Hey there and welcome back.
So it’s no secret that videos are a great way to capture the attention of somebody. After all, aren’t you currently watching a video?
So whether it’s an explainer video, like this one, a video to show off what your business does or some other video to help your business, you’re probably going to want to show those videos on your website.
But videos are a drain on website resources. And uploading videos directly to your website is going to drastically slow down your site.
So today let’s discuss the best ways that you can show videos on your website.
Before we start off, if you want to see more videos on digital marketing, ecommerce, WordPress and other website related topics, be sure to hit the subscribe button and to ring the bell for notifications.
Let’s get started.
Why videos matter in today’s world
We are people that love the visual world. When it comes to moving us to emotions, nothing does it better than videos and photos. And videos allow us to tell stories that photos and text just can not do.
And for your business, they can be a big help. You can really show off your product or services in action. You can show potential customers and clients what you do, how you do it and why you do it. That way they know exactly what to expect. And that builds trust which can lead to them buying from you.
If you’re looking for a content strategy to get more people to buy from you, video is a pretty good way to go.
Videos are a drain on website resources
But at the same time, videos are really large files. On average, one of my videos around here is 1 gigabyte of data. For comparison, I highly recommend that for your website all of your images be around 100 kilobytes or so. And in some cases, some web hosts won’t even allow you to upload a file the size of a video.
And that’s because it is a drain on every facet of the website. Your web host has to have somewhere where it can store that file and be called later on. And then asking the visitor’s device to download that big of a file is a pretty big ask, especially if their connection isn’t great. It’s going to kill the page loading time, and people are going to leave.
Finally, there’s no one set file format for browsers and videos. So you’re probably going to have to upload it in different formats. It’s better to just leave it to someone else to figure it out.
Use a video hosting service
So in order to figure out how we’re going to get around those problems and get our videos up on our websites, we’re going to need somebody else to host it for us. I don’t know where we can find something like that. I’ll give you a hint: you’re on it right now.
That’s right. The best idea for videos is to upload them to YouTube or Vimeo. These are great places obviously to not only upload videos and serve them on your website but also to help people discover you, your company and your website.
So it’s a win win. You have a powerful platform that can easily host and distribute your videos and you have a new place for people to discover you.
Embedding the video on a page
Embedding a video on any webpage is super easy. For YouTube and Vimeo you can click “Share”, wherever that might be, and then look for something that mentions embed code. Copy that embed code and place it on your page. And bam, your video will now appear on that page when you load it.
Now, if you use WordPress it gets even easier. All you need to do is copy the YouTube or Vimeo link. Then add in a new YouTube or Vimeo block and place in your link. No need for embed code. And if you’re still using the classic editor, you can simply paste the url into the editor on a line by itself and the embed should automatically be inserted.
Simple as that.
Up Next
So what questions do you have about videos and making sure they’re properly added to your website? Be sure to leave them down in the comments section below.
Next week we’ll resume our dive into different Google like tools, like Google Site Kit and Google Search Console. And then we’ll also take a look some accessibility tools that you might want to use to check the accessibility of your website.
To see those videos and more videos on WordPress, ecommerce, digital marketing and other website related topics, be sure to hit the subscribe button and to ring the bell for notifications.
Until next time, I wish you and your business the best of luck!
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