Awesome way to speed up page load time for video

by yukon Banned
13 replies
  • SEO
  • |
I was researching a site to see If they might be interested in buying banner space on one of my niche sites. I can't show the site/niche but I can explain what they are doing to help make their page load fast.

Instead of setting the video on the page to auto-play they simply created an animated .gif image of a few seconds of the video playing, it looks like a real video playing (no audio), only it's a .gif image set to play on an endless loop.

The .gif image has a text overlay "Watch Now" between the fake Play button & fake Volume button at the bottom of the video. Looks kinda like a Youtube Video.

Clever idea to speed up the landing page loading time & draw the traffic into clicking the .gif image to watch their presentation video. The .gif image of the fake video is the only thing on the page that is moving, so it instantly grabs your attention when the page loads (awesome call to action).
#awesome #load #page #speed #time #video
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Ten
    That is a great idea....

    I need to speed up some of my sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author ocaswiz
    That's a good idea but from what I see, .gif image are quite low in quality. Aren't users will detect it at the first time?
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  • Profile picture of the author ronnieavelino
    Very nice idea but to add instead of linking it to visit the video in other sites I would suggest to used plugins that once you click the .gif image the video will just pop-up and they can watch it on your blog. The benefits of this is it will lower your bounce rate as well as speeding up the load time.

    Ronnie
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Does that violate any terms? I was actually mulling over the same thing,
      sort of. I was going to just do a screen capture of the video (before
      starting). Crop that image so that it looks like an embedded video
      ready to just click on and play. But instead, it's an image linked to
      the video on my youtube channel. Clever way of sending people
      to your youtube channel. Yes, there is a reason why I want people
      to leave the page...and go to youtube.

      The youtube terms can be quite archaic to glean through.

      Paul
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      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        Does that violate any terms? I was actually mulling over the same thing,
        sort of. I was going to just do a screen capture of the video (before
        starting). Crop that image so that it looks like an embedded video
        ready to just click on and play. But instead, it's an image linked to
        the video on my youtube channel. Clever way of sending people
        to your youtube channel. Yes, there is a reason why I want people
        to leave the page...and go to youtube.

        The youtube terms can be quite archaic to glean through.

        Paul

        I don't think simulating an embedded video would be a big deal for Youtube, I mean it's just an image with a hyperlink. You could always find another video player similar to a YT video player to wrap around the image. Either way I don't think it would be a big deal. I wouldn't build a site with only simulated videos, but a few scattered over a site isn't a big deal IMO.

        The site I mentioned in OP was a small business promoting their own product, no Adsense or anything.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikefrommaine
    It's an interesting idea, but for my site I wouldn't want to send the viewers to Youtube...I'd want to keep them on my site.

    Thanks, though.
    Signature

    I'm the host of a show at http://mikefrommaine.com

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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by mikefrommaine View Post

      It's an interesting idea, but for my site I wouldn't want to send the viewers to Youtube...I'd want to keep them on my site.

      Thanks, though.

      You don't have to send the traffic to Youtube, it's a normal hyperlink that can be pointed anyplace on the net that you want to send traffic.

      This isn't an animated .gif image but it's the same concept (image/link), click the image below.






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  • Profile picture of the author rafiseo
    Banned
    Originally Posted by yukon View Post

    I was researching a site to see If they might be interested in buying banner space on one of my niche sites. I can't show the site/niche but I can explain what they are doing to help make their page load fast.

    Instead of setting the video on the page to auto-play they simply created an animated .gif image of a few seconds of the video playing, it looks like a real video playing (no audio), only it's a .gif image set to play on an endless loop.

    The .gif image has a text overlay "Watch Now" between the fake Play button & fake Volume button at the bottom of the video. Looks kinda like a Youtube Video.

    Clever idea to speed up the landing page loading time & draw the traffic into clicking the .gif image to watch their presentation video. The .gif image of the fake video is the only thing on the page that is moving, so it instantly grabs your attention when the page loads (awesome call to action).
    Youtube videos dont load with pages right? Usually after page load when we click on the video player we see the video starts loading into the player. Thus not sure how the idea helping your client to reduce page loading speed! My be Im not catching your line of thought or may me Im correct!
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Just wanted to say this doesn't have to be a Youtube video, that's not what I was suggesting in OP.

    I guess you would have to see it on a live page to get what I'm trying to explain, I'm not showing the competition/niche site, so that's out.

    The whole point was the extremely obvious call-to-action of the animated .gif that looked like a video playing. It works, I clicked it (the image).
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
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    • Profile picture of the author SEOSteveO
      That is a very clever idea on getting them to click on the link
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
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          • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
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            • Profile picture of the author paulgl
              Here's some more in the mix.

              I do make more selling ad space....many times I have said that.
              Links mostly. Most people want links.

              As far as load time, gifs are a nonissue. Gifs normally take up such a
              small space in relation to jpeg and especially pngs. Quality matchup
              for video make lack, but not much of a problem. Videos "loading"
              may have issues. (See below.)

              Third, what I have seen on embedded videos is that they sometimes
              do take a while to "show up." And, some don't show up due to
              some glitch or something. Not sure, but I've seen black boxes where
              an embedded video was, reloaded, and video showed. Not sure
              how many would reload or see the dreaded black blank box, but
              the image would sure show virtually every time. Click the image, voila.

              I need to ask. Do videos show up faster being embedded, or
              on youtube? Not quite in relation to Yukon, but certainly mine.

              Adding the the different browser variations as well.

              My point was to get people to my youtube channel. Tricky, yes,
              that's why I asked about TOS. I can't find anything that really
              addresses that. Of course it could be a misuse of youtube
              "images."

              Paul
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              If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author wellm97
    I really liked your idea about how to enhance traffic to any site.
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