If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million
Embedding videos into your WordPress blog post or page is much easier than you think, it just takes a few steps and is very easily done. This quick tutorial will teach you how to enhance your blog post by embedding videos.
3 easy ways to embed a YouTube video in WordPress:
- Using the YouTube Embed Code
- Using a Shortcode
- Using a Plugin
Method 1: Using the YouTube Embed Code
YouTube’s embed code gives you the full customization of how you want your video to display when you insert it in your blog post. The embed code supplied by YouTube is just an ordinary HTML iframe. According to YouTube “IFrame embeds are the recommended method for embedding a YouTube player because the IFrame will select the appropriate player based on the client’s capabilities and available YouTube file formats.”
Follow the steps below:
Step 1: Navigate to the YouTube video you want to embed.
Step 2: Click on the “Share” button underneath the video.
Step 3: Click the “embed” link and Copy the code provided in the expanded box.
- You can adjust the video size to better fit into your page.
- Uncheck the box that says “Show suggested videos when the video finishes.”
Step 4: Now go to your blog post that you are editing.
Step 5: If you’re in the Visual tab, switch to the Text tab (top right of the body of the page). Paste the embed code where you want the video to appear in the post.
If you encapsulate this code within the
tags, you can display your video in the center of your blog post or Web page.
Step 6: When you click back to the “Visual” tab, you will see a yellow box that indicates the video. Note that you will not be able to see the video from the editor.
Step 7: Save your draft and then preview to see the video in action on your page.
Method 2: Using a Shortcode
Perhaps the easiest way to add a YouTube video to WordPress is by wrapping the URL with the built-in WordPress shortcode. WordPress will automatically turn that into a embed video when the post is viewed.
Step 1: Navigate to the YouTube video and copy its URL.
Step 2: Wrap the URL in the shortcode as shown below (include the http:// part).
You can also customize the video size by setting a width and height values to better fit into your page.
Step 3: Make sure the link is not hyperlinked (i.e., it should just be plain text). Otherwise, highlight the URL and click the “unlink” button in your editor.
Step 4: Save and preview. You will see youtube video has been inserted in blog post.
So with this method, you can easily embed videos from all popular video sites like Vimeo, Dailymotion, blip.tv, funnyordie and even your tweets from twitter as well.
Method 3: Using a Plugin
To make this process even easier, you can download one of the many video embed plugins for WordPress.
Of the countless plugins available, Smart YouTube PRO is a simple and easy-to-use plugin that allows you to easily insert videos/playlists into your post, comments and in your RSS feed. It has a number of customizable options.
Once the plugin has been activated, all you have to do is simply paste the YouTube URL into your post and the letter ‘v’ added after http (httpv://) and it does the rest.
Example: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWfksMD4PAg
Easy, eh? Although it’s called Smart YouTube, it also supports playback of Vimeo, Metacafe, Liveleak, and Facebook videos.
Use any of the above methods to embed video which you like the most. Or if you have a different method or plugin that you prefer, share it in the comments below!