YouTube is the leader in video hosting, but it’s far from the only option in that space. Websites like Vimeo and Dailymotion have carved out niches, and several smaller platforms survive in a YouTube-dominated landscape.
We’ll walk you through the steps involved in creating a video hosting site. You will learn how to develop a professional website and reach out to potential viewers.
Key takeaways:
- It is challenging to create a video hosting website like YouTube but being focused and promoting it well are some ways to succeed.
- WordPress, Vadoo, and IBM are some video content management systems (CMS) you can work with.
- There are various steps to take, such as designing a well-planned, engaging site and ensuring it is compatible with mobile and other devices.
Best website builder for small businesses
Best website builder for small businesses
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Best website builder for beginners
Can You Make a Website Like YouTube?
Video hosting was much more decentralized in the early days of the internet, with no unified platform to dominate the rest. The rise of YouTube changed the digital power structure, and it now receives billions of visits every month.
Creating a website is an uphill battle — over 90 percent of all published web content never receives organic traffic from Google. However, there’s no reason to be intimidated by the challenges of building a website like YouTube.
How Do You Build a Video Hosting Website?
While creating a functional video hosting website is simpler than it sounds, building a successful platform is tougher due to the overwhelming popularity of YouTube. So you’ll need to find ways to get your site off the ground and connect with users interested in your content.
Have a unique focus
One of the key questions any website creator faces is what subject or interest they want to target. Going too narrow will substantially limit your potential audience. But shooting for anything too broad will increase the risk of losing to the more established competition.
It’s typically better to focus on a clearly defined niche rather than trying to pull away large numbers of viewers from YouTube and other massive platforms. Seek a small group of people who care about a particular interest, then offer more than the mainstream sites. If you’re developing a video hosting website for your business or industry, you already have a built-in niche audience.
Promote your site
Hosting high-quality content is the most important thing when building a video site. You’ll also need strong promotional skills to attract users to your website. Organic traffic is more sustainable than paid visits, but advertising is often necessary to generate a following at the early stages of growth.
You’ll need cash to promote your platform and get the word out to reach your goals. While digital advertising tools are more accessible than ever, consider hiring a professional marketer to help you focus on content development or if you’re unsure about your marketing skills.
Market positioning is crucial for any new website, so it’s important to consider these factors before you start building your site. Once you have a clear direction, you can look for a video CMS, web hosting provider, and domain name.
Choose a video-sharing script or content management system
Video CMS are widely available, but every service has unique pros and cons. The CMS you use will impact nearly every area of the user experience (UX), so be 100% sure your chosen platform is up to the task.
While the ideal CMS will vary depending on your site’s needs, there are a few basic features to look for.
First, ensure your website can support video on demand and live streaming. Also, ensure your CMS is easy to use and offers a hosting plan that fits your budget and needs.
Integrating payment gateways is another necessity to accept payments on your site. Again, monetizing your site entirely through ads is possible, but newer websites may have trouble generating consistent revenue through paid ads. Premium subscriptions, exclusive videos, and other forms of paid content tend to be vital sources of income in the early stages.
Finally, confirm that your CMS can handle various types of streaming, including 4K and multi-bit-rate for users with an inconsistent connection. Some CMS may not work as well with certain devices, including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, game consoles, and more.
Video Sharing Content Management Systems
- WordPress is a powerful CMS for all kinds of websites, and its simple setup process makes it an excellent option for people with little to no technical experience. Along with the website builder and CMS, paid WordPress subscriptions come with web hosting and a free domain name for one year. While WordPress is more associated with blogging than video streaming, it’s a decent option for a video hosting website. All plans at or above the Premium tier let you upload videos to plug directly into the CMS — or use third-party plug-ins to display externally hosted content.
- Vadoo is a dedicated video hosting platform with premium subscriptions, unlimited videos, up to 50 GB of storage, and access to an unbranded video player. You can upgrade to a paid subscription as you grow, but the Vadoo free plan is an excellent way to start. Vadoo has video-specific features, including adaptive streaming, automatically adjusting resolution based on the viewer’s connection. You can personalize the video player by adding custom branding, colors, and more.
- IBM’s video streaming features are significantly more expensive than either WordPress or Vadoo, but you get a lot for the money. Its live streaming tools are particularly powerful, with robust interactive capabilities, including live polling and clickable video overlays. IBM may be a better option for sites with a substantial audience.
Get hosting for your video website
No matter what kind of website you’re trying to create, you’ll need web hosting to make your idea a reality. Your web host is responsible for sending the information to your site to any visitors. An unreliable host will hurt both loading times and overall uptime — most reputable hosts guarantee at least 99.9% uptime.
Hosting plans
Web hosting comes in a few general varieties: shared, virtual private server (VPS), and dedicated hosting plans. Managed WordPress hosting also available for people who want to use the WordPress CMS.
- Shared hosting is more affordable than VPS or dedicated hosting, as you’ll share a server and resources with other websites.
- VPS hosting gives you full access to a virtualized server environment, although other virtualized servers will share your physical server.
- Dedicated hosting is the most expensive of the three, providing root access to an entire physical server with no need to share resources.
Reliable performance is even more critical for video hosting websites that rely on immediate loading times.
Domain names
Like any other site, your video hosting website will need a domain name to be accessible online. Domain names are widely available from several services. Your domain name is critical for driving traffic and brand recognition, so this is one of the most important decisions you’ll make in the early stages of developing your new site.
How Do You Set Up and Launch Your Video Sharing Website?
When building your site, develop a design visitors want to engage with. If you’re using WordPress or a similar website builder, you can drag and drop elements around the page as needed. WordPress and most of its competitors also offer a variety of templates to help you get started.
Develop a plan
The first step in building your website is developing an overall plan for the site. YouTube includes a search bar at the top of the screen, a bar on the left for subscriptions, history, and other menu options, plus a grid for browsing videos that takes up most of the screen. If your site focuses on a specific subject, you may also want to include tabs for users to browse by category.
Consider mobile viewers
It’s crucial to ensure your site is accessible on all popular devices, including smartphones and tablets. You’ll need to decide whether to stick with a mobile site or create a mobile app for iOS and/or Android users.
Most websites use what is known as a ‘responsive design.’ The site will load based on what type of device is accessing it. A responsive site will look great whether the visitor is on a PC, MAC, Android phone, or iPhone.
Put your site together
Now that you have a plan for desktop and mobile start turning that plan into a reality. Your website builder should make it easy to implement your design ideas and craft a site that works on desktops and mobile devices.
Test your site
Before launching your site publicly, take some time to test it out on your own devices. You can also ask friends, family members, and colleagues to use the site to pick up on technical issues and identify any room for improvement.
Promote and monetize your content
After launching your site, you’ll need to focus on building up content, reaching out to new audiences, and monetizing your videos through ads, paid subscriptions, or another model to make money online. How you promote and monetize your content will play a major role in the long-term success of your site.
FAQs About Video Hosting Websites
While it’s unlikely any competitors will take YouTube’s space soon, creating a video hosting website isn’t complicated. With the right tools, you can assemble a surprisingly functional site on a relatively limited budget.
With hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. watching an average of three hours of video daily, you don’t need a substantial market share to generate sustainable revenue.
What are the disadvantages of YouTube?
YouTube’s iron grip over video hosting and sharing has certain disadvantages. This is especially clear since YouTube frequently shows ads, though brands can opt to not show ads.
Giving the site some competition will go a long way toward improving the UX. YouTube’s monopoly allows it to pursue anti-consumer policies, including mandatory ads and preventing viewers from listening to videos on their phones after turning off the screen or leaving the YouTube app.
Why build a video hosting website like YouTube?
If you can establish your new site in a particular niche, you can provide a platform for those interested in working outside the YouTube paradigm. You might build a community of people with a specific interest who use your site for education, entertainment, and discussion.
While getting a new website up and running can be challenging, there isn’t much work associated with the ongoing operations. Building a successful video hosting site will give you a new source of passive income, helping you minimize money-related stress and even approach financial independence.
What are the costs of building a video-sharing website?
First, you’ll need starter cash to cover basic expenses such as your domain name and web hosting plan. Also, consider any CMS or website builders you need to create a visually appealing site.
Domain name prices can vary dramatically. More and more domains are taken every day, but at the same time, others are becoming available as old sites fade into inactivity. Many short, memorable domains are available for surprisingly low prices. Still, popular .com domains are more expensive than domains with less common endings.
Some website builders and web hosts may provide a year or more of free domain coverage when you sign up for a paid subscription. How much you pay for hosting will depend on your needs. Many providers let you start with a cheaper plan and upgrade as needed.
Shared hosting plans are a good way to get started and see how well your site does before investing too much money in a VPS or even a dedicated hosting arrangement.
Finally, make sure not to underestimate the cost of effective digital marketing. Have at least a few hundred dollars set aside if you want to fund any paid ads. You can expand those marketing efforts as your site grows and you generate more consistent revenue.
How do you generate revenue for your video hosting website?
Your ability to promote your site will have an ongoing effect on your overall success. Creators that understand how to connect with an audience and differentiate themselves from other sites will naturally succeed in such a competitive environment.
There are several ways to get the word out about your new site. Paid ads on Google and other search engines can generate traffic for virtually any website. Google Ads allows you to target specific keywords and analyze past results to improve your existing strategies.
Most video sites make money through ads, but you can offer exclusive content, paid subscriptions, and other premium products. The best way to monetize your site depends on the kind of content you’re working on, as well as the preferences of your target audience.
Do you need to code your video hosting website?
Coding is always helpful when creating websites, but you don’t need technical knowledge to build a functional, engaging site. With website builders, CMS, and other contemporary tools, almost anyone can develop a robust video hosting site.
WordPress is the most common CMS in 2023, now powering over 40% of the entire internet. It offers simple site editing tools that allow creators to set up their sites using a variety of customizable themes. More platforms are moving to a simple drag-and-drop approach which minimizes the need for technical skills and makes the services accessible to a broad audience.
Similarly, shared and managed hosting providers handle much of the back-end work, leaving creators to focus on other aspects of their sites. It has never been easier for people to develop video hosting sites, even with little to no coding experience.
How do you get visitors to your video hosting site?
Social media marketing has become even more relevant over the last few years. Facebook should be involved in your marketing campaigns from the beginning, and Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest have large audiences among particular demographics.
Furthermore, Reddit and other forums provide the chance to connect with people who have specific interests. If your video site focuses on outdoor activities, for example, you can use subreddits like r/Hiking, r/Backpacking, and r/CampingGear to get your new website in front of the right people.
It is best not to underestimate the value of YouTube with marketing — even if you’re trying to pull users away from the site. After launching, consider uploading some of your best videos to YouTube and inviting viewers to your website to see even more unique content.
