How To Add Video To Your WordPress Website

Video marketing has become an integral part of every campaign or project. A survey by Wyzowl from last year showed us that 82% of all marketers consider video a key part of their marketing strategy.

The reason for this is the interactive nature of the video. With this unique form of multimedia, you can elaborate things in a much quicker and more entertaining way that text or images. For this reason, you have to add video to your WordPress site.

However, it’s much more complex than simply embedding and posting. To help you boost your ROI and grow your brand, we’ve decided to create this guide. Within it, you will find all the necessary steps for integrating video into your WordPress site.

There are tips and trick included, so you can have complete control over the process. WordPress has a 58.55% of the CMS market share — way above all other systems combined (eg, Drupal, Joomla). Running a WordPress website and using video on it makes a good marketing move whether you run a business or a blog.

Let’s explore more on what it takes to add video and devise an improved video marketing strategy on your WordPress website.

How to embed YouTube videos to WordPress

YouTube is the most popular video hosting service by far. People watch over 500 million hours of videos on YouTube every day, according to research by Buffer.

Business videos on YouTube add legitimacy to your brand image, attracting more people. Therefore, you can enhance your WordPress website with either your videos or videos related to the brand. The process is easy and here’s how to complete it:

Find the video on YouTube
Click the share button and watch the menu open up.
Copy the link. If you want the video to start from the beginning, don’t do anything.
However, if you want to share a certain section of the video, go to the specific point within the video, pause it and tick the “start at” box. Select the time you want and copy the link.
Paste the link into your post, and it will instantly turn into an embed.
If you want to change the size of the video, use the built-in WordPress shortcode for embedding.

As you can see, it’s quite easy to post videos on your WordPress website. This is only for posting videos, but at a certain point, you will need more. To improve your marketing, you have to customize the videos you post. This is also possible on WordPress, and we’ll focus on it in the following section.

How to customize videos for your WordPress website

Quickly embedding videos is easy, but to customize them, you have to use more than the URL. For customization, you don’t just focus on the base URL. Instead, the Embed tab will be your greatest aid in this situation.

The process is the same, and it consists of a couple of steps to help you. Let’s take a look:

Once you’ve found the video, click on the Share button.
Instead of proceeding to copy the link, go to the Embed tab.
There, you can click on the Show More tab, and more options will appear.

Let’s take a look at what options we have, shall we?

The first one relates to video size. If you want to embed the video in a bigger blog post, we would advise against using big videos. The video has to be an aid to understanding the text in this case. If it’s too big, people won’t read through the entire post and your content will end up underutilized. You can use a larger size if you want to center your post around the video. Think before sharing it and make a concept.
Video player controls are also important. You can turn them off, but it’s a bad idea. There will be people that won’t watch the entire video, and that’s completely fine. Give them the option to stop it when they want (in case of autoplay). If you don’t, it will leave a bad impression and make it seem like you’re forcing people to watch videos on your WordPress website.
The next one focuses on suggested videos. This can be a distraction, depending on which videos are offered to the viewer. If there are other videos of yours, then enable this option. It allows people to expand their knowledge and develop further interest in your website and the entire cause. Tubular Insights offers a great guide on how to optimize your YouTube related videos.
As for the last one, it relates to showing the video title and player action. For increased viewer freedom, tick this box. They will want to have a YouTube-like experience within your website.

After you’ve chosen the options you need, copy the code (the one which starts with “<iframe”) and post it to your dashboard. An important thing you should pay attention to is the tab you’ve selected. Copy the code into the text tab, not the visual one. HTML codes are understood as text, and you should only post it that way.

Now, you can easily embed YouTube videos to your WordPress website. But is YouTube your only option? Of course not!

How to add videos from unsupported providers to your WordPress website

During research for a topic, you will come across many interesting videos that may coincide with your topic. A problem may arise if the provider is not on the supported list for WordPress. Should you give up? Of course not. If a video is enticing enough, there is no reason why you shouldn’t put it on your WordPress website.

In most cases, these are local news websites, other brands or even blogs that you frequently collaborate with. How can you add their videos to your website? There are two methods.

The first one is as simple as copying the URL of the video. You can simply paste it into your blog post or share it independently. WordPress has excellent video recognition software, so the video might appear as normal, regardless of the provider. But what if that doesn’t work?
Usually, the website of the provider has options for sharing and embedding. If so, then you can follow the same aforementioned method (with the copying of the code). If not, it would be best if you contacted the person who posted the video. In most cases, they can send you a link from a different provider or help you out.

Although it seems “traditional,” reaching out can help you assemble that viral blog post you’ve been waiting for.

Now you know even how to use videos from unsupported providers. Well done! In recent years, self-hosting became popular, but should you consider it? Let’s see the pros and cons.

Should you opt for private hosting for video on your WordPress site?

At a certain point, you will start creating videos. As time passes, hosting the videos on your own website will seem logical. For your unique content, you should be in control of the hosting, too. There are several reasons why this is a great idea.

In recent years, private video hosting has evolved. With stable servers and unlimited bandwidths, a whole new industry has come up, along with the corresponding perks to your marketing sector. Here are some of the reasons why private hosting your videos is a great move.

Private video host platforms provide you with customized plans and solutions, all in line with your business goals.
You can calibrate the quality of streaming to optimize for mobile users or users with other devices like desktops, tablets etc.
Private video hosting platforms let you use their own analytics tools. With so many filters, options and categories, these tools are at par with YouTube Analytics in terms of usability.
All the big brands use them. Marketo, Microsoft, MailChimp, Moz, HubSpot, and many others utilize private hosting. It adds legitimacy.
With private hosting, you can customize your player and everything else related to the layout.
The videos stream without suggested content, and ads from other clients of YouTube. Uninterrupted viewing means higher customer engagement with your video content.

Concluding thoughts

Adding videos to your WordPress website is an amazing benefit to your brand. You can post them by copying the link or devote time to customization. Either way, multimedia content will draw in new visitors, bringing a new dimension to your already great work. Stay creative and motivated.

Originally published on January 10th, 2019, updated on December 5th, 2023