The built-in media manager in WordPress exists for webmasters to host and upload their own multimedia content, such as images, video and audio. However, while the media manager is generally suitable for storing a few images on smaller blogs, it is rarely ideal for hosting video content and larger image databases due to low upload file size limits and the burden such content has on your hosting provider. For these reasons, the vast majority of webmasters choose to embed content, since doing so enables you to display any media content you like on your website without actually having to host it on your own server with its relatively limited storage space and bandwidth. Embedding video content from websites such as YouTube or Vimeo is usually just a matter of a few clicks, as shown in this guide.
1 – Embedding YouTube Videos
YouTube is by far the world’s most popular video sharing website, and you can display any YouTube video from your account or any other without even having to log in.
- Navigate to the YouTube video you want to display on your website and click “Share” below the video. Click on “Embed” and copy the code which appears the box below.
- Paste this code into any post or page on your WordPress blog, and the video will appear in its place on the actual published content.
- Alternatively, you can display the video on every page of your blog in the sidebar or other widget area by using the Text widget. Navigate to Appearance > Widgets and drag over the Text widget to your preferred widget area on the right. You can use multiple instances of the widget if you like, with each one displaying different content. Simply click on the activated widget in the right-side column and paste the code into the text box provided. Click on “Save” to continue.
2 – Embedding Content from Other Video Sharing Websites
The process is much the same for any other video or audio sharing website which provides the necessary code for embedding content into other blogs and websites. The following explains how to obtain the necessary code from some of the other popular online video sharing services:
- To embed a video from Vimeo.com, mouse over the video you want to embed and click the “Share” button. Copy the code provided under the “Embed” section, customizing its appearance if required by clicking “Show options”.
- To embed an audio track from the popular music sharing website, Sound Cloud, navigate to the track you want to play and click “Share” followed by “Embed” Copy the code provided.
With newer versions of WordPress, you can embed media content from many websites simply by placing the link to the image, video or audio into any post, page or the text widget. However, by using the embedding feature provided by the host website allows you to customize its appearance as well.