You need help because you want your videos to look good (to other people)! Often course creators are so excited to finally get a video recorded that they just want to publish it and move on to the next video. However, if you're asking students to stare at your face for even 5 minutes, you should do your best to make sure the experience is as painless as possible.

​Take a look at the 2 screen shots below - can you see a difference between them? Which one would you rather watch during an online course?

Can you tell what changes I made to get the top video looking like the bottom one? 

• I zoomed in so there aren't giant black bars on all sides.
• I positioned the lady & her table in the center (there is equal amount of wall on both sides).
• I straightened the image.
• I brightened it.
• I reduced the highlights a bit.
• I adjusted the color so it's not so pink.

I did all these things using Adobe Premiere, before I started breaking the video into clips and adding text and images to make the content easier to follow.

So, the first thing you do when you record a new video? Make sure it looks good! Ask people what they think or what they'd change. And if you don't know how to fix it, learn how on YouTube or ask someone for help!

If you're selling exclusive access to part of your website, whether clients are paying you or it's a way to funnel new customers into your business, you should make sure that it’s reflective of the quality of your products & brand. Members-only areas are sometimes neglected, since we assume those people like us already anyways, while we focus on bringing in new customers. However, these restricted areas of your website are RARELY the end of a funnel, or the highest profit product or service you offer. If the goal is to convince your members to purchase more expensive things from you, whether it’s 1:1 coaching or online courses or other products/programs, you need your members-only areas to be attractive, well-organized, and consistent with your brand.

I helped a client update her paid members-only page the other day, and wanted to share some of my process with you. Below are 6 tips to apply to your members-only area to improve your client’s experience and make sure you’re putting your best face forward to build trust with you and your brand. 

1. Use your brand colors (or choose at least one consistent color) and start using them in titles & as background colors on your website.
2. If your navigation bar is cluttered, go through the links and decide which are most important to you and the mission of your business.
3. Reduce the size of photos or number of items at the top of your page and create an enticing headline that draws people down into the page content.
4. Delineate sections with background colors (or lines if you can’t change your site’s background) and clear, large titles.
5. Make sure any link away from your website opens in a new page so visitors can easily return to where they were on your site, and try to embed videos rather than sending people to YouTube.
6. Separate text into smaller sections so they’re easier to process. Consider adding bullet points, paragraph breaks, &/or images to break up the text.

If you’d like to see exactly how I applied these strategies to my client’s site, sign up below and I’ll email you a PDF with details and a link to a screencast video where I demonstrate all 6 of these tips.

~  Teacher Kendall