Free Website Review
Website Portfolio
WordPress
- Check Your PHP Version in WordPress
- Discourage search engines from indexing this site
- How do I add a new WordPress admin user? Or remove one?
- How do I add HTML code to my website?
- How do I change who a form gets sent to?
- How do I edit my WordPress header or footer?
- How do I redirect a page or post?
- How do I replace an existing PDF or image in WordPress?
- How do I set up a staging website?
- How to Edit WordPress Navigation Menu/Links
- How To Improve WordPress Search
- How to know and what to do if my WordPress website gets hacked?
- How to test changes without messing up a live web page
- Should I run a WordPress security plugin?
- Should I upload videos directly to my website?
- What Is Xmlrpc.php in WordPress? Why disable it?
- What premium plugins/services do I get with your service?
- Where can I find images to use on my website?
- Why are there plugin updates in my WordPress Dashboard?
Digital Marketing
Troubleshooting
- Does my website use cookies?
- How To Assign A Technical Contact in Network Solutions
- How to clear the cache in Chrome
- How to clear the cache in Edge
- How to clear the cache in Firefox
- How to clear the cache in Opera
- How to clear the cache in Safari
- How to Clear Your Browser Cache
- How to Delegate Access to Your GoDaddy Account
- How to Delegate Domain Access on Namecheap
- How To View Your Website Traffic/Analytics
- I’m not receiving form notifications from my website
- My changes aren’t showing up on my website
- My image looks blurry after I upload it?
- My site shows a security/SSL warning
- What to Include When Contacting our Helpdesk
- Why doesn’t Google show my meta description or title?
Should I upload videos directly to my website?
Table of contents
We get this similar question a lot…
- Can I upload videos to my website?
- How do I add a video to my website?
- What’s the best way to add a video to my WordPress site?
The answer?
In short, yes, you can add videos to your website, of course.
But, you should not simply drag/drop it into your media library and try to add it to a page.
The best thing to do? Embed.
Upload the video to a service such as YouTube or Vimeo and then embed the video into your website.
YouTube is the service we suggest because it’s simple/free.
Why shouldn’t you just upload a video to your website?
Server Space / Bandwidth
While this isn’t a big concern if you’re talking about a few small videos; the space requirements for videos can certainly pile up over time as you add more and more. If you’re looking to not max out your hosting account, simply don’t self-host videos.
If your web hosting package is limited by bandwidth, that’s another very good reason Not to self-host your video, as video can easily eat up all of your bandwidth.
Slow / Freezing Videos
If the file is on your web hosting, you’re going to be serving every single visitor the exact same version of the video.
While this may not be an issue if you have someone on a desktop computer with a very fast internet connection, users with slower connections or smaller screens can start to run into issues.
When you upload the video to a service like YouTube or Vimeo, you upload the very highest quality version of the video. The video service then automatically optimizes that video for different devices and internet speeds. When a user starts to load up the video, they automatically give the user the best version of the video. This lets them not just ‘watch’ the video, but gives them an optimal experience.
Video Format Issues
Not all video formats are going to work in all browsers on all devices. Certainly, some video formats are more widely supported than others, but when you self-host the video, you may run into issues where a user cannot watch the video.
Piracy
When you self-host your own videos it makes it a lot easier for someone to simply copy/save your video to their computer.
There’s no perfect solution, you cannot expect someone to never be able to download your content, but hosting the video on your website makes it easier for someone to download.
