Free Places to Distribute Your Video Online

With the price of digital video cameras plummeting and the speed of the average user’s internet connection reaching new heights it was only a matter of time until the two converged. That time is now. Websites offering to display and promote your videos for free are popping up in mass numbers. All you need to get your video seen is a good idea and some time to submit your video to the many popular sites.

Each video distribution website has it’s own unique audience and currently traffic levels for user views are spread out, so if you want your video to be seen by as wide an audience as possible, you’ll need to list it everywhere. This will take some time, but won’t cost you anything, as all these sites accept free user submissions.

Formatting

First ensure you’re video is in the correct format for online viewing. All of these websites accept Mpg Video, Windows Media Video, and QuickTime Video (.mpg, .mp4, .mov, .avi, .wmv). If you’re video is another format you’ll want to check with each individual site to see if they will accept it or look into converting into one of these standardized video types. If you don’t know where to start, windows movie maker is free with windows and will convert your files into wmv format and works great for online viewing. A large number of other programs both free and commercial abound, just type in video conversion in your favorite search engine.

Title and Description:
It’s all in the name

Remember that these sites are absolutely stuffed with user submissions and being updated by the minutes so you’ll want to really think about that title and description you use for your video. I’ve seen tremendous traffic increases on the same site from simply changing around a few words. Think attention span. It’s difficult to guess what title will work the best, so try some out and see what happens. When you find one working a lot better then the others, try changing over all your listing to that one and see what happens. You might also finds different titles work better depending on the niche community. Website with a younger audience like myspace will probably respond differently then bliptv or some of the other more seriously oriented sites.

The Procedure:
Fill Out, Submit, Upload

You’ll want to visit each website and sign up for a free account. They’ll ask you all the standard questions about your name, address, e-mail, and setup a free user profile page. If you have a website make sure you include a link to it here, as your videos on their site will almost certainly link to your specific profile page. So it could get your website a lot of traffic. I actually recommended putting your web address in the description of each video clip for optimal promotion, if they won’t let you use characters like http:// then just type it as www.yourdomain.comyou’re viewers will understand.

Next, find the video upload link and start submitting. Note: some of the video sites have a review and validation period so it may be a few days after submission before your video goes live. Others will show it instantly.

Listing of popular websites that accept free video submissions

1. Google Video (video.google.com)
3. You Tube (youtube.com)
5. Addicting Clip (addictingclips.com)
7. Blip TV (blip.tv)
9. Bolt (bolt.com)
11. Myspace (myspace.com)
13. Ifilm (ifilm.com)
15. Daily Motion (dailymotion.com)
17. Vimeo (vimeo.com)
19. Our Media (ourmedia.org)
21. Internet Archive (archive.org)
23. Download.com (video.download.com)