Videos on your website: upload them or embed from a video service

The short answer: for most sites, embed the video from a proper video service (such as YouTube or Vimeo) instead of storing it on the hosting. A video is heavy, spends traffic on every view and, on phones with a weak connection, does not play. The video service handles the weight and adjusts the quality to each visitor.

The two routes

Route When it fits
Embed from a video service Almost always. It copes with many views and adapts quality to the viewer’s connection.
Store the file on the hosting Only for very short videos, like an animated background of a few seconds, and light.
Many long videos, for many people Not for an ordinary hosting: Online radio or video.
Privacy An embedded video can set the service’s cookies. Look for the enhanced privacy mode, if the service has one, and the cookie notice.
Captions They help people who watch without sound, which is a lot, and those who do not hear well.

Step by step

1 Publish the video on the video service and copy the “embed” code or, in WordPress, just the link, on a line by itself.
2 Paste it into the page where you want it. In WordPress, the editor shows the video by itself: Creating and editing pages in WordPress.
3 Defer the loading: an embedded video loads a lot of code even before it is seen. Use lazy loading or an image that only loads the video on click: Lazy loading.
4 Do not autoplay with sound. If you want movement, use a short, silent, looping, light video.
5 Test on a phone, on mobile data: A light site on mobile data.
A video at the top of the page may be what makes it slow. Measure with and without it: What makes a difference when the site is slow. For a video background, prefer a still image on phones.
For the cookies an embedded video brings, see The cookie notice. For the video’s cover image, optimise it.

Did your site get slow after adding videos? Open a ticket with the page’s address.

Open a support ticket

SEE ALSO

Online radio or video: which plan, and why an ordinary hosting plan is not it

Lazy loading images and videos: what to defer and what never to

A site that loads on slow mobile data: how to make it lighter

The site is slow: what actually makes a difference

The cookie notice and consent: what your site collects without you knowing

Image optimisation and WebP

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