You have a variety of choices when it comes to hosting your videos. Hosting refers to the place where your video file resides. Because the Internet functions as a giant computer network, your website can be hosted on one service while your videos can be hosted on another service. Often this arrangement makes sense in that your website will load faster. Further, since videos are large files, you run the risk of exceeding your website bandwidth limits if your videos reside on the same server as your web site.
You have the option of uploading your video to more than one host if you wish. What follows is a brief discussion about the pros and cons of several popular hosting options.
Option 1 – self hosted. This means that your video files reside on the same server as your website files. While it seems counter-intuitive to separate your website files and your video files, doing so usually makes sense. Most website servers are designed to “serve” relatively small files and adding a large video runs the risk of increasing your site load time and exceeding the bandwidth cap at your hosting company.
Option 2 – YouTube. YouTube is the world’s largest video hosting service. Currently there is no cost to use YouTube and when you upload your videos to YouTube you also increase your exposure dramatically as many people use YouTube as a search engine. Videos uploaded to YouTube can be easily “embedded” in your website or blog, or even into an email.
There are a few downsides to using YouTube as a video server. First, your default YouTube account limits your videos to 15 minutes. Once you have uploaded several videos YouTube will usually remove this cap but initially, you are time limited.
Second, you give up a certain amount of control with YouTube. If you embed a YouTube video into your website, other “related” videos will appear at the end of yours, and thereby encouraging your visitor to leave your site (although this default action can be stopped using a WordPress plugin). If a viewer watches your video on YouTube itself, “recommended” videos will also appear on the side margins of the page, also encouraging your viewer to look at other videos.
YouTube also chooses the “thumbnail” cover for the video – although there are WordPress plug-in work-arounds to this.
Option 3 – Vimeo and similar services. There are several video hosting services available to you that offer a YouTube like features but more control over the look and feel of the video player. In addition, you should be careful about relying solely on one video hosting platform like YouTube. Although very unlikely, the YouTube algorithm could decide one day that your channel is violating a term of service and your channel could disappear overnight. Appealing such as ban can be difficult and time consuming. This is why you should copies of all of your videos on an inexpensive backup hard drive so you can start over if need be. We have had good results with a service called Vimeo which also offers HD capability and does not offer suggestions designed to encourage users to leave your video to watch others. Vimeo offers both free and paid plans and is very cost effective.
Option 4 – Facebook – You can and should upload your law firm videos to your firm’s Facebook page. Facebook is obviously much more than a video hosting platform but you will get good exposure if you properly optimize your Facebook videos with tags, hashtags, a detailed description and a good thumbnail. Never forget, however, that Facebook exists to sell ads to vendors not to provide a free platform for your videos.
Option 5 – AVVO – AVVO has become a major player in the online ratings space for lawyers. AVVO recently partnered with Martindale Hubbell, NOLO and Lawyers.com and thousands of potential clients visit these sites to learn more about lawyers in their local area. If you claim your profile on AVVO, which you should, you can create video “guides” using your YouTube or Vimeo hosted video. Keep in mind, however, that AVVO and its Martindale and Lawyers.com partners are in business to sell you and everyone else in your city or town internet marketing services. Visitors to the AVVO platform will be presented with ads from your competitors and a site designed to direct potential clients to an AVVO advertiser. Further, AVVO currently allows lawyers to create free profiles and to upload video guides for free, but there is no guarantee that this will always be the case.
Option 6 – Amazon S3 hosting. Internet retailer Amazon offers a variety of storage plans including one that is very popular among website owners who use it to serve videos. Amazon’s model requires a paid subscription based on the amount of views, although the cost is very low (less than a penny per view). Videos hosted on Amazon tend to load very quickly and you have more control over the size, format and resolution of your videos. If you visit JonathanGinsberg.com you can see an example of an Amazon hosted video using an HTML 5 player for a very interesting effect.