Today I want to show you how to put video on your blog.
Video has become one of the most important forms of content on the internet and it’s almost like it’s replaced TV.
Most internet users are able to go to a video sharing site such as YouTube or Google Video and stream videos.
In fact the second largest search engine on the Internet behind Google is ………….. YouTube.
1) Live Action Video That You Create Yourself.
Now this method can be quite complicated as you have to first of all shoot the video. Then you have to transfer the video to your Mac or PC. The next stage is to edit the video. Then the final stage is to encode the video into a format that the video sharing sites (YouTube etc) or your blog requires.
You obviously have to start with a video camera and if you wanted to you could spend $4,000 – $8,000 on a high end HD Camera. You could then go for a high end video editing software such as Apple’s Final Cut Studio which costs $1,300.
But it’s not necessary to spend anywhere near this amount of money.
In fact all the live action videos you see on GaryGraye.com were shot using either my Sony Camcorder which cost $300, my Flip Mino HD that cost $220 and the built in Webcam on my iMac.
All the software editing was done with iMovie which comes free when you buy a Mac.
If you use a PC then Microsoft include Windows MovieMaker as free software.
Now once you have edited your live action video then there are a 3 ways to embed it.
A) The first way would be to create an account at YouTube and then upload it.
This is a very inexpensive method but there are downsides such as YouTube displays adds that overlay on your video at the beginning or end.
B) The other method is to use a sevice such as Amazon S3 to host your video files. The quality is far superior, no ads will be displayed but this is a paid service.
C) The third method is to convert your video to Flash yourself, and then embed it on your website.
Now there is a free tool to help you do the conversion and it’s called FLV Producer Lite
2) An embeddable video from a 3rd party source such as YouTube, Vimeo etc
This has to be the easiest way to add video to your website. There are literally dozens of video hosts such as YouTube, Vimeo, Revver and Blip.tv etc.
Watch the video to learn how to embed a YouTube video on a Wordpress Blog.
3) Screen capture video.
The video that accompanies this blog post is whats known as a screen capture video and it’s perfect for teaching and effective for selling.
I use Screenflow on my iMac and that costs $99. I’ve also used Camtasia on my PC’s and that runs at about $300. Even though Screenflow is a third of the price of Camtasia I believe it’s much more versatile.
There’s also a product from JingProject where for $14.95 a year they will host your screen capture videos. I too have used this service and it’s quite good.
All for now, and let me see some of the videos that you folks have mad. Just drop me an email.
Gary
p.s. There are a couple of places left on my Coaching & Mentoring Program. If you really want to attract an abundance of clients then this program is for you.
