13 Reasons Why You Should Host Your Own Video Content

What is one reason you should host your video content on your own server/hosting accounts versus uploading it to other platforms (e.g. YouTube)?

To help you determine where to host your video content, we asked content managers and business owners this question for their best advice. From preventing distractions to unlimited video bandwidth and long-term Viability, there are several reasons why you should host your video content on your own server/hosting accounts vs uploading to other platforms. 

Here are 13 reasons why you should host your own video content:

Prevent Distractions

By hosting your own video content, you have the ability to direct your audience exactly where you want them to go.

When you host a video on an external platform like YouTube, it is very easy for your audience to be redirected from your content to youtube.com and get completely distracted.

By hosting your own content, you have the ability to keep the attention of your audience and direct them to keep consuming your content or take a preferred action.

Audrey Hutnick, Smallwave Marketing

Not at Mercy of Algorithms

If you host videos on your own server or hosting accounts rather than third-party websites, then you are not at the mercy of changes in core algorithms.

Large platforms like YouTube constantly update and improve their systems, and changes could affect visitors’ ability to find your video as well as the viewing experience.

Hosting content on your own server gives you more control over the streaming process and prevents surprise changes.

Michael Alexis, TeamBuilding

Stop Giving Your Traffic to Your Competitors

When you put your video on other platforms you are practically giving ownership away.

Users of that platform can then embed your video on their site without any compensation to you.

Competitors can show their ads right next to your video when your hard-earnt visitor is watching it.

Plus, the platform will show related videos from other businesses all of which will distract your potential customer from choosing you & concentrating on the message in your video.

Dale Reardon, All Accessibility Matters

Reliability

Recently YouTube has bolstered its efforts in avoiding copyright and fair use issues by cracking down on its online creators.

Users have found their videos demonetized or outright removed without warning. Utilizing your own site to upload videos is the safest way to make sure your videos can be easily viewed forever by your audience.

You have the ultimate decision in removing a video, rather than leaving that to a third party to decide.

Brandon Brown, Grin

Easier Conversions

When you have prospective customers directed to your website rather than a YouTube video, you will see more conversions.

They are already viewing the video on your site and at least have some kind of familiarity as a result.

They can easily view category pages/tabs that will take them to the product or service that addresses their needs, rather than having to navigate the YouTube page to find a link to your website.

Jacob Dayan, Community Tax

Tracking and Customization

When you upload your video content to your own hosting server, it ensures that you get the most analytical data possible.

This is crucial especially when you are using the video on a landing page or sales funnel where you are trying to optimize for maximum conversion.

Hosting the video on your server allows you to see who exactly is watching your video, and how they interact with your video, which other platforms like YouTube don’t let you see. They only give you overall data of your video’s analytics, unlike the in-depth data you can get when you host your video on your server.

Additionally, self-hosting your videos allows for better customization as you can determine how your videos appear on your page or if you want any advertising on your videos. It also allows you to include your own sharing buttons and codes to increase sharability.

This can also help your brand get more exposure when other sites embed your video on their own website.

Valentine Okoronkwo, Passive Secrets

Speed and Availability

Although YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and other video hosting servers deliver a good user experience, that mostly depends on their servers’ strength.

One simple way of guaranteeing the fastest speed available for your viewers is to host your video content yourself because you have full control over what (CPU, memory) resources should be allocated.

Speed affects the quality of your video, and if the user experience is poor, your visitors will leave your site and go somewhere else.

Cody Crawford, Low Offset

Ranking and Monetization

Hosting your own video content on your own website not only allows you to control how the video content is displayed but also gives you the chance to make money from it through various methods.

When you upload your videos to a free hosting platform, you cut yourself off from all of this potential revenue.

It also allows you to experiment with different features and design elements, which can improve engagement and conversion rates.

Secondly, when you host your video content on your own server, it helps with ranking.  The more video content you have, the more it helps to rank in the search engines. The search engines love video and they also love fresh content.

Ann Young, Fix The Photo

Develops Relationships With Consumers

Hosting video content on your own server or hosting account eliminates the middle-man of the digital space and develops a more direct relationship with consumers.

In Ecommerce, the goal is to increase website traffic, not turn leads away. This ensures that your potential customer will complete a transaction with your business instead of looking elsewhere on a third-party platform.

Not only does this create a better experience on the website, but also creates trust and credibility between the customer and the brand.

Lance Herrington, UNICO Nutrition

Builds Brand Equity 

Hosting videos on your own server or web account means you ultimately create your own streaming platform.

If you are looking to build brand equity, this is the way to go. The investment in brand awareness and traffic will be fully reflected in your brand, transforming you from a content creator on video platforms to a media channel owner.

Melanie Marten, The Coup

Consider the Extra Design Efforts 

It can be tricky to host your own video content on your site, but it can help if these videos’ purpose is to help monetize your product.

On a colossus like Youtube, you pay for advertising but on your own site, the video itself can act as an advertisement to monetize your product–and for a relatively low cost.

I would say if you are designing personalized video formats, especially, to host on your own site. Other hosts have criteria for length, size format, video size, etc that must be met in order for them to host your media.

You will be taking on much of the design effort that would otherwise be outsourced to a sharing service, so keep this all in mind when hosting your own video content.

Zach Goldstein, Public Rec

Avoiding Censorship

Censorship should not bother you if you upload your video on your server. However, if it is hosted on a video hosting server, chances are you won’t be able to do anything if the hosting provider decides that your video violates their terms and conditions or just doesn’t fit into their policy.

Although everyone has the freedom of expression, there are some platforms that do not allow certain content to be uploaded on their server.

YouTube has a specific policy and if you violate it, they can delete your video and maybe even ban your account without getting in touch with you first.

Marc De Diego Ferrer, MCA Assessors

Unlimited Video Bandwidth and Long-term Viability

YouTube is a dedicated website from the well-known Google, and it has its own dedicated servers to manage a massive amount of traffic (hundreds of thousands or millions of visitors over a short period of time).

Consider the scenario in which your video goes viral and receives a massive amount of views. To manage such enormous traffic, a significant quantity of bandwidth will be required.

So, if you are not using YouTube, you are in trouble, and instead of being joyful, you would be in a panic situation owing to your website’s likely limited bandwidth.

Of course, using YouTube when the entire globe is interested in your film is a good idea.

Anjelica Rivera, Cell Tracking Apps

Get your own Unmetered Dedicated Server for Video Content

Hosting video content requires a dedicated server with lots of bandwidth.

Our True-Unmetered Dedicated Servers were designed for video streaming and video hosting. Customize and order your dedicated server today.

Plus, you can get Ant Media streaming engine deployed on your server in a few clicks. It provides ultra-low latency adaptive streaming with WebRTC that features less than 0.5-second latency and auto-scaling and many more amazing features.

Contact us if you have any questions or need help getting started.