No video, just in-your-face, obnoxious, auto-playing audio.

Does anyone see a trend emerging with these rick roll-esque homepages?

A lot are from pushy sales sites with untrustworthy domains like a dot biz or too-many-hyphens.com.

Not only will auto-playing media hurt your SEO, it’ll undermine your credibility and destroy your conversions.

This comes courtesy of PJ who received one of their spam-casts asking him if he needed a new website.

Done right, a home page video should make your visitors feel a sense of connection to your website. The video should personify your overall goals. Like Ben says, however, you don’t want to surprise users with auto-play, particularly with audio.

That doesn’t mean you can’t make the video an integral part of your home page.

The best way to entice your users to watch the video is to auto-play the video without audio. Include a button that says “play audio”. When clicked the video would then start from the beginning with audio on. Not only will the user not be rick rolled or irritated while having their speakers on, they’ll know what they’re getting into before they hit play. This is a common practice in flash video advertising across the web.

Short of that, give a preview much like Youtube does. A simple screen shot with a play button works nicely.

-Jack