Marketers love to utilize video in web design in the form of video backgrounds to bring a sense of modern artistry to a website. Videos in web design improve customer engagement in ways that static images could never even dream of. However, there are certain strategies to avoid when introducing videos to your web design.

Do’s and Don’ts When Using Videos in Web Design

Video backgrounds grab attention

Video backgrounds are designed to grab attention and improve user experience. There’s such a thing as grabbing to much attention and if a video is not strategically placed, it can deter focus from important content on the web page. Visitors are easily distracted by videos, especially if they grab too much attention.

Instead, use videos in web design to explain complex products/services instead of opening with a complicated video background. Remember, your videos and onsite content shouldn’t be at war competing for the visitors’ attention. When utilizing videos in web design keep text to a minimum, but don’t hurt the readability of the content.

The best videos in web design are short

Video files are larger in size when compared to image files, as a result they take longer time to load. Research shows slow website speeds lead to high bounce rates. High bounce rates lead to lower search engine rankings and ultimately, less sales for businesses.

Instead, opt to keep videos short and small by limiting video uploads to 5-10 seconds in length and a maximum of 6 mb in size. Dudley Stone, author of SVG with SS3 and HTML5, suggests websites with background videos keep their upload size to less than 5 mb. Pro tip: loop your videos continuously to give the impression of longer length.

Avoid videos with autoplay audio

Websites with video backgrounds are responsible from one of the most annoying experiences on the web: autoplay audio. Autoplay audio is a great way to annoyingly surprise your visitors and turn them away from your website. Instead strategically autoplay videos without audio to catch your visitors’ attention, but give them the freedom to play the audio once their attention is caught.

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