YouTube vs Vimeo: Which One Is Better For WordPress?
I have been in my Marketing role at Blue Whale Media for almost 6 months now and the biggest lesson that I have learned is that video content is taking over. Video is already the most popular form of content on the internet today, with 300 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute.
Although both websites have the same purpose, the platforms themselves are extremely different. There are pros and cons to using both platforms showing your videos on your website, however, depending on the nature of your website will depend on which platform would more beneficial to you.
YouTube Pros
Ah, YouTube. The place that we go to when we need to watch an After Effects tutorial, or when we want to watch funny cat videos. YouTube makes it very easy to embed your videos to your website. Simply click the “Share” button on your video and then click “Embed Video” from the dropdown menu. After that, it’s a matter of copying and pasting the code to your website. This isn’t YouTube’s only benefit, in fact, there are a lot of reasons as to why you want to host your videos on YouTube.
First of all, YouTube is free. Well, for the most part. YouTube premium has recently been introduced, however, YouTube premium only affects how you consume YouTube content and not how you distribute your own. Learn more about YouTube Premium.
The fact that YouTube is free means that you can upload as many videos as you want without having to pay a penny because YouTube makes its money through ad revenue. Because this is how YouTube make their money, it makes it very simple for you to monetize your videos. You can head over to your video settings and check the box that says “Monetize Video”.
Vimeo Pros
- Anyone
- Only Me
- Only People I Follow
- Only People I Choose
- Only People With A Password
If you upgrade your account you can sleect one of the next options:
- Only people with a private link
- Hide this video from Vimeo
Yes, you read that correctly. You can upgrade your account on Vimeo. Vimeo prides themselves on the fact that they’re an ad-free video sharing website, so to combat the lack of ad revenue, they have different account options. Learn more about Vimeo accounts.
Reach
Hands down, YouTube has the most reach out of the two platforms. Did you know that 1 billion hours of YouTube videos are watched daily? So, if your aim is to gain a lot of traffic through multiple sources then YouTube would definitely be the way forward for you.
Vimeo doesn’t have as good reach, however, the people who use this website are dedicated to what they do. For Example: If you search for “After Effects Tutorial” then it is likely that the tutorials that appear are a lot more experts posting their videos.
Which is better for WordPress?
Deciding which platform is better for WordPress, YouTube or Vimeo, will all depend on your personal goals with your website.
If you are a blogger or content creator and you wish to reach a wide audience with your content, then YouTube is the way to go. Not only can you distribute through YouTube as well as your website, but you can also push traffic to your website from YouTube with some simple calls to actions.
If you offer a subscription service where you would like people to only see your videos after they have signed up for a membership, then Vimeo is the right path for you purely because they have a lot more to offer with privacy settings and you can set up your videos to only be visible on your website after users have paid for a membership.
Conclusion
To conclude, you should first establish what your goals are with your website and do your own research into which video sharing platform will work best for your website. There are other options outside of YouTube and Vimeo, however, these two platforms are at the top of their industry.
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