It’s no surprise that video content is continuing to grow in popularity.
The YouTube video platform is the second most used search engine after Google. Creating video content and publishing it on YouTube will assist your website to gain traction with your target audience. Here are two ways to integrate video on your site so let’s explore which method is better and why.
Video Embedding Method #1 – Hosted on your own website.
Depending on duration, videos files can be very large particularly if they are High Definition (which they should be). Large files place a heavy drain on your server which can negatively impact the performance of your site.
Uploading video files to your website will take up a great deal of storage space. There are bandwidth issues too and will take longer to load than a YouTube video even if optimised.
Be aware of how to maintain the minimum acceptable standard of video hosting on your website site. You must manage and resolve technical issues including software updates and media player idiosyncrasies.
Delays in a video playback or even worse a non-functioning player will annoy your site visitors and prompt them to leave and seek what they need elsewhere.
Video Embedding Method #2 – Embed from YouTube server.
Rather than uploading your video to your own server upload it to YouTube (or other video hosts such as Vimeo). It’s very easy to create your own channel so that people can see all your clips in a single place. However this article is about adding a single video to your website.
Important.
Prevent “Related Videos” offer. Once people finish your video they (by default) are presented with other video suggestions. These could include links to competitors or less-desirable content so you need to deal with it. It’s a simple matter to add &rel=0 to the end of your embedded YouTube URL to disable this feature.
Once you have the video uploaded YouTube will present you with a unique URL. It won’t have an easy-to-read name but rather a string of seemingly random letters, numbers and special characters following the standard https://www.youtube.com prefix. All you need to do is copy and paste the Youtube url into a line in WordPress and it will present the video with a preview image that you set when uploading.
I always recommend the YouTube method but there are some tweaks required on your site to make sure the clip performs appropriately.
Make sure you set a maximum size.
YouTube videos are embedded with a default size across all WordPress sites. You need to make sure this is suitable for your page size and/or blog by changing the width or height.
Using video on websites is becoming even more popular as it is with social media sites such as Facebook. So consider including some on your business site. But be careful to stick to relevant and engaging content and keep the durations short (less than 3 minutes). If you have longer content break them up into 3 minute videos rather than an extra large single clip – your site visitors will thank you.
If you’d like some advice about this topic or anything to do with getting more from your existing business website – ask for a free review and we’ll get back to you soon.
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