DotcomPal’s Video Hosting Review: Features, Benefits, and Competitors
Today, videos in content marketing have impressed marketers to such an extent, that about 87% of marketing professionals use videos as a marketing tool, according to Wyzowl. But there was a time when creating online content was mostly about “WRITING” blogs. The typical flow would consist of the following:
- Introducing your idea
- Giving a little background of your product/service
- Making the pitch
- Providing a call-to-action
With the evolution of internet marketing — — written words took a back seat and videos gained prominence. Today, you will hardly find any top blogger without a well-directed and edited video and a solid video hosting service to support it.
But Why So Many Videos?
Be it testimonials, case studies, or feature descriptions, everything is now being designed in video format. But why such love for videos? A majority of what’s being sold online is now centered on millennials. And, a video format is the best format for this age group, or at least that’s what data has to say. According to Optinmonster, 40% of millennials say that they trust videos. The reasons are quite simple. Millennials love using smartphones, which means smaller screens. And when the screens are smaller, just about anyone would prefer watching videos over reading.
Who Needs Video Hosting Services?
You should go with video content (and thereby with a video hosting service) if you are planning to start a cooking blog, travel blog, e-Learning platform, online workout program, or any such informative content that could be better explained or complemented using videos. This will increase your platform’s chances of grabbing more eyeballs.
Self-hosting vs. Third-party Video Hosting
Before we go further, it’s important that you understand this little part. After reading the aforementioned, you might be wondering: Can’t I code my own hosting platform, a website, or even a blog for that matter? The quick answer is: YES! YOU CAN. But the practical answer is: NO! YOU SHOULD NOT. Big companies do build their own hosting, but they have their reasons. When you decide to build a video hosting of your own (called self-hosting), you are asking for unnecessary troubles. There are so many issues with self-hosting (bandwidth, security, scaling, hosting, etc.) that you might never get any time for growing your business idea. That’s why it is better to stick with the hosting solution of other companies (called third-party hosting).
What Are the Factors That Make a Video-hosting Service Good?
I hope you don’t make “self-hosting” a matter of pride (believe me, businesses do, and they fail), and consider sticking to third-party video hosting. That settled, it’s time to have a quick look at the features we are going to base our DotcomPal’s video-hosting service review on. These are also the same points you should keep in mind when looking for a video-hosting service for your website or landing page.
1. Allows Easy Video Embedding
Does it allow you to easily put (embed) your videos on your website, blogs, and landing pages?
2.Level of Customization and Branding
Is the video hosting service flexible enough to let you brand the video player using your own logo, color, and other features that make your viewers think more about your brand than the hosting platform itself?
3.Video Analytics
Does the video hosting inform you for how long people watch your videos, where they pause, what parts they skip, etc.?
4. Advertisement Placement
Does it let you put the advertisement related to your product or service in-middle of the videos?
5.Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Does the video hosting let you customize your video titles, keywords, and other content according to SEO best practices?
6.Security
Does it give you the tools to make your video content gated, so you can grant access to users based on the scope of their memberships?
How Good Is DotcomPal’s Video Hosting?
The biggest positive, that I found, while working with DotcomPal is it is not just a video hosting platform. It’s an “All-In-One” business platform sales and marketing platform that helps entrepreneurs automate their online business. It has a drag-and-drop website editor, email marketing automation, landing page templates, CRM, and other features which are required for starting a business online. But for sake of this blog, we would be focusing solely on its video hosting service.
Top Features of DotcomPal Video Hosting Service
- ANALYTICS: You should know how your users interact with your videos to get a deeper insight into audience behavior. Knowing the impact, DotcomPal provides ANALYTICS options with its video hosting service.
- SEO: A very important aspect, no matter the kind of content. DotcomPal’s video hosting allows you to design your video’s attributes in such a way that it is automatically SEO optimized.
- Ad Placement: DotcomPal makes it easier for a content creator to place relevant ads in a video. All you have to do is to choose the intervals where you want your ads, and the rest will be taken care of. Putting short advertisements in between your videos can prove to be a good advertising strategy, given you are confident that your current video has some solid, engaging content already.
- White Label: This means you can put your brand’s logo, change color, set logo’s link, etc. in the video player. This feature is quite a in demand, and still not given easily in most of the top video hosting services. It is important to give viewers an instant connection with the brand by showing its logos or other brand-related identities.
- Make Public/Private/Password: If you have an online coaching program (for example), then you can set user access accordingly using this feature. Only people with links or passwords will have excess to your premium and exclusive content.
- Higher Memory Storage: DotcomPal’s ‘” MyDrive”, a cloud-based data storage service, can be used to save your video files and to upload them directly on your website using the same option.
- Faster than Most of the Top Players: “Upload” and “Buffer time” are the two most important aspects of any video hosting platform. And this where DotcomPal gets a clear edge over its competitors. Even videos that are hours long don’t take much time to upload. It’s similar to buffer when you are watching a video using DotcomPal’s video player. Video buffering has never been an issue with my viewers when they watch videos on my websites that have been hosted using DotcomPal.
- Full Customization: Once you have uploaded your video, you can choose to add or remove controls like Bottom Play Button, Fullscreen Button, Player Bar, Autoplay, etc. This is helpful from a UE (User Experience) point of view, as a clutter-free video player UI makes navigation easier for viewers.
Who Are the Other Top Providers of Video Hosting Service?
If you still want to discover more about the other video-hosting services, then here are the top ones, along with their pros and cons:
1. YouTube
PROS
Free.
Unlimited cloud storage. Video listing-delisting. Accepts multiple video formats. Easy embedding
CONS
Doesn’t allow custom branding. Too many third-party ads and video recommendations.
2. Wistia
PROS
Free/paid. Video player customization. No ads. Custom branding. Lead capture within videos
CONS
High costs (not for small or mid-level entrepreneurs)
3. Vimeo
PROS
Free/Paid. Customizable video embeds. Advertisement is available. Upload up to 500MB of video each week with the free plan.
CONS
Custom branding only available with higher (and costly) plans. Higher upload time.
4. SproutVideo
PROS
Advanced video analytics. Edits track with audit logs. Role-based permissions. Custom playlists.
CONS
Only paid. Recommended mostly for experienced digital marketers. Too complex. Not much platform audience
5. Kartra Video
PROS
In-built email responder. Active Facebook group. Video-supported funnel creation.
CONS
No free pack. Customer service not very quick. Too costly
Verdict
I have used many video hosting services in the past — some for my clients and some more myself, and I have witnessed their massive evolution. Some offer less but better features, while the others are more of the “jack of all but master of none” type. Then there are some that start small, and grow big with time. From my experience, I can say that DotcomPal falls into the third category. But only you can be the person who decides which video-hosting services fit your needs the best because it’s your money that’s at stake.
I hope I did a decent job in reviewing DotcomPal’s video hosting service. In case I missed anything, let me know in the comments, and I will add that later. Follow me for more tech industry and digital marketing updates.
