Video used to be a 'bad thing' to have on your website as it was slow and excluded many visitors who just couldn't hand around to watch them. However it's making quite a comeback and this is due in some part to its ability to get the point across to people in ways that just weren't possible in using boring old text.

All over the web you will see online manuals and courses that pretty much rely on video and it appears that a new breed of web user is becoming more accustomed to it.

This shouldn't be a surprise really, the TV has sat in the corner of the living room from the 50s onwards and visual entertainment in one form or another takes up a huge proportion of peopke's budgets.

But can this work for business too?

There's no getting away from the fact that text on its own can be dull. Add in a few pictures and it's a bit better but it can't beat video - this is why cinemas are full and art galleries are empty.

But there's an advantage to video that cuts across whether it's good to watch or not - it's actually also a cracking tool for promotion on the Internet and by leveraging its power, you can gain traffic to your site and sell your products.

There are a two key ways this can be done:

• If your product does something then you can show it in action to explain its operation and how it works. It's a very easy concept that is also easy to do - just take your video camera and record it. Upload this to your video sharing site and you're away!
  
  This works well for software where you can show people how it works.
  
• If you have a fairly static product, simply take lots of screen grabs or pictures and arrange them into a slide-show (like the one above) and then you can put a nice piece of music over the top to jazz it up a bit.

Video is here to stay and in fact, it will gain momentum as more and more people latch on to the fact that it's a great medium for selling - just use it and you'll notice your customers will be more engaged and happier to deal with you.