If you frequent various online websites, chances are, you've interacted with videos playing as you browse.
You've seen the added appeal it gives to the page. You may be wondering how they do it. The simple answer, dedicated video hosting.
What is video hosting?
Hosting enables you to serve video to your page viewers. It is not a new trend, but it is becoming more and more popular as people tend to spend time online now more than ever.
Simple video hosting allows you to upload your content to a third-party site. You may store your video there for people to watch. You may also choose to put your video on your website for your visitors to view. All you need is to embed that link to your page, and voila!
How to host a video?
Hosting videos on your website requires a lot from you if you will do it yourself. For starters, you have to know a lot of technical details. You need to understand how each part functions. You need to adjust settings based on the file type and size that you need to upload. You must do it accurately to avoid crashing your page.
Also, your page needs to have enough capacity and storage to accommodate the materials you will upload. Unfortunately, this could lead to slower page loading and could affect your visitor's overall experience. Getting more storage and higher bandwidth means that you need to pay extra, and the higher the requirements, the higher the pay.
The good thing is that you can outsource this. There are video hosting sites you can tap to do this for you. They are very easy to use. You also have several options to choose from online. Another great news is that you are not limited to picking just one. You can try them all out first to see which one works best for you.
What differentiates video hosting services?
Every video hosting server has its advantages and disadvantages. How it affects your page is highly dependent on what your content is for or your target viewers. Below, we will discuss the common factors that will determine their usability.
Analytics tools
If you are going to use your videos for marketing or business, video hosting analytics will be your bestfriend. It shows the metrics that measure the success of your content. It may cover the number of views, the viewers' demographics, which time of the day or day of the week it gets most viewed, and many others. These are actual numbers that show how well you are doing.
The information you will get from these data will improve your weak spots or maximize those that work. If you are out to conquer the market with your video content, choose a video hosting server that provides clear and accurate analytics.
Although this may seem technical, you will realize that it is very straightforward as you go along. Many of the data you will get are simplified. You do not have to dig too deep. Besides, if you will find it difficult, asking for help is always an option.
Software compatibility
Another important consideration when choosing a host is software compatibility. Video content will only be powerful if somebody can view it. Unfortunately, not all video hosting services can guarantee that. If you are going to embed your link to your page, you need to check if it will work.
You need to verify if your video hosting provider is compatible with the page you want to link the video to. You can discover this by reading the terms and limitations of the service, or you may contact their support staff. An error message may also appear if you are trying to embed something incompatible with your software.
Common reasons for incompatibility are the types of video format that your page can accommodate. You can quickly work around this problem, though. However, it is best to find a provider that will not have this issue to avoid the hassle.
Viewing experience
How your page visitors will see the videos also matters. Will the content play continuously without interruptions? Or will ads keep popping out, and how often? These are some of the things that you need to consider.
Distractions can affect the overall viewing experience. Often, it also leads to site guests dismissing the video altogether because of the annoying ads. It defeats the purpose of having this tool as an additional way of attracting audiences. You must check your host regarding this. Determine how much of these intrusions you can handle.
Price
Another thing that you may want to factor in when making your final decision is the price. There are hosting sites that allow for free to serve video and those that require payment. Of course, there are pros and cons in choosing one over the other.
Paying for premium services can ease many of the issues encountered above. Some hosting sites will give a thorough analysis of data through paid accounts. You can get rid of ads and enjoy uninterrupted viewing too. It also offers faster and more reliable support from their technical team when you go for the paid service.
Which video hosting server to choose?
If you are not confident about self-hosted video cms, then you need to look for a provider right away. There are many options to choose from but below are three of the most popular video hosting websites. Let us examine each one based on the criteria discussed above.
Vimeo
Vimeo is an American company that allows video uploads, storage, and embedding with customizations superior to most of its competitors.
This video hosting provider supports almost all kinds of video formats, so compatibility is not an issue. It also provides a useful analysis of data that can help you improve your content. It has strict privacy options, allows limits on who can embed your videos, and password-protected functions.
However, all of these come at a price, including having uninterrupted viewing. It is because the site gets its revenues on the membership subscription rather than on ads. It offers free basic service but is limited to 500MB weekly upload and 5GB storage. The free version also has limited functionalities. So if you want all the perks mentioned earlier, going premium is the answer.
Wistia
Wistia is a video hosting site that appeals more to business professionals. Unlike other platforms, it does not have its place where you can browse and watch videos. Instead, it allows you to create, upload, store your content with them and have the video hosting link embedded to your website. It drives and directs your viewers directly to your page, not elsewhere.
Since it is a straightforward business tool, it has an efficient analytics capability. You will see precise details about your visitors, like how they interact with the video. There is a real-time tracking of views as well as their very own heatmap function.
Wistia offers free hosting of up to three videos or 200MB a month with basic analytics and customization. However, if doing it for business, it will leave a lot to be desired. If you want to take advantage of this hosting site's powerful features, you may begin with a membership of $99.00 a month.
We use
Wistia combined with ShortKlips
all the time at DCV.
YouTube
Among the choices available, perhaps the YouTube hosting service is the one you are most familiar with and tried. Next only to Google in terms of daily traffic, this is the place to be if you want to see whatever kind of video you would like to see. From tutorials to full-length movies, there are almost no limits to what you can stream in it.
YouTube hosting services are free. Included here are the usual features of video hosting: embed videos to your website, customize, fundamental analytics, and access to its millions of daily viewers. However, it can be distracting because of the ads that appear pre-roll or mid-roll in your videos. Many reports that, at times, some ads are from competing brands. It can lure your market away from you if they do their content better.
Another setback of using this is that your content will have the YouTube logo and, when clicked, would often redirect you to their site. It can distract your page visitors from their initial intentions for getting to your website.
These are some of the hurdles that you need to get through when you choose YouTube. Since it is free and has a huge fan base, it all depends on you if you are willing to take those risks.
Choose the easy path
If you are doing business online but have not tapped into the video content creation yet, you miss out on a significant chunk of the market. Upgrade your website by including videos. You can do it on your own, but why bother.
Do not waste time and energy, trying to figure out how it works. Just choose among the available video hosting websites and get started already.
You will not regret it once you see how it works in your brand.
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