I’m at the Internet Super Stars conference in Orlando this weekend, and I want to let you know about something that has come up.
Several people have asked me how I put audio and video on my membership pages- specifically, audio and video that I host using Amazon’s S3 service.
If you’re not aware of it, let me explain what S3 is.
The first time I created a membership site with videos, I just put the videos on my hosting account with the rest of my website.
The problem with doing it that way is that if I start getting several people trying to watch the videos at the same time, it puts a lot of strain on the server and can cripple the typical low-cost web hosting account.
You can get a dedicated server, but that can cost hundreds of dollars a month.
You can put the videos on a site like YouTube, but then anyone can view them- not a good solution when you are selling access to the videos.
Amazon S3 lets me put my files on amazon.com’s servers, so I don’t have to worry about running out of bandwidth. They charge me a small amount for the space and bandwidth I use, no monthly fee or anything. It’s literally a few dollars a month, and it’s great for large files like audio or video.
The only problem with this is that all the instructions I can find about how to make this S3-hosted content show up on my site tells me to change the security settings of the files so that anyone can access them, even if they haven’t paid for them. In fact, people would even be able to put my content on their sites without my permission, and I would get charged for the bandwidth they use.
Obviously not a good way to go.
I finally found the solution. It lets me easily put my S3-hosted files on a WordPress post or page, without making them public.
If the file is a video, this will display it in a player that is either embedded on the page or appears in front of it, like a popup. I can specify which method to use for each video. I can control the player size and other attributes.
For audio files, this solution will display a player that streams the audio, or you can make them downloadable.
You can also make a file of any type downloadable this way, if you want to.
The solution is a WordPress plugin that you can get from here.
It’s very easy to set up and use. The license lets you put it on as many of your own sites as you want, and you get free updates when new features are added. I’ve already seen this happen, since when I first got it, this plugin didn’t handle audio files.
Note that this is only for WordPress. It doesn’t matter if it’s a membership site or not, but this product doesn’t work on regular HTML pages, just WordPress.
It’s the best way I’ve found to securely put my video and audio content on my pages, without having to worry about bandwidth, server issues, or people stealing my files.
It takes about 5 minutes to set it up on your site, and one simple line of code for each S3 file you want to access.
Since I’ve already had 3 people this weekend ask me about it, I thought I’d let you know about it, too. Yes, that’s an affiliate link above, and I do get compensated if you invest in the plugin.
I highly recommend it.
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