How to embed a Video in WordPress

If you’re the creator or owner of a video, you can simply upload it to your WordPress Media Library.

Step 1: Launch the Media Library and select ‘Media’ from the left-hand menu:

Step 2: Click on ‘Add New’ and ‘Select Files’ to specify and confirm the storage location of your video file and start uploading it to the Media Library. Alternatively, drag and drop the clip into the field (dashed lines):

Step 3: Launch the WordPress page where you want to add the video and click on the Plus sign to add a block of content.

Step 4: Scroll to the ‘Media’ section and select the ‘Video’ entry to add a video content block. In the block, click on ‘Media Library’. WordPress will launch an overview of available videos, from which you can select the desired video. After you click on a video, a window launches that lets you adjust the metadata such as title, label, and description of your video. Hit the ‘Select’ button to embed the video to your WordPress page.

Now, your video is embedded in WordPress. Just as with any other content block on WordPress, you can move it around the page to match your page layout.

If you prefer to save storage space and computing power, you can upload your videos to an external video platform such as YouTube or Vimeo. These platforms make it easy to embed videos using embed codes that can be easily integrated to your WordPress page. Depending on the orientation and type of your website, you can also insert videos shared by other users – provided they own the rights to the content and the videos are publicly available.

To add a YouTube video via an embed code, follow these steps. Note that individual steps may vary for other video content platforms.

Step 1: Find the YouTube video you wish to embed and click on ‘Share’ located below the clip.

Step 2: Select ‘Embed’ to access the embedding options. You can choose the default settings or modify the embed code a little. For example, you could define the time at which you’d want the video to play once embedded on your page (‘Start at’). You can also enable a privacy-enhanced mode to protect the privacy of your visitors. Finally, click on ‘Copy’ to save the code to the clipboard for WordPress import.

Step 3: Now open the page in WordPress where you want to embed the video. Insert the clip link from the clipboard directly to the desired position by creating an HTML block and using the key combination [Ctrl] + [v] or right-clicking and selecting ‘Paste’.

Step 4: WordPress now auto-inserts the video in the usual format. Once you select ‘Preview’, you can preview the results.

Regardless of whether you upload videos internally or externally, the use of WordPress video plugins is recommended for simple and quick integration of videos and added features. All you need to do is install the plug-in of your choice. The WordPress backend offers access to easy-to-use menus or editor buttons that manage the respective extension.

Step 1: From the left-hand menu, launch the ‘Plugins’ section and click on ‘Install’.

Step 2: Type any keyword into the search bar (top right) to search for a suitable WordPress video plugin. To see what plugins are available simply enter the search term ‘video’:

Step 3: When you’ve decided on a plugin, click on it and hit ‘Install now’. Once the plugin is installed, you can ‘Activate’ it.

Step 4: Alternatively, you can manage your plugins via the sub-menu ‘Installed Plugins’ or a sub-menu button as shown in the example of the OriginCode ‘Video Gallery’ plugin below:

Want to embed YouTube video content? You won’t want to miss Embed Plus for YouTube. With over 200,000 active installations, the plugin doesn’t just support the embedding of single YouTube clips, but also that of entire playlists, channels, and even livestreams. The plugin is also compatible with the WordPress Gutenberg editor. The ‘YouTube Wizard’ is a user-friendly management tool. Additional features such as automatic video SEO mark-up or a caching function can be activated by upgrading to the paid Pro version.

Manage a blog? Then you’re already well-aware of how important a smooth performance across multiple end devices is. Loading times are particularly important. If YouTube videos are an integral part of your WordPress blog, the WP YouTube Lyte plugin is particularly useful.

The plugin enables lazy loading for all embedded WordPress videos. Responsive ‘Lite YouTube Embeds’ look just like normal YouTube embeds, but only launch the memory-intensive player when a visitor actually clicks on a video. YouTube videos can also be cached locally, which means that the video platform servers aren’t unnecessarily accessed.

Parallax scrolling is now an important feature of design tools for modern web projects. Advanced WordPress Backgrounds (AWB) is a free plugin that supports parallax scrolling in WordPress. You can use the extension to create individual parallax backgrounds for selected pages based on images or videos (self-hosted, YouTube, or Vimeo). The technical basis for this is the powerful JavaScript plug-in Jarallax.

Galleries are a popular tool to present several videos on a page at once and the Video Gallery by Total Soft is an excellent solution to this end. The free basic version lets you compile and publish video galleries with any number of clips from YouTube, Vimeo, and Wistia or your own source. All galleries can be arranged automatically in a responsive web design and via drag-and-drop. To adapt the design of your galleries, we recommend upgrading to one of the paid versions (from approx. £10). The upgrade lets you access additional gallery themes, fonts, hover effects, and various other style options.