Handy Tips to Optimize Video for Web

Adding videos to your website, undoubtedly, keep users engaged, but if your website isn't optimized to handle them, this can backfire. In this article, we’ll give tips to optimize video for web and explanations on how to make sure your multimedia content is increasing conversions instead of driving away users.

Why is video website optimization important?

The average size of web pages increases from 1 MB to over 3 MB between 2011 and 2017 due to an increase in video content. 

How to Optimize Video for Web

A lot of video content may lead to poor website performance. To achieve performance improvements, you should follow some best video optimization practices.

Here are the main reasons you should consider adding videos to your website:

• They are on-demand: Videos should be accessed on any device across various digital platforms. As users want to view things on their own watch, adding videos to your website makes this possible.

• Give your brand an identity: One of the greatest ways to showcase your company’s identity is by adding custom-made videos to your website that feature your products or services.

• Increase social media engagement: More and more people spend time reading content on their feeds on social media platforms. To optimize video for web, you should combine engaging videos featured on your website with social media shares, you may get more clicks.

• Videos are good for SEO: According to statistics, web pages with videos are 53 times more likely to rank higher than pages that have plain text content. Users tend to stay longer on a page that combines text and multimedia presentations. 

Handy Tips to Optimize Video for Web

Best video formats for web?

The best video formats for platforms like Youtube and Vimeo are MP4 and WebM due to their ability to pack high-quality videos into small file sizes. While MP4 videos are supported by all browsers, WebM is supported by Chrome and Firefox.

Introduction to video optimization for websites.

You need to go through two steps to deliver high-quality videos to users.

Step 1: Optimize video for web

Step 2: Optimize the web page to display video content at its best

Optimize video for web " Video File Optimization for web pages"

Below are tips on video file optimization for web pages:

1. Compress data 

Large media files can cause slow website loading. Hence, use data compression tools to reduce the size of video files without degrading image quality and save a large amount of time.

Optimize Video for Web Easily

2. Convert to HTML5 supported formats

Now developers can deliver video content without a plugin thanks to HTML5. Use an online video converter to convert your video files to HTML5 supported formats like MP4 and WebM so that they can perform well on your website. 

3. Remove audio from muted videos

If you have a muted video, you should remove the audio data from the video file to reduce the video size. When you optimize video for web, omit the audio while exporting the file or use a simple video editing tool to strip the audio.

4. Use a content delivery network

A CDN is a network of servers that store cached copies of the static content on your website. Using CDNs not only improves redundancy but also ensures faster content delivery because the content is served from the nearest server. 

As a result, users don't have to wait long for your videos to load. Overall, a CDN can lead to a drastic improvement in your website's performance. 

Web page optimization for video content

Choosing the right video format is a good start, but to have the best user experience, website optimization is needed to support high-quality videos. You not only need to optimize video for web but also your website too. Below are useful tips

Learn Tips to Optimize Video for Web

1. Specify the video size

Make sure to define the width and height of videos in your  HTML or CSS so that the browser can effortlessly allocate the necessary bandwidth.

2. Delay the video loading until the page finishes loading

If your video plays automatically when a user visits the page, stop it from loading until the page finishes loading to get a smoother user experience. 

3. Prioritize mobile users

With the increasing number of people who use tablets and smartphones to access the web every day, so websites that are optimized for mobile, of course, have a major disadvantage. 

Your website must be customized for desktop and mobile to display video display and follow the standards of responsive web design to make your website adaptable to different screen sizes and display resolutions.

SEO Video optimization 

When you optimize video for web, you may think about SEO practices. If you want your website to get a higher ranking on Google, you should host your video content on your own domain. 

Do you know how to optimize video for web

Sure, self-hosting video content requires more resources than embedding uploaded videos from other platforms. But if you upload videos to YouTube, for example, with a link to your website in the description, search engines will give preference to YouTube, not your website. Thus, chances are someone probably searches for your company name on Google and the results will show YouTube instead of your website.

Here are some tips for SEO video optimization:

• Create a set of data to make your videos easier to index.

• Video titles should be short, relevant, descriptive, and include keywords.

• Optimize video for web by compressing video file size if it’s too large

• Convert any video file formats to MP4 using an online video converter for the best quality

• Choose an appropriate thumbnail.

Should your website really need videos?

The advantages of adding video content on your website often are greater than the cost added to your page loading. That said, if it is not properly optimized to give users a better experience, then it's just wasting a lot of time and resources.

Therefore, use media content strategically and regularly reevaluate its effectiveness to ensure each element of your website serves a purpose and brings about certain benefits.

Summary

Having videos on your website can be a double-edged sword. Whenever you make changes or add new content to your website, note down how this impacts your conversions. To improve your website’s overall performance, apart from tips to optimize video for web, you should experiment with putting different videos in different places to see the differences.