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How to market your website using videos















Free video sharing Services

YouTube is the most popular video hosting provider and can be accessed in all countries of the world. It allows people to upload both short and full length videos in different file formats. All you need is to sign up for an account and you can then proceed to load your favorite videos in. You are further allowed to create links to your favorite videos all on your website.

Vimeo – it provides the same services as YouTube but it is rarely used because of low levels of publicity.
Viddler - it provides free services but with more features that allow users to customize applications.
Google videos - This one allows you to sell your own videos that can be downloaded by other people.
Yahoo videos - Very functional and allows for different platforms for hosting.
Metacafe - Offers different types of file storage options and is also free.
Daily Motion - Has links to social networks thus providing viewers with plenty of assorted videos to watch.

Paid video sharing sites

Playstream - Provides gigabytes of space for video storage.
On stream Media - Also provides plenty of storage space with more features.
Amazon S3 - Allows you to stream quality videos on your website with plenty of cloud storage services. It’s compatible with many media players therefore can be accessed with ease.
Viddler B2B - It’s a premium hosting service that is fast, efficient and secure. However, you have to pay at least $100 as month rent.

Video sharing options for Small Businesses

Ordinarily, placing your videos on the shared websites makes a functional and economic sense for many businesses. This is because such videos can be streamed freely without necessarily affecting a websites performance. Posting them on the shared websites also improves on functionality as professionals like doctors and architects can sell ideas or conduct interviews. Listed are some ideas that you should always keep in mind when using video streaming services.

YouTube as an example of Free Video Hosting platform

As the most popular video hosting and streaming platform, YouTube can be used as a yardstick for guidelines on free video streaming services.
  • It is easy to join. Just sign up, get an account and load any video.
  • There are freely available converters that you can use for various file formats to upload on the hosting websites. The recommended formats for final conversion and uploading are .mp4 and .flv. 
  • You also get efficient search facilities to locate your videos fast. This is because of its association with a top rated search engine. This in turn is beneficial for websites as it improves availability and concomitantly traffic. There are also tools for content management and viewer restriction.
  • Customization tools at your disposal
  • You can embed a video on your website and link it to the site for easy and quick access.
  • Get full support with icons placed on your website for better marketing and linking to the hosting website.
Below are some of the advantages of using free video hosting and streaming services. Despite being free, they also have limitations that also need to be highlighted
  • Ordinarily videos posted on YouTube should not be more than 15 minutes in length. This is very restrictive. However, there are exceptions depending on your nature of membership. Advanced members can upload full length videos of unlimited size and length.
  • All videos are normally sampled before they are posted on their website. Therefore, if your content is unacceptable to the YouTube administrators, it risks rejection
  • You are not in control over peoples comments. This in turn allows people to post nasty comments that can be defaming. 
  • When using YouTube services, it’s important that you make several copies of the videos so that incase of deletion or corruption, you can always restore the videos. Such incidences, however are rare but can be a great setback incase they occur
Finally, if you have a few videos to market your products, it would just be better to post them on your website rather than link them to a site like YouTube where other videos are likely to distract your clients. All you need to do is to embed the video using the right code and it will easily be available to your clients on your website to view without much distraction.

Using Amazon S3 as an example for paid video streaming services

When it comes to paid hosting, the Amazon S3 service stands out and is recommended. If you are looking for premium sharing services for your web videos, it’s one of the best. Listed are the advantages of paid video sites.
  • There are no restrictions on the video size that you can upload.
  • It allows both for storage and streaming. However, for you to stream video content, you will need to have some media player.
  • While there are charges for hosting videos on Amazon S3, the storage rates are quite affordable.
  • Videos remain private without additional links that are normally a great source of inconvenience.
Drawbacks of using paid video streaming sites
  • It doesn’t have a robust mechanism for searching videos. Therefore, you need to get the exact details whenever you want to locate a video. This makes it unfriendly for website marketing.
  • Using these services also require some technical knowhow and training. Unlike other video hosts where you simply need to sign in and upload a folder, there are a couple of installations and adjustments that you need to make with S3. You can learn to use the website or alternatively hire an expert..


















Final tips for Business Video Streaming

Finally, when it comes to video marketing, it all depends on your objectives and goals. If you are looking for a straightforward and high speed service that is free, easy to use and can be linked to other sites, YouTube is your best bet. In addition, you get a robust search mechanism that enables quick access to your videos, whether they are posted on YouTube or your own website. This in turn is good for business.

On the other hand, if you have content that needs not to be accessed by many people and also want to earn money from, the Amazon S3 provides you with the best platform. This website enables you to sell your videos on a pay per view or download purchases. You can take advantage of this option to safeguard some of your creative works.

It’s a little like choosing to use shared web hosting or option for one or more dedicated servers where you get more options and in many ways a smoother service all round.

Lastly, when it comes to video marketing, venture wide and do not restrict your self to a particular line of hosting. Use free services if need be and also paid services as your needs arise..
Videos are important for website marketing. This is because; they allow you to pass across a message in a concise and effective manner. This way, your clients are saved the burden of sifting and reading through hundreds of lines of text, for which the same information can be accessed on video playback. However, videos that are embedded on personal websites tend to load slowly and are thus not best suited for marketing. But with cloud hosting, online web videos can load fast and be viewed by many people simultaneously.

Why you should consider video streaming Services

There are many providers of video hosting whose services you can use at any particular time. There are usually two main categories: free video hosting and paid video hosting. Each category has its pros and cons that you will read later on. Below, is a list of video hosting service providers and platforms that you can use for marketing your website.