Welcome to the May edition of ZooNews, from professional Web site design company Zoonini Web Services.

As more and more consumers acquire high-speed Internet connections, video clips on Web sites have become an increasingly useful way to add a fresh dimension to the user's experience, bringing your products and services closer to potential customers. Whether it's a company owner speaking directly to visitors, a product demo, or a heartfelt customer testimonial, Web video can be a powerful sales and marketing tool.

The best way to incorporate video clips on a site is to follow the lead of the preeminent video-sharing site, YouTube, and use a technology called Flash video. With Flash, unlike other formats, the viewer doesn't need to wait for the video file to download completely before they start watching. The Flash video player's look & feel can also be customized (aka "skinned") to better match your brand, and and it can be embedded right on the Web page. Perhaps most importantly with Flash video – unlike, say, the RealVideo and QuickTime formats – the vast majority of your visitors will be able to play the video, because virtually all modern Web browsers support Flash, including Macs and PCs.

Several Zoonini clients recently added some video clips (using Flash video, of course) to enhance the user experience. Check out Destineering's promotional video [currently on hiatus] and Box of Crayons's professional-speaking sample for Michael Bungay Stanier.

The biggest issue with video clips on Web sites is the fact that video files are often very large. Every time someone plays the video on your Web site, it uses up bandwidth. In fact, every time someone visits your Web site and navigates through its pages, downloading a PDF document here, playing an audio file there, a certain amount of bandwidth is used. The more files on your site the visitor downloads during their visit, the more bandwidth is used – and don't forget that the images and HTML files that make up your Web pages themselves all count toward your bandwidth allotment.

Bandwidth is a concept that a lot of people find hard to grasp, but is really not that complicated. Think of bandwidth like car mileage. The same way you may get a mileage allowance when you rent a car, you have a certain amount of monthly bandwidth included with your Web hosting plan. If you exceed the included amount of mileage (or bandwidth), you will face additional charges.

Beware: some Web hosts automatically suspend your entire hosting account the moment you go over your bandwidth allotment. Others warn you first when you're close to exceed it. You can keep an eye on your bandwidth use by looking in your Web statistics or hosting control panel.

Got a technology term you'd like demystified in ZooNews? Send it to questions@zoonini.com.

In 2004, Montreal-based startup Progrès Conseils Consulting hired Zoonini to put together a basic one-page site highlighting its services. Three years later, we're very pleased to have launched a full-fledged bilingual site for the now-thriving Progrès, a consulting firm that helps companies in Quebec and Ontario file scientific research and development (known as SR&ED) tax-credit claims with the Canadian government.

Carefully selected stock photos engage visitors, while testimonials from satisfied clients build credibility. On the contact page, a detailed inquiry form makes it easy for potential clients to provide information about their research and development activities, allowing Progrès to pre-qualify prospects quickly and efficiently.

With search-engine optimized content from A.C. Riley Communications to ensure that potential clients find Progrès easily in online searches, the new site is already paying dividends. Mere weeks after launch, owner Juliana Khalil reports, "I just got my first contract thanks to the new website. When the client Googled us 2 weeks ago, we were ranked no.10. (Now we're ranking 2-3!!! Amazing!) The new client said that of all the SR&ED sites that they researched, our site is the most beautiful and the neatest."

Continuing in the vein of self-Googling we've explored in the last few issues of ZooNews, can you imagine doing a search on your financé's name only to discover he's a fugitive wanted for murder in Arizona, complete with his own profile on America's Most Wanted? That's what happened to the Toronto girlfriend of Mikhail Drachev, when he revealed his true identity to her after proposing. In April, the girlfriend turned Drachev in to police, ending a five-year manhunt and leading to another triumphant "capture" story for AMW.

À la prochaine,

kp
aka Kathryn Presner