Comments on: Youtube on Product Pages: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

By: Curtains

Curtains — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:41:39 +0000

We have been testing SEO with YouTube videos and comparing to those without (equally competative terms). The pages with YouTube video are MUCH higher in organic search results.
We have avoided using them in product pages so far and considering screencast or vimeo for this. We shall decide depending on which source Google loves the more. Time to research …..!

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 09:12:53 +0000

Best reply out of the bunch, literally took the words out of my mouth. Our main goal with adding YouTube videos to our site was to increase traffic and potential sales increase from related videos within YouTube itself. We did notice a slight decrease in conversion rate with a few of our A/B tests on the product pages, but we have concluded an increase in conversion rate with a specific template of product page, mainly only one column product pages.

By: karsten lund

karsten lund — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:47:39 +0000

Hi Linda.
I enjoyed the reading (as always) – I do not recommed my clients to use youtube videos on their ecommerce site – namely because of the conflicts that you describe
I ask them to keep the visual presentation, and the viral / marketing aspect of it to be seperated.
Youtube can be a great viral catalyst, but it shouldnt be at the cost of the ecommerce sites conversion rate – which I am affraid would suffer from the influx of the aditional “related” videos an the posibillity of ads.

Ive tested videos with various results (as I know you probably have) but it would be interresting to also test the carrier of the message.

-Karsten Lund

By: John in York

John in York — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:28:25 +0000

It’s not either / or. Use vimeo and YouTube.

Use vimeo on your site for the reasons covered above – mainly more control.

And put the video on YouTube as well for these reasons:

* SEO – YouTube videos appear in Google blended results
* YouTube searches will find your video
* Viral possibilities

And don’t forget to split test pages with video and similar pages without video to find out if it really is helping or hurting.

If it’s important enough you can find out how many people have watched the video through to the end, and the points where people abandon.

By: Ted S

Ted S — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:19:36 +0000

This is an interesting topic and something I’ve debated with internal teams a few times.

While I’ve seen a few comments going back and forth about saving resources I think the real argument for doing this is about the viral potential. Sure you can add your own sharing links but as we all know and discuss on other blog posts, the best way to be social friendly is to have content live where people live and not try to force them back to a product page. If people see a YouTube video they are more likely to be familiar with how to pass it along, favorite it or otherwise engage with it.

There are downsides to using a video straight from YouTube and the ads and branding can easily outweigh the benefits but I think as YouTube evolves its offering we will find a hybrid that allows for the best of both worlds letting businesses harness the power of the YouTube platform without risking the ads or next videos.

By: Marcus Krzastek

Marcus Krzastek — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:47:06 +0000

There’s no reason to use Youtube as an embed on your website. As has been previously mentioned, having potential customers follow your video through to your Youtube channel can actually work as a sales deterrence.

If you’re looking for an easy, cheap way to host/embed videos, you’re better served using Vimeo or Viddler. The embedded player customization options on both give you at least a fighters chance of making the embedded video aesthetically consistent with the rest of the page.

Tapping into Youtube’s numbers can be valuable if you have a video with viral potential, but for the majority of business videos you’d be better served utilizing a video service that insinuates a higher quality level. Maintaining a Youtube channel is fine, but it’s not something that’s always appropriate to advertise.

By: Richard Kligman

Richard Kligman — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:38:04 +0000

Using YouTube videos on your ecommerce site is like putting ketchup on your pasta. It works, but is that really what you want to do?

Here is an example of Qoof’s Video Commerce Solution in action: http://behindtheburner.com/

Also you can see a dedicated video page we did for them here: http://behindtheburner.com/video/watch

For serious Ecommerce Sites, YouTube is not the way to go, but I can see it working for smaller sites.

By: Linda Bustos

Linda Bustos — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:16:42 +0000

Great points everyone, and do give George’s post a read. He offers a solution for handling the problems slow loading pages with footer javascript analytics tracking can cause in your reporting.

By: Kurt Illian

Kurt Illian — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:55:05 +0000

Thanks for the great article Linda. I tend to think that YouTube is a great marketing platform and shouldn’t be confused with being a conversion platform. Let me start by saying that I believe retailers should upload videos on YT to take advantage of any marketing opportunities the platform creates.

But, I tend to believe that by putting a video on a product page you are expecting that video to be a conversion tool and YT is not a conversion platform. Don’t be fooled into thinking it is.

With that said, even YouTube videos provide value to visitors, but if I had a choice, I would pick a platform that allows me to convert my visitors.

By: George Michie

George Michie — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:25:16 +0000

Linda and others, are there site performance considerations as well?

Seems like videos might slow page load times leading to frustration, lost sales and lost tracking info. More on lost tracking here: http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2009/06/08/javascript-tracking-holes/

Thoughts?