Videos

Video content can be excellent element on your website. Videos can grab attention, improve user engagement, and effectively communicate information.

Hosting

Avoid hosting video content on your website. Video files are very large and will slow down your page load times, deliver a bad user experience, and negatively impact SEO. Use a video hosting provider like Vimeo or YouTube to host and manage your video content, and then embed these videos on your site rather than hosting the files directly.

Captioning

To meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards for media, all videos need to be captioned. The auto-captioning provided by YouTube or Vimeo does not meet user needs or accessibility requirements unless they are confirmed to be fully accurate. Typically auto-generated captions need significant editing.

Ensuring accuracy

When posting a video to your website, consider its longevity. Did you make a welcome video prominently featuring your dean? What will become of that video if the dean moves on to another role? Does your video cite tuition and fees from 2020? Is it still on your website several years later? There are innumerable scenarios where the information in videos can become outdated or irrelevant, so ensure your videos are future-proofed to the best extent possible.

Include video review in the annual audit of your site’s content.