Video content is one of the most engaging formats for content consumption. According to Hubspot, online video now accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic.
Videos are easily consumable from desktop and mobile devices to social media platforms and email communications. Studies from the 2012 Olympics showed that 50% of users either watched Olympics related online video for the first time or watched more online video than their usual habits.
Video content can be incorporated into your content strategy in two ways:
- Create, share and then embed your own original video content onto your site.
- Embed public video content onto your site.
The first option may lead to greater revenue gains for your site through the use of pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll ads. However beneficial this may sound, this option is far more resource intensive than the second and requires an upfront investment to create original video content. YouTube is a popular platform for you to upload and share your content. YouTube has over a billion users - almost one-third of all people on the Internet - and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views.[1]
If you choose to create and monetize original video content as an additional format for your audience to consume your unique perspective, check out these resources.
- YouTube Creator Hub is the destination for resources to help you make great videos, find your audience, and grow your YouTube channel.
- YouTube Audio Library is a place for you to browse and download free music to use for your original videos.
- Google+ Hangouts On Air can help you connect directly with your audience and then distribute your content to engage your users on your site or on YouTube after the event.
- Read the article In Video Advertising, Is Longer Strong? to learn about video advertising.
The second strategy is to embed public video content directly onto your site. This strategy lets you focus on curating high quality video content rather than spending time and resources on creating it yourself.
YouTube players can be embedded in a web page using either an iframe tag or an object tag, both provided by YouTube. By appending parameters to the iframe, you can even customize the playback experience. For example, you can automatically play videos when the page loads or choose a specific video size to match the UX of your site.
We highly recommend using YouTube to embed videos on your site, here’s the five step process:
YouTube players can be embedded in a web page using either an iframe tag or an object tag, both provided by YouTube. By appending parameters to the iframe, you can even customize the playback experience. For example, you can automatically play videos when the page loads or choose a specific video size to match the UX of your site.
- On a computer, go to the YouTube video you want to embed.
- Under the video, click Share.
- Click Embed.
- From the box that appears, copy the HTML code.
- Paste the code into your blog or website HTML.
Embedding public videos onto your site that supplement your original content is a great strategy to help meet the user demand of online video and further engage your users. If you have original content on your site and choose to use embedded videos to supplement your content, ensure that the videos themselves do not violate any policies. To learn how to correctly embed public videos please read the AdSense Program Policies.
Whichever strategy you choose, embed video content onto your site this summer. The summer of sport creates a huge opportunity for AdSense Publishers, especially in the sports category. In fact, over the last four years, sports YouTube watch time has grown 267%.[2] The 2016 Summer Olympics has already generated 30,000 hours of Olympics related content on YouTube and there’s an expectation that this year’s games will garner 3.6 billion views on YouTube alone.[3]
Big events mean big views for related videos. Invest into video to boost your traffic, draw new crowds, and further engage with your audience.
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Posted by Barbara Sarti, from the AdSense Team
[1] https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html
[2] Google internal data
[3] YouTube Internal Tools, 2015, +/1 one month of games
