HTML5 coding has provided web designers an easy avenue to embedding videos into websites. With HTML5, embedding a video is as simple as embedding an image. This removes the need to deal with special plug-ins or markups, you can embed video with a single element. This website explains more about the elements, if you’d like to get a tutorial about how all of this works in HTML5! There are multiple video formats that can be implemented with HTML5 including .mp4, .ogg, and .webm. WebM is the newest format and the one that we will be focusing on in this article.
The Meteoric Rise of WebM
In 2010, Google released WebM as an open source, royalty free video alternative to use in the HTML5 tag when developing a website. It is a video format dedicated to the most efficient video display for web. The file format is a .WebM and is utilizing an MKV container. This contains a single video and a single audio codec (the video is VP8 and the audio is Vorbis). Competitors to WebM like MP4 often contain 2 or more of each making it more difficult for the browser to predict the playback. The VP8 video codec is also developed by the WebM team and it’s also open source allowing anyone to use it. It is an incredibly small file size for the high quality video that it outputs. The simplification of codecs within the container make it very easy for nearly all updated browsers to play and simplifies the demand on browsers.
Why Should You Care?
This all means that web video is becoming more and more efficient and easier to implement. This is especially true with open source projects like WebM. One of the newest trends is using video to further display your message, values, process, etc. on your website’s homepage banner. This trend has been picked up by major companies like Paypal, Air BnB, Volunteers of America, as well as yours truly. What’s the reason? Video is more engaging than flat images within a slider/carousel.
Why You Should Use Video On Your Website
1. EASILY DISPLAY YOUR MESSAGE: With video, not only are you able to explain your differentiating values or process with text, you can show it. Video is better able to demonstrate what you’re selling than a flat photographic image. If you’re a company that sells products then video could show how that product is used in a demonstrative video or how it’s made in a factory video. If you’re a company that helps their customers find and plan vacations, the video can show customers at the beach or in Europe, enjoying the vacation that you helped them book. Static images cannot demonstrate the vivacity of something in action. So whether you’re selling a product or a service, your target market will have a better understanding of what you’re selling if you use video rather than images. This allows you to potentially drive more conversions from your target market.
2. CAPTIVE AUDIENCE: Whether it’s the awe of new technology or the beauty of your footage, you have a better chance to captivate the attention of your audience using a video on your website. Couple your video with some engaging/provoking banner text overlaid and your chances for a call of action to be used just went way up. Your audience is now much more likely to read your banner text and follow your call to action if they’re captivated by video. Hello more conversions.
3. STAY AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION:While image sliders are still in use by most company websites, banner videos, especially WebM videos, are hard to find. If you decide to use banner video, you’re a step ahead of your competition. For the past 3-5 years, images sliders and carousels with leading call-to-action text have been all the the rage. 
It’s difficult to go on a website without finding image sliders. But video takes this to the next level, a level that most companies still haven’t achieved on their websites. If you jump on this now, you’ll be ahead of the curve. Would you want to partner with a company using an outdated website or one that looks well taken-care of, technologically advanced, and sleek? I’d choose the sleeker website that doesn’t have image sliders. Your potential customers will too.
So you can see through all these advantages (the trendiness, the captive audience, and the easily displayed message) that video can be incredibly beneficial for your website’s design and your conversion rate. We can help you implement a video banner, using WebM video. At digiTech Web Design, we provide our clients with high-end, advanced WebM video on their websites, allowing their website to stand out from their competitors. For more information on how we design webpages and enhance our client’s internet marketing with video banners, please contact us today!
