If you have a dedicated server, that means you have the power and freedom to host your own videos. In terms of content strategy, video can play a huge role in achieving your marketing goals and increasing user engagement with your site.
Ready to Start Your Video Empire?
Creating your own video network is easier than ever. In this article, we’ll show you how you can begin hosting your own resources on your dedicated server for maximum control of your content and improved communication between you and your viewers.
Why Not Use YouTube? It’s Free
Yes, it’s true you can embed YouTube video on your website for free and not have to worry about resource usage. But if you’re serious about your content, we think going with a self-hosted solution will give you a better return on your investment down the road.
Here are some important points to consider:
- YouTube’s arbitrary content policies may take your video down for reasons that may be beyond your control
- Your content may send more of your viewers to YouTube (and away from your site, so why risk it?)
Here’s some reasons to go dedicated:
- Basically, your dedicated server gives you complete control over your content and a more direct relationship with your viewers.
- The speed and reliability of a dedicated server means your videos will load almost instantly.
- And more, adding video to your site (especially if you’re using WordPress) is incredibly easy to do.
Your Video Network Strategies
There are a few different ways you can accomplish this. We’re going to recommend two:
- WordPress + Dedicated: Use your WordPress Hosting for a blazing fast WordPress site and the dedicated server for storage of video files. This is your best bet for complete control and speed.
- Single Source: This method is more convenient and slightly easier to set up because you will be hosting your videos on the same server as your site. This may be slightly slower than the above method because the server will have to process your PHP for WordPress and your video for playback, but the difference in speed will be minimal if noticeable at all (especially if you’re using proper compression techniques for the video).
WordPress + Dedicated
In this strategy, we’re going to divide our resources to ensure the fastest video hosting experience possible.
Here are the steps we’ll follow:
- Upload videos to dedicated server via FTP
- Add post to WordPress site (on managed WordPress Hosting account)
- Add video URL
- Publish
These steps are incredibly simple to do, so let’s go ahead and get started.
- Connect to your dedicated server via FTP
- Upload your videos to your desired directory
- Grab the URL and copy it, for instance:
https://videos.example.com/cat_playing_piano.mp4" - Log into your WordPress Dashboard
- Create a new post or page
- Click the + to add a Gutenberg block
- Select the “Video” block (type “Video” in the search field if you’re having trouble finding it)
- Paste in your video URL
That’s it! You’re now hosting a live video from your dedicated server into WordPress. You can rest assured that this video will load quickly and easily for your visitors.
Single Source Video Hosting
In order to follow along with the single source steps, the procedures will be exactly the same, except you will be logging into a WordPress site hosted on your dedicated server.
Alternatively, with the single source steps, we can eliminate FTP by increasing WordPress file upload limits to allow for video, but this is an advanced steps for which we’d recommend consulting with one of our Managed Hosting experts.
How to Optimize Your Videos For the Web
You’ll want to make sure that your videos are optimized for playback in web browsers.
This means you must refrain from using your originating uncompressed 4K master files. Plus, that kind of image quality is not necessary for web video, where most users just want to get their information as quickly as possible and move on.
All you’ll need to do is take your edited master video file and run it through a program that will strip out a lot of extra data so the video loads faster in web browsers.
There are many programs that can accomplish this, but for universal compatibility I’d recommend Handbrake: The open source video transcoder.
All you’ll need to do is import your video and select a delivery format (there are many to choose from).
You’re On Your Way To Starting a Video Empire
Now, you’re ready to include self-hosted video offerings to augment your content marketing strategy! We’ll be happy to help if you have any questions along the way.
And if you need any help, our live support is available 24/7.