YouTube Alternative 

So, for one reason or another, you’re looking for an alternative to YouTube.

Maybe it’s because you fear YouTube is siphoning traffic and increasing your bounce rates. Maybe your channel has been blocked for some obscure reason. Or maybe you simply want your brand and color scheme to be front and center, rather than the branding of the company delivering your videos.

All of these are good reasons to look for an alternative.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at how SmartVideo is a competent alternative to YouTube for many people and businesses.

Let’s compare cost

The elephant in the room is most likely cost. And YouTube does have SmartVideo beat there. This is because, when using YouTube, the financial burden of delivering your videos is placed on the platform’s advertisers rather than you. If free is your only option, YouTube is by far the best choice.

SmartVideo starts at $50 per month. However, if a conversion on your site is important to you financially, $50 per month starts to seem worth it. Taking into consideration your customer’s lifetime value, what does one lost lead, conversion, or sale cost you?

YouTube’s seemingly innocuous “related videos” on every video you embed have a clickthrough rate better than 40% according to a study titled performed by researchers at Hangzhou Dianzi University. This means that almost half of users watching a video on your site will be whisked away to YouTube, most likely never to return.

Just food for thought.

Performance

Everyone is hyper-aware of the fact that the speed of their website impacts revenue, but video speed’s impact is a well-kept secret.

The speed at which your videos start and the reliability of playback have a tremendous effect on how much of your video gets watched. SmartVideo begins playing 12x faster than YouTube and buffers 8x less when embedded on your site. This ensures your message is being delivered to your audience. If videos are part of your sales process, better performance equals more revenue.

Appearance

If you have YouTube videos embedded on your website, your leads and visitors are inundated with the YouTube brand. This comes in the form of logos, links, buttons, color schemes, and recommended videos. This invasion of your website by a foreign power erodes your brand and can associate your content with the unrelated, funny cat video your lead was watching a few minutes before visiting. Even worse, with one errant click, your lead will be shuttled away to YouTube, watching a competitor’s video. If you’re focused on keeping your leads on your site, you’ve made the right decision to look for a YouTube alternative.

SmartVideo gives you the ability to match the colors of the player with the color scheme of your website, creating a professional, distraction-free experience. You can also add your very own logo to the video if you so choose. The best part is, SmartVideo won’t be siphoning leads away from your website.

Customer support

Ever had an issue with one of your YouTube embeds? Then you most likely know where we’re going with this section. YouTube’s support is practically nonexistent.

Sure, you’re welcome to dig through their forums in an attempt to find the answer to your question, but you’re not going to get any help from a support representative. This is understandable. You’re not YouTube’s customer.

SmartVideo is backed by a team of developers eager to help with an issue you might experience. All you have to do is visit our website and send us a chat message. There are also docs and help sections that should help you get set up and solve for most issues. We’re able to offer fantastic support because you are our customer.

Revenue capability

If you are trying to monetize the video content on your website, YouTube is not a great option. To apply for monetization, you must have tallied at least 4,000 hours of videos watched on your channel in the last 12 months and have over 1,000 subscribers. After meeting those requirements, you’re looking at a three dollar CPM on average. With SmartVideo, customers are able to reach twelve dollar CPM by simply integrating an ad network with the video player.

Traffic generation

Being the world’s second most popular search engine makes YouTube a great marketing channel. Create an engaging video, upload the content to YouTube, include a link to your website in the description, and watch the referral traffic come in.

However, embedding a YouTube video on your website oftentimes has the opposite effect. As mentioned earlier, YouTube offers its video player for free (not unlike a trojan horse) because it’s designed to siphon your leads from your site.

So, YouTube can be great for sending traffic to your site but is also great at stealing traffic from your site. The solution? Use YouTube as a marketing channel and SmartVideo as a conversion tool.

We designed SmartVideo to keep your leads on your site, engaged with your content, and converting at a high clip.

So who is YouTube for?

YouTube is for nearly everyone… if it’s used as a means of sending traffic to a website. It’s also useful if your website is simply a hobby or your only option is “free”.

Who is SmartVideo for?

If a conversion or video view on your website equals revenue, SmartVideo is most likely the best choice for you. If you need your videos to match the theme of your website, deliver without stall outs or buffering, have a support team’s backing, or earn money through advertisements, SmartVideo is a great option.

How do I switch?

If your website already has a large amount of YouTube videos, you might feel trapped. You’re searching for alternatives to YouTube, but you don’t have much hope. Escaping the grasp of YouTube’s death grip on your leads is an impossible task, right? With other video delivery platforms, it really is. Depending on the number of embedded videos, you might have to hire someone to remove every YouTube embed from your website, find all of the video source files, upload them to a new platform, and re-embed each video.

That is a massive headache.

Every SmartVideo plan includes automatic YouTube conversions. This makes it easy for customers to experience the benefits of a professional video platform without having to hire someone. But, don’t take our word for it. Hear from one of our customers who made the switch from YouTube with thousands of videos embedded on their website!