Video is an important tool for any small business that wants to increase its visibility on the web, engage its audience and drive more qualified traffic to its website.

YouTube currently gets 800 million unique visitors a month, putting only Facebook ahead as far as user base goes. Plus, videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites often appear at the top of search engine results pages.

So, let’s share some of our favorite tools, tips and apps for making better, more compelling video.

I’ll start with one of my own: ScreenFlow. This Mac-only product takes great screen capture video and has amazingly simple and powerful tools to create videos that can be uploaded to the web.

It’s the perfect tool for computer based how-to videos. (Camtasia is a similar product for both Macs and PCs, but I haven’t used it.)

What products do you use and recommend when it comes to creating videos, or what’s your best tip for creating compelling video?

Karl, I have used my iphone. Problem is getting it off the phone and onto my computer. The file is too large to send. What’s the secret? @karlmorris

Dea – go buy a point and shoot like a Flip so you can transfer files easily. Save money on the camera and buy high quality mic and decent lighting.

I have done 3 dozen or so videos for the web with this technique ( I use a $80 Kodak zi8) and I shoot in 1080, have a Rhode shotgun mic ($200) and I modified some flood lights with a dimmer for lighting. I bounce the lighting off a projection screen or white poster board to soften it up.
They turn out great and you would never know I am completely bootlegging it!

Has anyone experimented with Spreecast or Google Hangout for video?