A great online video platform can make a significant difference in the reception of your website. Video content is one of the most prevalent types of media on the internet; visitors to your site will want their video watching experience on your site to bear similarities to the video they view elsewhere on other sites. A full-featured online video platform that is capable of blending seamlessly into the existing look and feel of your site is what you should make available to the visitors of your site.

While content is also a deciding factor in attracting and retaining visitors to your site, video content is also just as important from a marketing perspective. Creating relevant, entertaining and dynamic video content should be a top priority for any company’s marketing strategies - as evidenced by sites such as YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo and others - people who use the internet like to watch video. Having an embedded, customizable video player on your site is yet another tool you can use to attract prospective new clients and customers.

If you've recognized the importance and potential of having video content available on your site, chances are you've also got a handle on providing top notch content. The needs of visitors to your site should be covered from all sides - text, pictures and video. The next step would be to have an embedded video player on your site that looks like part of your site, which is to say, a video player that is seamlessly integrated into your sites existing visual design. Customizable video platforms are a must for this; the alternative is to use a player that looks out of place and "thrown in" to your site's design. If it looks like it was added haphazardly, it will reflect poorly on your site, the perception of your business in the eyes and minds of visitors and could be detrimental in attracting new clients and customers. Visuals and design play a paramount role in influencing how and where we search and visit on the internet, using a player that you can easily integrate into your existing site is a sure fire way to maintain and build your reputation as a savvy, aware and contemporary business - nobody gravitates links to, tweets about or remembers "old and busted" looking sites.

A customizable video player should be exactly that - fully capable of being customized to suit your business. What this means is full site integration in terms of the players appearance: having the ability to change the size, location, background color, adding your logo, etc. - the video player you choose should have a full complement of capabilities that will enable you to change the player to suit your needs. There should really be almost no limits to what you can do with the video platform in terms of customizing it - background images, toolbar, your company logo, size, page location, ability to run banner style ads as a means of cross promoting your other goods or services - a video player must be capable of all of this.

To take the idea of using a video player even further, some providers will even be able to offer you the ability to track the usage of your player through advanced analytics that will be capable of providing you with the invaluable information necessary when you want to view how and where your video content is being shared (most embedded video platforms, no matter how basic, offer the ability to share via email, linking or embedding but offer no way to track the information).

Embedded video platforms can also be used as another method of directing site visitors to other site locations or specific landing pages - for example; a video you have available on your site could be offering information to a service you provide, at the end of the video you can offer the viewer the ability to go directly to the page that will allow them to purchase the service immediately - If a customer or client has gotten this far into your site, it should be of paramount importance to offer them a direct link to what it is they seek.

You can fine tune the viewing experience even further by using logo overlays that appear on screen throughout the playing time of any content (like when you watch TV and the logo appears at the bottom right for the network whose show you're watching), offering the option for High Definition content, fully customizable fonts, video still images in the window before playback, animated pre-video branding (example - when you watch a movie, there is usually a short sequence where the logos of the companies involved will be played before the coming attractions begin) - customization is key, with some careful planning, the embedded video platform can become a very powerful means of promotion.

Being able to showcase your video content is a marketing tool no company should be without. A branded video experience on your site will assist in increasing sales, attracting new clients and increasing profits while offering viewers informative, entertaining (and potentially viral) content.