This video was developed for WebsiteDevelopment.us ; Steve Presley, owner of SEO Web Designs, he is a ‘hands on leader’ and is recognized as one of the countries top experts in his field.
His expertise is expanded, but not limited to SEO – search engine optimization and SEM, search engine marketing. The one distinguishing feature of his company’s process is that they optimize everything beginning with the very framework of the website. Steve has an extensive knowledge of onsite and offsite means and methods to pull, grab the attention of the internet crawlers / spiders and keeps their attention thus maximizes his clients options to sell their products.
The video’s job was to simply and visually convey, not only his expertise but to educate the viewer/prospect, a bit about how they performs this optimization. I am ever mindful that those who need their services have very little understanding of what they do, why they do it, or how. Their clients are perplexed as to why they should pay for it and what exactly are they paying for!? So this video was intended to entertain while it informs. In other words, make this brief lesson fun as well as a form of infotainment. I am convinced that most small to medium business owners are smart enough to know that they need the help of someone who knows what to do to get them some attention in the internet. The reason they are so slow to part with their money, is I feel, because they don’t understand what they need to buy and from whom. When you purchase a product who take it home. When you purchase a service you enjoy the fruit of it. When you purchase something unseen that you don’t even understand you are less likely to part with your money!
The internet and the means and methods employed towards marketing and advertising are so new…and the ‘geeks’ who typically provide those services are often lacking the ‘lay man’s’ language to explain it to their prospects so the natural impasse is born. The challenge is then given over to someone like me to conceive and execute a visual tool to ‘teach’ and engage the prospect and convert them to a buyer. No small task as you will see.
Using the opening shot with a robot fixing text tiles into a template is an actual metaphor for his work with WordPress (template) websites. They are custom designed and they are built for the ‘bots’ that crawl the internet. So form the opening shot to the completion of the mini sales tool that this video was developed for, I never deviate with the means and methods he puts to work in the services he provides.
The text that the robot puts into place reads:
“SEO Video Strategies The Ultimate Sales & Marketing Tool” and that is exactly what Mr. Presley’s company does. They first fit the wordpress website to the requirements of his clients, then they get videos developed to ‘sell & market’ the product or services of their customer, and finally they position this as favourably as possible so that the bots in the major search engines can locate the site, read it, file it and reference it every time some types into engines like Google the relevant searches to summon the website.
This is a very skillful and sophisticated process; it is complex but not complicated to the initiated. While being a methodical process it is not accomplished without the fineness that technicians must have to succeed and reach beyond the usual run of the mill.
Even the music score chosen for this video sales tool is specific to ‘martial arts’ in feel. In many of the martial arts, the erratic force of the opposition is their failing and the accomplished martial artist knows well how to harness that force and use it advantageously. SEO & SEM shares this method.
After the robot finished and the text establishes what the video is to be about, there is a spinning globe with lights and numbers emanating from it as well as framing it. The patterns that are animated are also metaphors for the process of connecting to the world. The accompanying text speaks to his skillful application of SEO, then it says that the following scene, which was as close as I could get to a simulated ‘web’ is spinning. It not only spins, it animates. There is a single point of light at it’s center and that is a foreshadowing of the maze it references and the maze that this company can and will cut thru to getting his clients product or service in front of a very specific and targeted buyer.
The video production intends to entertain while it informs. This is one of the reasons why I don’t often break colour code once I select and establish the colour chosen for the client the video is crafted for. If ever it’s broken it’s done so with explicit intention.
SEO Web Designs’ company website and logo is blue but space is also typically conceived of as blue or black.
The job of the concept artist in developing a video to sell a product or service is engage the viewer on as many levels as possible.
First: Intrigue them / engage them
Set up an interesting concept that is played out in a way that surprises the viewer. This way the video delivers beyond what the viewer expects and this ensure that the video will almost always be watched all the way thru.
Time spent on a website is one among over 200 indicators the major search engine bots look for, and scores a website when they crawl the web…so delivering on this also helps the company to sell their services.
The highway was chosen for obvious reasons… the use of ‘information highway’ is in recognized use. the featuring of the binary language of 1’s and 0’s on either side with beams of light traveling to and fro signal that the information is delivered…is moving, travels at the speed of light, etc.
Now the challenge is to maintain the viewer after they’ve engaged and lulled a bit by the mesmerizing points of light that travel along the information super highway. The cut to the maze is also a metaphor… a visualization tool to demonstrate in a way that you hope the viewer / shopper will not forget. It’s an experience to travel thru that maze…note the colour of lights keep close to the points of light on the super highway, and the speed is set just about right to not be too disorientating or the viewer will tense up and pull back. It has to be set just right… and have the music at just the right place so the viewer does not resist the ride! Taking this ride with the presenter is a sales technique and it positions the buyer favourably towards wanting to put their money on the table and buy what’s being offered.
Note that even the colour bar, called the lower third, upon which appears the text information, it is also kept in the calming colour spectrum.
After the maze, the colour here, is foreshadowing what the final shot will be. It is a lighter blue and the avatars are going up and down the stairs which do not seem to go anywhere. Mindless climbing up and down the stairs. This is to simulate hard work with no reward.
Then a ‘break thru’ of an unrestrained arrow pushes straight up and shatters the ‘glass ceiling’. This is a metaphor of what Steve’s work at WebsiteDevelopment.us does. So you’ll now see that there is only one statement this video makes but it makes it over and over within tightly designed vignettes’. It says this:
There is a strategy to getting your website seen on the world wide web and this is the sales strategy that is referenced in the opening scene of the video.
The chain that appears next has a single bright blue link that ties together two halves of the gleaming chrome chain. Obviously statement here about what Steve company does…they link you, to position you favourably on the web. The video picks up the scene it foreshadowed and set up with the avatars who climb endless stairs to no where…but this time, the white stairs lead up to an open door and outside is a lovely blue sky! On this page where the chain appears…there is only black and white except this one bright blue link. This is purposely designed and is one of the shots you hope the viewer will not forget. Think about it, when did you ever see such beautiful chain? Not to mention one with only one link that is a different colour. Can you see this subtle, yet not so subtle to punctuate that this company, WebsiteDevelopment.us is your missing link…it is your opportunity to get yourself hooked up to a promise. Here again, as I keep saying, in these video productions for sales tools, I pick one point and only one and then repeat it at least 3 times each a different way of course.
The letters of SEO along side a globe in the bottom left corner is now foreshadowing the finally scene of the video… it says, “let us take your business to the next level’. The final scene of a spinning world moving toward you rapidly is too obvious to need comment…and on the globe are light patterns that indicate a world wide web connected.
That is my best attempt to put you into the mind of a ‘Concept Artist’. It’s what I do. I figure out what needs to be said, and then I just repeat it several times in a variety of visual similes and metaphors… and always framing whatever I choose to be the ‘money shot’. The one image or piece of video footage that is unforgettable. That way, I do my best job at ‘hooking’ the viewer in memory so that whenever they want to know anything about SEO, that one image will pop up and they follow it.
It’s like fishing. You pick the fish you want to catch – figure out what they are feeding on and why, bait the hook with that ‘menu’, then wait – when they bite, you have to set the hook…play them out…and then reel them in! AKA ‘conversion’! LOL