The popularity of video in business marketing keeps growing. We receive calls and emails weekly from businesses who want to know how to add videos to their websites. It remains a top ask for new website clients as well. We tell our clients, and now you, you don’t want to host video on your website, but you have plenty of great options for adding video content to your site. Keep reading to learn how.
Why You Don’t Want to Host Video on Your Website
Videos require a lot of space. You’re paying your website host to provide a home for your website on the internet. That home includes a certain amount of storage space for your site. When you upload your video directly to the site, you’ll likely require more space than your host has allocated for you.
Because of the size of videos and the limitations of your host, you’ll find videos uploaded directly to your website run much slower than if you viewed the video on another platform like YouTube. Who wants to spend five minutes watching a two-minute video littered with glitches? And your videos won’t be the only thing loading slowly. Large files like videos pull speed from other parts of your website, so your entire site may load more slowly because of your video file.
Videos also require special software to play and must be a specific file type. When you upload videos to your website directly, you’ll also have to ensure you have the correct video player and file type to make it work.
If you don’t upload the videos directly to your site, how can you share videos?
Using a Video Hosting Service
Developers built hosting sites such as YouTube and Vimeo for the purpose of hosting videos. They also created the option to allow you to embed your video on your website without hosting it on your site. Facebook and Instagram allow you to embed videos on your site from their platforms as well.
YouTube
Any video you want widely distributed needs to be shared on YouTube. Even if you choose to embed the video from a different host, YouTube is the #1 video hosting website and the second largest search engine. It’s extremely easy to use, and your video will benefit from YouTube’s relationship with Google.
It’s not all sunshine and roses though. YouTube doesn’t offer a lot of control over the player options, and it always displays the YouTube logo on your videos. For paid content, YouTube doesn’t offer a way to protect that content from others.
Facebook and Instagram
Don’t stop by uploading your video to YouTube. Instead of sharing the YouTube link on Facebook, you’ll want to upload the video directly. From here, you can embed either the full post where you shared the video on social media or choose to just embed the video in your website. One plus, embedding videos hosted on your social media pages encourages your website viewers to visit and follow you on social media.
Animoto & Vimeo
YouTube may be the largest video-sharing platform, but it’s not the only one. Animoto and Vimeo offer additional options that YouTube doesn’t. Both allow you to customize the embed code to change how the video displays on your website. You can add your own logo and control end screens. All these options come at a price, however. If you’re willing to spend a little to upgrade your account, it’s worth the extra for branding your videos. We still recommend sharing the video on YouTube for the search capabilities.
How to Embed Video Code on Your Website
Exactly how you place your video on your website differs based on your website’s platform. Start with this guide from Animoto which outlines how to embed the code from various sites onto your website using HTML, WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. Using HTML code allows you to customize how your video looks more than some plugins do. WordPress sites don’t require you to use the embed code. You can use the YouTube link and place it where you want the video to go. The video automatically populates.
We love brainstorming video ideas with our clients! If your website needs sprucing up with video or you need a new site, start your consultation by emailing us.