Small business owners and startups have an advantage over their predecessors from 10 years ago. And that advantage is in the progress technology has made over that time period. As a result, there are no more excuses not having a business video on your website.

Can you believe that 10 or so years ago there was barely a YouTube, Facebook or Twitter? Ten years ago many of us were all still using dial up to access the Internet and upload and download speeds were measured in hours. And the gear used in creating and editing videos was prohibitively expensive.

Today, you don’t have an excuse for not creating a video for your business.

Bootstrappers can use the video cameras on their smartphones or laptops. For $2,000 or less, you can hire Seven G Media to shoot and edit your video. You can also spend as much as $125,000 for a web video (actual quote for a short About Us video by a Portland video production shop).

If you are shooting your own video, some must haves include using a tripod or some other contraption to help steady your camera shot. Another must is to use something other than the microphone built into whatever camera you are using. You can get a wired lavalier microphone for less than $25 that will do wonders for your video’s sound quality.

You can edit your video using the free editing programs (MovieMaker on PCs or iMovie on Apples). You can also spend less than $100 for something more robust like TrakAXPC or Adobe’s Premiere Elements. Or if you have deep pockets you can use a professional editing suite, although those can cost upwards of $1,000 or more (Seven G Media uses the Adobe Creative Suite).

Once your video is shot and edited, the next step is to upload it to a server. The most popular platform for video marketing is YouTube. Other options include Vimeo, your own website or cloud-based server, and third-party platforms such as Brightcove, Wistia  or Vidyard.

Besides shooting videos about your product or service, you can include humorous videos or videos about key personnel.