[Ed. note: The Real Estate Internet Marketing blog welcomes a new voice to the blog, our intern Tom Cull. We think you’ll enjoy his perspective and experience working with video in this and other posts.]

Remember when “Video killed the Radio Star“? According to The Pew Internet & American Life Project, almost 15% of all web traffic comes from You Tube and other video-sharing platforms. Couple that with Google’s increasing ability to index video into top search results and using video becomes a key component.

Many small businesses are jumping on this bandwagon as people are becoming more accustomed and willing to watching video online as they are to read text, especially with advertising. Using platforms like YouTube also saves on storage and bandwidth costs with great distribution possibilities from social networking.

But a caveat, large or small it is important to follow some basic rules of online video to communicate your message effectively and not turn off the viewer: