Grow Your Business by Hosting and Selling Videos Online

Whether you’re launching a new website or scaling your existing business, creating and marketing online video content, such as multi-part courses or tutorials, is a strategic way to grow your digital footprint. For instructors, chefs, educators, wellness providers, and other skill-based experts, video content can help attract new customers and bring your offerings to life online. 

With tools like Squarespace Courses, you can build an online video library, customize your content, and create a new revenue stream. Learn more about how to sell videos online:

Build your video library

As a first step, decide how you want to host your videos. When you natively host videos—meaning they’re hosted directly on your website, and not through a third-party platform—you can manage all of your website content in one place. The more organized your content is, the easier it will be to edit and update your video library over time.

With Squarespace, building your video library is simple. You can add video pages to your website to create a library that fits your brand, and organize your video content so customers can easily browse and find the videos they want to watch. If you’re just getting started, learn more about planning and developing a course curriculum.  

Interested in offering live courses? Learn how to host an online workshop in four simple steps.

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Once your video library is created, you can turn it into a revenue stream in a few different ways.

Paywall your video library

Gating website content creates passive income. As your website traffic grows, your video content will reach a wider audience of potential customers who can pay for access to your library—no extra work required for you. That means you can invest more time in efforts like optimizing your website for search engines or building your brand mission.

On Squarespace, you can add paywalls directly to video players, so site visitors can preview free content or read video descriptions before deciding to buy.

Create a member site

You can also gate your videos by requiring your website visitors to share their email address or pay in exchange for access to a Member Site. That way, your video library can help you build an email list and a community for fans of your content.

With a Member Site, you can share all types of exclusive content for membership subscribers, like newsletters, events, and audio or video.

Teach an online course

Squarespace Courses enables you to create online courses for your website and put up a paywall for access to your video courses. With Courses, you can access online course templates to create well-designed, easy-to-navigate course pages.

You can create a tiered offering, and choose to charge a one-time price or recurring fee for access to your course.

Customize your offerings

When you gate access to your content, you can also create a customized experience for the people who view your library. Start by selling different video categories or class skill levels at different tiers of online courses with Squarespace.

For example, a fitness instructor might create multiple video courses based on experience—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—and offer them as separate course packages. Tailoring your offerings will mean that people get more prescriptive guidance from you, and can encourage them to purchase the next course as they advance their skills.

Learn more about getting started with online courses

Promote your video content

With your video library up and running, you can start to build your client base by marketing your content online. Simple adjustments to your website, like adding an announcement bar, can help raise awareness of your video content.

You can also promote your video courses on social media with the Unfold app and drive engagement by promoting them with a Bio Site. Update links in your Bio Site over time to raise awareness about new courses or offer special course packages to your audience. As you start to expand your marketing efforts, consider creating video ads to promote your video courses and distribute the ads across social media platforms.

Still building your online presence? Learn more about how to sell online.

This post was updated on March 7, 2024.