YouTube vs Vimeo: Where Should you Host your Video?

22.02.16

With video set to take up 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2019, more and more businesses are seeing the value in investing in video for their websites. However, what many businesses fail to realise is that presenting your company profile video website is merely the first step in getting your video in front of your target audience. Uploading your video to a video hosting site, like YouTube or Vimeo, makes your video not only more searchable but also more shareable.

This blog will outline the pros and cons associated with both YouTube and Vimeo, aiming to help you choose which video hosting platform is best suited to your business.

YouTube Pros

World’s Most Popular Video Hosting site

With approximately 300 hours of new video footage uploaded to YouTube per minute, 90 million unique visits per month and 1 billion views per day on a mobile device, there’s no doubt that YouTube experiences some of the highest volumes of traffic of any website. With over one-third of internet users actively searching on YouTube, there is a high chance of your video being seen by your target audience if you optimise correctly.

Free

One of the most enticing things about YouTube is the cost – or lack thereof. The video hosting platform is completely free to join, and there is no limit to the quantity of videos you can upload to your company’s channel.

Owned by Google

In 2006, YouTube was purchased by the largest company in the world; Google (which is technically now Alphabet). What this means for YouTube users is that Google Search favours YouTube videos, so more often than not YouTube videos can appear in the top positions on the 1st page of Google searches.

If your video answers a specific question searched by web users and is optimised correctly, your company has a strong chance of getting your video in front of a broad audience.

Personalisation

One of the best things about YouTube is the opportunity to customise your channel. By adding cover art, a channel icon and updating your ‘about’ section, you can ensure that visitors to your channel are impressed by your company’s branding – and not distracted by the branding of YouTube itself.

You can also add keywords to your channel which improves SEO, as well as add keywords and descriptions to each video you upload.

Popular on Mobile

According to research, two-thirds of views on YouTube (remember; that’s two-thirds of 1 billion every day) come from mobile devices. One of the benefits of this for businesses is that potential customers could be watching videos from any location and at any time of day, ready to take the next step with your company.

YouTube Cons

World’s Most Popular Video Hosting Site

Yes, this is also considered a ‘pro’, but when you consider the fact that 300 hours of video content is added to YouTube per minute, it’s pretty obvious that the more videos there are, the more competition there is to be seen.

Advertising

Being the second most visited website in the world and a subsidiary of Google, it’s no surprise that YouTube capitalises on this with a hefty amount of advertising in both search, the sidebar and also before and after videos.

This can cause some problems for your company video;

  1. Viewers can be put off watching your video entirely if they have to watch a short video advertisement beforehand.

  2. Viewers can be distracted by the sidebar advertisement, especially since they will often be targeted to the individual themselves.

  3. Viewers can search related keywords to your video, but your competitor could be paying to advertise, and so beat you to a higher spot!

Accessibility

Although it's not as commonplace as it was, some companies have a block on accessing YouTube over their office network. If you’re a B2B company, this can be detrimental if the potential clients you are trying to reach can’t see your video when they are researching at work.

Cannibalising Your Traffic

Like any successful company, YouTube has its own interests in mind first and foremost. What does this mean?

YouTube will do anything to keep viewers on the website longer. So rather than clicking onto your site after watching your video, YouTube suggests similar videos to your audience – which could come from your competitors!

Vimeo Pros

No Advertising

That’s right. Vimeo does not host any advertisements of any shape or form (bar the occasional ‘update to Vimeo PRO’ option from the website itself). This is particularly attractive for businesses for two main reasons;

  1. Anyone who views your video (who is a potential client) will not have to sit through 15 seconds of a pre-roll ad before watching your video.

  2. You do not want your video strategy efforts marred by advertisements that don’t align with your company’s ethos, or worse, by those of your competitors!

Password Protection

One of the greatest benefits of Vimeo is the numerous privacy settings. Vimeo allows its users to add password protection to individual videos, meaning that you can share your video with anyone by sending them the link and the password, without making the video visible to the public. Another great benefit is that anyone who has the video link and password doesn’t need a Vimeo account to view it.

This is particularly useful if you want to get feedback on your company profile video, before launching it in the public domain. It is also a particularly attractive option for businesses who use internal staff training videos – these videos remain private but can be accessed online at any time by staff.

Customisation

Vimeo PRO takes customisation a step further than YouTube, allowing companies to replace the Vimeo logo on the player with their own logo. This means that if your video is embedded anywhere, the viewer will not be distracted by Vimeo’s logo, and will remain focused on your brand.

Quality Content

Vimeo clocks about 70 million visitors per month, which is a fraction of YouTube’s 1 billion figure. However, fewer visitors mean less content is uploaded daily (which means less competition). Vimeo also has strict policies on the type of content that can be uploaded, so while YouTube may seem like the obvious place to get views on your video, hosting on Vimeo might make your video seem more professional, which in turn, reflects your business.

Vimeo Cons

Price

All the benefits of Vimeo do mean that something’s gotta give. Vimeo’s Commercial Content Guidelines outline that any for-profit business uploading videos promoting their brand or products must have a Vimeo Pro account. Coming in at $199 per year ($17 per month) it’s not a huge amount of money, especially if your company is serious about video marketing.

Lower Ranking in Google

A video hosted on Vimeo won’t, and probably never will, rank as high in Google search as one hosted on YouTube. Google endorses videos from its own video hosting platform, so the chances of your company’s Vimeo video being at the top spot are pretty slim.

Restriction on Uploads

Vimeo users are restricted to the number of videos they can upload per week. Even with a Vimeo Pro subscription, you are limited to 20GB of uploads a week or roughly 1TB per year. It’s possible to gain more storage at an additional cost, however, in reality, the likelihood of your business need to upload more than a couple of videos a week is slim – so the 20GB limit should have you covered.

Conclusion

Although there are other options, when it comes to choosing a video hosting platform for your business videos, there’s no doubt that YouTube and Vimeo hold the top spots. Both platforms are very different and offer a variety of different benefits for companies.

If the above information hasn’t led you to make a final decision, taking the time to try both out for a certain period, and reviewing performance stats could be the best option for your business. However, making the final choice depends on the goals you have set for your video marketing strategy.