Need To Embed Videos In WordPress? Here’s How.

April 29, 2017August 24, 2020

Chad Faith

Director of Content

Need To Embed Videos In WordPress? Here's How.

Do you own a WordPress site? And have you just made a cool video and want to share it with your audience? But wait, realized that you do not know how to put videos on WordPress? Well, look no further, my friend. You are about to find out how to embed videos in WordPress in a variety of ways. The following methods are really simple to follow. Let’s find out more:

When You Need to Embed Videos in a Lightbox

Need to add Youtube videos to a light box? Consider using the WP Video Lightbox plugin. Here are the instructions for uploading the videos:

You can install the plugin via your WordPress Dashboard. Plugins > Add New
Search for the plugin and click Install Now. Make sure you select Activate as well
You do not need to get the entire YouTube Video URL. Simply get the part after the v= in the URL
Select Posts > Add New to create a new post
Enter the lightbox shortcode in the content area of your new post (written instructions will be available at this point)
Save your work and test

When You Need to Embed Videos into Posts or Pages via Shortcodes

This tip will help you overcome your fear of shortcodes. Let’s get started:

Get your YouTube URL before heading to the Post Editor
Type “<“, an open square bracket, in the content area of the Post Editor.
Next, type the word youtube followed by a space
Remember to type in a closing square bracket as well, “>”
Save and preview your post

You are allowed to append values to the YouTube URL if you want to change start and stop times in the video, change the width and height, modify the display, and more. Let’s say, you want to alter the dimensions of the video to 520 by 420. You just need to add &w=520&h=420 at the back of the URL.

Here’s a sample link for your reference: youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiS8rZBeIO0&w=520&h=420

Now, that wasn’t so hard, right?

When You Need to Embed Videos via Plain Video URLs

WordPress supports a great array of video providers like YouTube and Vimeo. That’s why embedding videos into WordPress is as simple as pasting in the video URL into a page or post. Sit tight for some mind-blowing instructions:

Copy the Youtube or Vimeo video URL
Head back to your WordPress Dashboard
Press Add New under Posts to create a new post
Give your post a suitable title
Paste in the URL
Save and preview your work (You should be able to see the video immediately within the editor)

How is the magic happening? Well, WordPress has the ability to tap into the OEmbed API and Embed HTML to achieve this amazing feat.

When You Need to Embed Video Playlists into Pages or Posts

Time to embed a YouTube playlist into one of your posts? Here’s what you need to do:

Get the YouTube Playlist URL (it has a list= parameter appended to the URL)
Paste the URL into the page/post editor
Save and preview to see how the playlist looks on your website design

Easy peasy!

When You Need to Enable Video Embedding by Adding Youtube Shortcodes

If you are wondering how you can get more control over YouTube videos, you can do so by using shortcodes to include them in Widgets. Before we begin, you might want to install JetPack.