Dive Brief:
- Colleges that have opted for video over still images on their homepages have seen success driving traffic to admissions and other internal pages.
- University Business reports that Chapman University in Southern California boosted the percentage of people going from the homepage to the undergraduate admissions section of its website to 11% of total section visitors, from 1% the year before, and users spent 15% longer on the homepage once the institution added video.
- At Georgia State, University Business reports the digital strategy director has found an article highlighted on the homepage with video gets four times the traffic of those paired with a still image.
Dive Insight:
Colleges are facing more competition than ever and dealing with increasing pressure to raise application rates as well as those of enrollment for admitted students. One way to be competitive is to improve the institution's website. Younger students especially live in a world of video. We are in a time in which Twitter’s future is being questioned because of its text-focused design. Video certainly takes longer to produce than still images, but a variety of colleges highlighted by University Business have found the time spent to be worth it.
At Chapman University, the 15% increase in time spent on the homepage happened from the first to the second month of incorporating video. For the brainstorming meetings about how to improve website metrics, this is certainly something to consider.