone with a rival to show its advantages. Unbiased reviews, would also touch upon the weaknesses of a particular device.
The advantage of a video review over a written one is the fact that it can visually display how a product functions. It also shows that you are truthfully reviewing a product since one can be clearly seen handling the device on video.
Now, I'm not sure how this would work with your product seeing as you've mentioned that they weigh hundreds of pounds and doesn't need to be super involved. But if you could somehow take advantage of the video to show how your product works then I think it would be more effective than just a still shots with a voice overlay or using a whiteboard.
-
This seems like largely a matter of opinion and creative direction, so I'd take most answers here with a grain of salt (mine included).
That said, I tend to be a little nerdy, and often detail-oriented... barring actual clips of the product in use, I like diagrams or schematics showing specifically how something works. Bonus points if you can expand on the how, and why your product's method of operation is superior. Still slides would work as well. Someone explaining the product in detail with a whiteboard style setup would definitely bring a human touch to it that some viewers may prefer.
Presumably the people you work with are also interested in the product, or similar fields. I would do a survey of them to see what appeals to them the most, and try to target the video at your audience. This an interesting and open-ended sort of question, so I'd like to hear what more people have to say on it...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Overlay / modal for product pages - bad or good for SEO?
Hi all, I am considering using full overlays/modals for an e-commerce site for all our product pages (category/listing pages will be "normal", the product page will come over the listing page as an overlay/modal when you click on the product). Those “product overlays” will also be accessible directly with own URL (if need to be linked to for ex.). All the literature I find out there treats overlays and modals as “marketing” ones (ads, sign-ups, etc.) and is generally critical to overlays when it comes to SEO, while also saying that an overlay that has to do with good UX should not hurt the SEO of our site. What do you think? Will all product pages as overlays be considered as good UX by the search engines and therefore not be negatively impacted, SEO speaking? Or should we stay clear of overlays and create “normal” product pages? Thanks in advance! Arnaud NB: The reason we want to create those overlays are for design and UX purposes, and try to increase our conversion rate.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Arnaud_Fo0 -
Matrix or variant product options question
Hi all,I'm interested in what the community on here think about matrix products aka variant options for products on ecommerce websites from an SEO and ux perspective. I work for a startup in a relatively greenfield industry which we are trying to disrupt. Brand new ecommerce website. The status quo in the sector is to list lots of similar individual products in the same category with the main difference between them being the physical dimensions of the product e.g. Length or height etc Based on this, my view is that we could obtain an advantage over the competition from a search perspective by grouping these products together to display a single page for the main product featuring "options" for the customer to select from on the page. In some instances this could group maybe 20 products together into a single page which would otherwise be individual products and individual pages. This gives us a single page for related keywords and page authority etc (if of course we develop the page in the right way and don't accidentally create crawlable urls when options are selected) This approach might take an ecommerce site with 5000 products down to 2500 products. My view is that this also creates ux benefits enabling customers on the site to find products faster and checkout rather than scrolling through pages and pages of the same items trying to find the right size. So bounce rate lower, better engagement etc all things which contribute to a better page. The challenge I am faced with is convincing everyone that this is the best approach. Everyone in the sector doesn't do it this way so culturally I'm up against it in terms of getting people onboard with the approach. Should I persevere or am I barking up the wrong tree? Thanks in advance for help
Conversion Rate Optimization | | built_bot0 -
Use "Brand Name" or things like "Free Shipping" in Ecommerce Product Title Tags?
Given the current industry best practices and changes to Google algorithms, should I be using "Product name...Brand Name" or something like "Product Name...Free Shipping (or similar)" in my ecommerce title tags? Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | jeffbstratton0 -
Good examples of video marketing by service businesses?
Do you know of any service businesses (ie not software or SaaS) that uses video marketing effectively?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | JacobFunnell
Especially any company offering more than one service. Just for example, a training company of any kind. Literally anything that comes to mind will help me so, so much. My Google-fu is failing me on this one.0 -
Google Product Ads - Improving our Cost Per Conversion?
Hi all, We have been running Google Product Ads (paid for) ever since it began in the UK. We are still struggling to get to grips with the best way to make it worthwhile for us. Our data for the last 14 days:
Conversion Rate Optimization | | complete_outdoors
Clicks: 1827
Impressions: 65789
CTR: 2.78%
Average CPC: £0.22
Cost Per Conversion: £15.13 We've added some auto targets for our most popular brands, with a higher CPC than "all products". We've also added negative keywords so we only come up with relevant searches. Basically, what we'd like to know is: how we can best set-up our product ads to reduce our Cost Per Conversion (I guess everyone would like to do that!), as it is barely worth us using it currently. If you require any further data to help answer my question, please ask. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.0 -
Video Conversions
1)I have observed that female voice converts more then male voice in videos. Any one had experienced this stat? 2)Videos without person reading the slides, what's your take on this? As far as my experiences I have made some videos with music background only, but it seems like that videos with person's voice convert more. Is there any video regarding video conversions and video backlinks.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Sajiali0 -
Reviewing my Adwords Strategy
Before I started working on Organic SEO, I did Adwords. Being that I am entirely self-taught with adwords, I am concerned that about what I might not know. From time to time I have looked for outside advice, but I never got very far. It seemed that I would be talking to a salesman, someone who knew less than me, or someone who was horrified that I had 7,500 tracked words. So I am presenting my methods here for comment. Each keyword I have used is placed into an exact match campaign, phrase match campaign, and broad match campaign. Exact match gets the highest bid, broad match the lowest. Every week, I cull new keywords from phrase and broad results. I also create negative keywords each week based on searches that are obviously not looking for my products. Over time, I get very few searches triggered from broad matches. Keywords are kept in ad groups that generally have less than 6 keywords. Acceptable conversion costs are decided based on product category. I have made an assumption that first position adwords results are too expensive (idiots overpay for them). I automatically reduce my bid 10% on any ad that has an average position of greater than 1.5. I automatically reduce my bid 10% on any ad that has a conversion cost greater than my target. I delete keyword that have a CTR below 1%. I generally require 300 clicks to make a determination. All ads have been endlessly split tested to the point I don’t split test them much now. I judged ads for both click through rate and conversion rate. End result: After 4 years of doing this, conversion costs are below target costs. Not sure what else I could do to improve it, but looking for ideas. Management of the system is pretty easy now, as well. Anything I am missing?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | EugeneF0 -
Would a feed of reviews from Tripadvisor be duplicate content?
I have a hotel directory. I am thinking of adding a feed that takes reviews of hotels from Tripadvisor and puts them on my site. I know that Google are cracking down on duplicate content with the Panda update. Would these reviews be seen as duplicate content and could it harm my site if I do this?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | mascotmike1