If you want to know how to embed video into WordPress, here’s our tutorial!
Why Use Video?
If content is king, then video is a jewel in its crown. Embed video into a WordPress page or post to enhance your marketing strategy and increase engagement with your website users. Among other video marketing statistics, Insivia reports that:
- Including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%.
- 92% of mobile video consumers share videos with others.
- After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online.
- The average internet user spends 88% more time on a site with video.
How to Embed Video into WordPress
If you’d like to embed video (to which you own the rights) on your website, first upload it to YouTube or Vimeo. Creating a channel is best so that you can keep your videos together.
Using a well-known video sharing site rather than self-hosting ensures that your video is available and plays well for your users. 4 out of 5 users will click away if a video stalls when loading.
Next, embed the video into a WordPress page or post. Note that these instructions apply whether embedding your own video or someone else’s. In the old days, the only option was to copy and paste the chunk of “embed code” provided by the sharing site. Something like this:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EkWWEg7M71Y?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Now, thanks to WordPress’ use of oEmbed, you can embed video just by inserting the URL in your content area. Instead of needing a long code chunk to embed a video, you can simply paste in the video’s URL. WordPress will automatically embed the video in a player, right on your site. For example, here’s the direct URL for the long code chunk shown above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkWWEg7M71Y
Here’s how it looks in practice, when you paste just that URL into WordPress:
IMPORTANT UPDATE: To ensure suggested videos showing after your video plays are from your channel, YouTube adds ?rel=0 to the end of the URL (see long embed code chunk above). On some WordPress sites you can simply add this URL parameter to the end of the URL to keep related videos from showing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkWWEg7M71Y?rel=0
However, if you want to ensure that related videos don’t show, install and activate the Embed Plus for YouTube plugin.
Always backup your site before installing any plugins, and check site functionality after activation to ensure no conflicts with other plugins or your site’s theme.
And There's More!
In addition to automatically embedding videos from YouTube and Vimeo by entering the URL, you can also use this method for video located on other video sites (e.g., DailyMotion, Hulu, TED, FunnyorDie) as well as other content types (photos, slideshows, music, polls, etc.). The complete list of approved sites is in the WordPress codex. Also, as of WordPress 4.4, you can easily embed WordPress content from another site and make it shareable by entering the page or post URL:
http://healthyagingnc.com/about/
Here’s the result:
Healthy Aging NC
How to embed video into WordPress: In Conclusion
WordPress gets even better with each new release, making content-enhancing features like embedding video easier and more intuitive. As a result, you can now take advantage of the simplicity of embedding via eEmbed. So let the power of video marketing help convert your website visitors to customers.
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