Most visitors scroll past a home page video. Keep it only if it shows something words and photographs cannot, choose a poster frame that shows it, state its length, and offer a short version.

Halfway down the home page

The video cost real money: a crew, a drone, an edit, licensed music. It sits halfway down the home page as a still frame with a triangle in the middle.

The still frame is whatever the player happened to pick. A logo card, a blurred pan across a field, somebody halfway through a word.

Most visitors scroll straight past it, and many never find out what it shows.

Since April, Chrome has stopped videos starting with sound by themselves, so more home page videos now wait for a click. Whether anyone gives one matters more than before.

Why people scroll past

The fifth is the one a business can fix in an afternoon. People give a minute to a video that promises an answer, and very few give one to a video that is only about you.

Check whether anyone watches

Before changing anything, find out. Video sites count plays for every video, and a player on your own site can send plays to Analytics as events through Google Tag Manager.

Put the plays beside the home page's visits for the same months. If the two figures are far apart, the video is decoration, however good it is.

Then look at how long people watch. Video sites show where viewers stop, and a film that loses most of them in its opening seconds has a slow start, not a bad subject.

When a video earns the space

Video earns a place on the home page when it shows something words and photographs cannot: movement, sound, scale, or a process from start to finish.

It earns it when it answers a question a first-time visitor actually has. What a day out involves, what a first visit is like, how the product works.

And it earns it when the business is an experience: a tour, a venue, a performance, somewhere people need to picture themselves before they book.

A film about the company's values rarely earns it, and belongs on the about page, where people interested in the company look.

A poster frame that does the work

The poster frame is the still image shown before anyone presses play. For most visitors it is the only part of the video they ever see, so choose it deliberately.

Pick a frame showing the subject in the middle of the action, with faces visible, bright and sharp enough to read at the size a phone shows it.

Leave text out of the frame. Words inside an image shrink to nothing on a small screen, and they work better as a caption on the page.

Video sites let you upload a custom thumbnail, and a player on your own site takes any poster image you set: a still from the footage, or a photograph from the day.

A short version for people in a hurry

Cut a version of twenty to forty seconds: the best few moments, no slow opening, captions for anything spoken, and nothing that depends on sound to make sense.

Put the short version on the home page and the full film on the page where it answers something in detail, or offer both side by side with their lengths.

A short cut is an edit of footage you already own, which costs a fraction of the original shoot.

A worked example

A river rafting company running day trips through a canyon had a three-minute film halfway down its home page: drone shots of the canyon, rafts in white water, music, and the owner talking about the river.

The poster frame was the opening shot, a wide view of the canyon at dawn with the logo in the corner. No raft, no people.

The video site recorded a few dozen plays over the whole season, most of them stopping during the slow opening, while the trip pages were busy all summer.

Meanwhile the questions first-timers phoned about were practical: whether it is frightening, whether you get soaked, whether children can come.

The company cut thirty seconds from existing footage: a family raft in a rapid, a guide's safety talk, lunch on a gravel bar, all captioned. Its poster frame is a raft mid-wave, every face visible.

The full film moved to the about page. The poster frame now answers the first-timer's question on its own, even for visitors who never press play.

Say what it shows and how long

Beside or beneath the frame, one line: what the video shows and how long it lasts. Thirty seconds: a family trip through the lower canyon, from the safety talk to the last rapid.

The length matters most. Visitors decide in a second whether they have time, and an unknown length usually means no.

Give the section a heading that names the question the video answers, rather than our story or watch our video.

Where the player comes from

Embedding from a video site is simplest and copes with every kind of phone and connection, but the player brings its own scripts, which download whether or not anybody watches, adding weight to the page.

It can also finish by suggesting more videos, not all of them yours.

A lighter approach shows the poster as an ordinary image and loads the player only when somebody clicks it. Whoever maintains your site can set that up in an afternoon.

The counter-case

For some businesses the video is the best thing on the page. A venue, a tour or a performer may rightly put it at the top, with the poster and length chosen carefully.

A video that people already watch in large numbers needs no cutting.

And a video that few play is not wasted if its poster frame works as a photograph.

For everyone else: earn the space, choose the frame, state the length, and cut a short version.

What to do

  1. Compare plays with home page visits this season.
  2. Note where viewers stop watching.
  3. Name the question the video answers.
  4. Choose a poster frame that shows the answer.
  5. Add one line giving content and length.
  6. Cut a short version for the home page.
  7. Move the full film to the page it suits.

Step four is the one that reaches everybody. Only some visitors will ever press play, but every one of them sees the frame.

Small images that hide what they show are the same problem as in image galleries with tiny thumbnails.

Frequently asked questions

Why does nobody watch our home page video?

Visitors cannot tell how long it runs or what it shows, often cannot play sound where they are, and frequently already have their answer from the text above it.

How do I know whether anyone watches it?

Compare the plays reported by the video site, or recorded as events in Analytics, with home page visits over the same months, and check where viewers stop watching.

What makes a good poster frame?

A bright, sharp still showing the subject mid-action with faces visible, chosen deliberately. Leave text out of it, since words shrink to nothing on a phone.

How long should the short version be?

Twenty to forty seconds: the best few moments, no slow opening, captions for anything spoken, and nothing that needs sound to make sense.

When does a video deserve the home page?

When it shows something words and photographs cannot, such as movement, scale or a process, and answers a question first-time visitors actually have.

Does an embedded video slow the page?

It can, because an embedded player fetches its own scripts as the page loads, whether or not anyone watches. Showing the poster as an image and loading the player on click avoids that.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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