If your business is looking to add video to your marketing or commerce strategy, you may find yourself questioning whether you should embed a commercial video player directly onto your own site or post them on a free service like YouTube.  Why would a professional business ever consider the latter when a commercial video platform will provide them with full control over the branding on their player, where their content appears, who can view it, and how?  More often than not, we’ve found that the  doubt stems from a common but incorrect assumption that the content on a small business site will be no match for YouTube’s highly trafficked pages.

Considering YouTube is a Google property with tons of popular, well optimized content, it doesn’t seem like such a stretch to draw the conclusion that your site won’t be able to compete.  Regardless, the truth is there is no reason why your site can’t perform as well in searches as YouTube content does.  In fact, if you practice good SEO, you may even do better. Adding well optimized video content can only improve your site’s overall ranking.  ”Videos can be extremely link-worthy/shareable, and you really want people sharing a link to your site rather than links to YouTube or other hosting sites,” explains Will Critchlow, SEO expert and founder of Distilled.  ”This benefits you not only in brand awareness but also in overall website authority and trust in the search engines’ eyes.”

Chances are that if you’re reading this blog post, SEO is a concern of yours and you’ve likely already taken at least some measures to optimize your site.  But even if you haven’t, you can get started now by submitting a video sitemap to Google.  If there is only one thing you do for your video’s SEO,  make it submitting that sitemap!  A video sitemap informs Google of the location and content of your video, making it far more likely that it will be indexed.  If you don’t submit a site map, Google bots may crawl your video content eventually,  but taking the initiative yourself ensures it happens quickly.  Google provides detailed instructions on how to submit a site map in their help pages.

Beyond sitemaps, be sure to fill your metadata with relevant and strategic keywords.  The more thoughtful and specific your keywords, the more you’ll narrow down your competition.  ”You probably stand a far greater chance of doing well with a highly targeted video than you would if you go after keywords that have videos with millions of views already ranking,” Critchlow advises.

While there is no clear SEO advantage to using a service like YouTube, there actually are a number of very distinct benefits to displaying video directly on your own site via a commercial video platform like vzaar.  It’s important to keep in mind that if the purpose of your video is to nudge viewers into a purchase, the easier you make the sale, the more likely it is to happen.  You’ve probably already designed a clever, informative product page with conversion in mind.  That is precisely the ideal environment in which you want your potential clients to view your video.  ”A great example of this is the zappos product videos,” Critchlow points out. “By including these videos on the product page, they are placing them right next to the conversion paths they want people to take. This is especially true when you seek to get your videos ranking in the search results – there is loads more benefit to having a page on your own website rank rather than your video ranking on YouTube.”

If potential clients happen upon your video on YouTube, they must then make the additional effort to visit your site. Invariably, some very interested people will click through and make a purchase, but many won’t.  Founder of online design agency Headscape and author of the Website Owners Manual Paul Boag agrees, “YouTube users have a much lower likelihood of responding to any call to action you have. They are interested in being entertained or consuming video, NOT in responding to your call to action.”  By relying on YouTube solely, you’ll lose tons of potential leads to distraction.  Or even worse, to a targeted ad for a competitor’s website!

If conversion is your ultimate goal, your best bet is to display your promotional and ecommerce videos on your own website.  Submit your video sitemap and practice overall good SEO, and free services like YouTube will have nothing to offer you..  Use a commercial video platform like vzaar and you’ll have an arsenal of ecommerce, customization, and security tools to ensure your visitor’s viewing experience is exactly as you envisioned.