Video is all the rage… it deepens your presence in search engines and it improves conversion rates on your website.
Many resort operators don’t have professional videography in their budget and are intimidated by making a slideshow themselves.
One of our customers recently asked if there was an easy way to make nice little videos for their website. Good question.
My personal favorite free and amateur tool is Windows Movie Maker — an application that most have on their computer and don’t even know exists. Movie Maker is a reasonably powerful piece of software that will let you:
- Take photos and videos and create movies.
- Allows text overlays, fancy transitions, and panning and zooming.
- Allows you to add audio (don’t add copyrighted music!)
- Saves your creation in many different formats.
However, many people are looking for an even easier solution. A solution to turn photos into a video, add copyright-free music automatically, and even host the video for you (so you don’t have to figure out how to get it uploaded on the web).
I recommend you try Slideroll. Here is a quick example of their video. It took me 16 minutes to create this short photo-based video:
This video is easy to insert into a website because it is hosted by Slideroll and they give you a snippet of code that embeds your video on a webpage. The drawback is that you cannot upload it to Youtube (or elsewhere) because they don’t give you the video file.
Creating a .mpg movie file involves 2 extra steps:
- Download and run the Slideroll Video Creator (which creates a mp3 video file of your online slideshow.)
- Finding a snippet of copyright-free music in mp3 format that was the same length as my slideshow. This is a tough endeavor for most.
How to find .mp3 copyright free music: Try UniqueTracks to buy a few songs or CDs of music you can use… Check out Internet Tip – Royalty Free Music at No Charge for a list of artists who let you use their music for absolutely free.
Here is what the video looks like after I use Slideroll Video Creator and add new music and upload to Youtube:
When it was all said and done… I found it easier to make Slideroll and would recommend it if you just want to easily embed photo-based movies in your website. I prefer to use Windows Movie Maker because it creates downloadable files I can distribute online. Plus, it is more powerful (and therefor a bit harder to use).
Hopefully these software packages will help you make easy videos and improve your online presence.
Nice stuff, Trent. The Slideroll looks like a very easy to use software! By the way, have you checked out the videomaker site yet? At there, you’ll learn many about the video making techniques!
I saw your post regarding free royalty free audio and thought I would add a few sites with free royalty free music and sound effects.
On this page there is a collection of free royalty free music loops that are perfect of idents, stings or background music behind a voice-over. Available for personal and commercial use, no strings attached:
Free Royalty Free Music Loops
Download and enjoy.
Good luck with your projects.
It’s true! Videos can really enhance a website, not only aesthetically but also as regards content and search engine optimization. I didn’t know that it was so easy to create a video and that you could achieve such nice results! I’ll definitely give Slideroll a try.
A very informative blog. I am having a good time reading blogs that are related to my own, especially like this which appears not as a spam blog. Unlike most of the blogs created lately. This one is very very educational. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Very good (and many) free sound loops, effects you can find on flashkit, http://www.flashkit.com/loops/ .
I think all are free for non-commercial using, but i am not sure.
Wow! Trent, thanks a lot for pointing me to the Slideroll. I used Pinnacle Studio + AVI to FLV converter before. That is a big overhead for simple slide shows. Now, I have a better option to create plain slide rolls. Thanks again!
Slideroll is nice and easy! I think the audio is the hard part, and they do provide a nice selection of canned music. Trent
Wilson: No, I haven’t seen it… what is the URL for Videomaker?
Trent, here’s the URL for the Videomaker site: http://www.videomaker.com/.
Thank you for the Sloderoll-tips.
It is so much eaiser than the system I am using right now (the same as Dr. Box).
Those are neat tools! Thanks for the post. I have used windows movie maker which is good for basic editing, but I haven’t ever used the slideroll – that is so cool!
Helpful post. I’ll use this method to post my video.
Royalty free music it´s one of the best sites to download free music, but i´d prefer to look for my favourite artist and download the album by rapidshare or zshare you will find for sure all the artists albums you need. And for post my videos i am using the vimeo website, you can make very interesting contacts.
There is also website named animoto.com where you can upload your pics and they will do the movie/slide presentation themselves I’ve tried their service and it look great.
Thanks for demonstrating Sideroll. I have always wondered about a good way to make some simple slideshows easily. I’ll definitely use it in the future.
There´s an awesome video converter called AVS videoconverter that will convert from any video format TO any video format, including flv and others.
Does anyone know if there are certain topics that attract higher traffic than others? For example, would a video about a recent news event attract more traffic than a video that teaches someone how to shuffle a deck of cards?
Thanks for the tip and the very useful infos about copyright-free music..
I use Windows Movie Maker and I was in my way in learning to use Adobe’s Movie Maker. This is my first time to hear about Slideroll. Wow, thanks. I will try this. Thanks again.
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I like this… it’s an easy way to get videos on your blog. What about distribution though? Have you used TubeMogul? They’ll basically submit to over two dozen video sites, making distribution a breeze. Something to consider.
Good catch here! This is very helpful for my blog. Never tried making my own video for my blog I’m just grabbing from youtube but this time I’ll try making mine. I have a favors blog and like other bloggers I’m looking for ways to make my blog attract traffic. Thank you for posting this.
Marcy
Thanks for the tips.
I have taken some video footage of our apartments with the intention of creating an online video. However, they seem very armature and shaky. Following your advice I think that using our photos and Windows Movie Maker will have a bigger impact.
Honestly, I have an interest with creating a video, to upload in my site. I just want to make it more creative and different from others that’s why I’m still looking some tips.
Thanks for the tips you shared. :)