blog post

The Ultimate Guide to Embedding Videos on Your Website without Slowing It Down

Kimiloluwa
December 14, 2023

Introduction

In our visually-driven culture, people prefer to watch rather than read. And videos are proven to be a very effective way to showcase a product and its benefits to the visitors. They convey the maximum amount of “digestible” information to the people like you and me, in a more lively way. This enhances the overall user experience, leading to a longer retention time on your site, higher click-through rates (CTR), improved conversions, and, thus, revenue, which is among the clear benefits of embedding videos on your website.

Website visitors have 64 - 85% more chances to purchase a product on an online store after watching the video.

But adding videos to your website can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Web users love videos with high resolution, but if your website is not designed to handle them, such content can slow down your website significantly.

But, does that mean one should drop the idea of using videos?

Definitely Not.

Here are some stats that show how videos are playing a major role in increasing product sales.

  • Bumping up conversions: Videos have a conversion rate of 85% compared to standard banners (2.14%) and mobile (1.62%). Buyers watching the product video have a 1.7 times chance of converting. (source)
  • Improving product authenticity: 96% of consumers rely on product videos when making a purchase decision. (source)
  • Best marketing strategy in E-commerce: 47% of online sellers and e-commerce platforms named video as a top marketing priority. (source)
  • Keeping people on your site: Users spend 88% more time on websites that contain videos. (source)
  • Engaging visitors and building loyalty: 57% of consumers will come back and buy with confidence when product videos appear. (source)

After looking at these stats one cannot deny the importance of video content on their online stores. So we, at Gander, have come up with a powerful solution that provides you with suitable, authentic, professional, and high-quality video content for your products that will NOT impact the speed of your e-commerce site.

We use several pieces of cutting-edge technologies and tools that optimize your videos to be embedded seamlessly onto your website.

Let’s have a look at some …

Use Data (Video) Compression Tools

There are many data compression tools available online which can easily reduce video size, but at the same time, will reduce video quality too. Those low-resolution videos look extremely non-professional and leave a bad impression on visitors. You need to have a perfect balance between quality and size, along with a superior compression algorithm, to make it work.

Our cutting-edge solution compresses videos effectively without compromising on image quality to save users time by loading videos faster.

Deliver Video Using HTML5

In the early days of the internet, not so long ago, videos were added to web pages by using browser plugins and custom codecs, which used to make browsers slow. But today, we have the most prevalent language, i.e. HTML5, used in creating web pages that eliminated the use of plugins. Developers need to upload a video in original format; afterward, an HTML5 video converter or HTML5 video encoder will convert the video into HTML5 formats such as MP4, WebM, and OGG.

Remove Audio from Muted Videos

The normal video file consists of both visual and sound components within itself. If the video description does not have any audio requirements and can be demonstrated mutely, then we can strip out the sound (audio) component to reduce the size of the file. And obviously, small-size videos take less bandwidth and avoid unnecessary overhead.

This should not cause any problems, especially if you have produced something like a headline video in-house. You can easily delete audio data from video editing software. But if you face any problem, or want to avoid some rookie mistakes, we can do it for you, professionally, using our advanced video editing tools.

Using Live Streaming

Back in the old days, I'm sure some people still remember downloading the video to your device and then, watching the video offline. But with the advent of online video streaming, due to high-speed internet connections and streaming algorithms, that ritual is ended. Progressively, we adopted a video streaming feature that allows videos to be delivered in small chunks that are ready for play in the user's browser. Apart from saving users from unnecessary downloads, it provides a channel for businesses to interact with their target customers through additional features such as live chats and comments.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Sometimes, due to limited bandwidth or a sudden increase in website traffic, the speed of the site slows down severely. To cope up with this challenge, CDN comes into the picture.

First Site Guide defines a Content Delivery Network (CDN) as “a system of interconnected servers located across the globe that uses geographical proximity as the main criteria for distributing cached Web content and web pages to end-users.”

The purpose of having a CDN integration into your website is to deliver content as fast as it can. CDN finds a server that is located closest to the end-user who is making the request, eliminating the distance to be covered by the requested content.

You can use the Content Delivery Network (CDN) to stream video content and make it instantly available to users. Users do not have to wait for the video to be downloaded from the original server and saved to the buffer.  Popular video content is cached and can be quickly accessed by other users in the same location. The infrastructure and location installation provided by CDN allows users to access the video from any device and location, without compromising video quality or web page performance.

Conclusion

It seems like we have covered almost everything related to embedding videos on websites, but there is much more. After doing in-depth research, we can say with absolute certainty, that adding videos to your site will bring value to your business. But the vast majority of e-commerce businesses lose their potential leads, just because they find this process a bit difficult.

With our advanced tools and a keen eye for media trends, we have paved the path for online businesses to harness the power of video. Gander has brought a complete and easy-to-use solution that makes the entire process hassle-free and provides rich content to your online store without degrading the website performance. With a small snippet of code, you can grow your business with videos.

With Gander solution, you’ll be able to embed/create your high-quality videos easily and quickly wherever you want, wherever you want.

So what are you waiting for … get started today!

Kimiloluwa
December 14, 2023