Methods to embed and optimize YouTube videos in WordPress - ELEXtensions (2023)

With billions of users and videos, YouTube is the largest video sharing platform on the Internet. Many website owners and content creators upload their YouTube videos and embed them on their blogs or websites. Millions of websites, including blogs, businesses and media, use the well-known content management system WordPress.

WordPress sites that include YouTube videos can be an effective way to engage visitors and increase the quality of your content. On the other hand, optimizing these movies for faster loading times and a better user experience could be difficult. If you find yourself in this situation, don't worry!

We will explore a few methods to optimize and embed YouTube videos in WordPress. After reading this post, you won't have to worry about how quickly or efficiently you can add and optimize video content to your website.

Benefits of embedding and optimizing YouTube videos on WordPress

To really benefit from video content, your WordPress site needs to optimize and integrate your YouTube videos. Make sure your video is optimized for faster response times in addition to making sure it's properly incorporated into the website.

Why is this important? There are a few big benefits to optimizing your YouTube videos:

• Increased user engagement:Videos are a highly engaging form of content that can help draw viewers to your site and increase user engagement.
• Better content quality:By integrating high-caliber YouTube videos into your WordPress site, you can improve the quality of your content overall and provide your users with access to more insightful content.
• Faster loading times:By optimizing your YouTube videos, you can speed up the user experience by lowering page load times and improving video load times.

This means people can easily find and view the content you've created without worrying about laggy pages and slow loading, as long as you've done the right optimization!

Methods to embed a YouTube video on WordPress

Embedding YouTube videos on your WordPress site is a simple task and doesn't take much time. There are 3 different methods of doing it, with certain methods offering better customization than others. Let's take a look at each of them:

Method 1: Embed the video using a link

The first step to embedding a YouTube video on your WordPress site is to find the specific video you want to use. Once you've done that, find and copy the 'Share' link from the YouTube page.

You will then go back to your WordPress site and paste this link where you want it. This is a very simple method and can be done in minutes.

Method 2: Embed the video using HTML

If you would like to customize the size of the player or add controls, an HTML code can be used instead of just pasting the Share link. How to generate this code:

• Navigate to your YouTube video page.
• ClickOf theplaced below the video.
• chooseEmbedfrom the given options.

• Copy the HTML code below it.

• Paste it on your WordPress website in the desired position.

• Be sure to save any changes you make.

Method 3: Embed the video using a plugin

Using a plugin likeELEX Integrate YouTube-videogallery,you can easily add videos to your WooCommerce stores pages, automating most of the process. This method allows you to simply search for video galleries and use their shortcode to display them on your site without any further hassle.

You can further customize the appearance of the embedded video by choosing different sizes, colors and layouts. After installing and activating the plugin, follow the instructions below to adjust the plugin settings.

Access the plugin settings by going toWordPress Dashboard > ELEX YouTube Gallery.

• Settings tab

Navigate toConfiguration settingsafter you open the Settings tab. To start downloading data from YouTube, enterYouTube API Keyin the setup options on this page. To have the YouTube API automatically download any new uploads you make to the playlists or channels in your feed, you can also enable auto-sync.

When you activateAutomatic synchronization, you can schedule automatic syncs for daily, weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly intervals.

Set the default under the respective tabsVideo player settingsandGallery settings.

In the video player settings, you can choose overlay color and blur, as well as pop-up and inline playback modes. Here you can also define the default settings for the global video player.

The default gallery settings, such as whether to display the header or the YouTube subscribe button, how to define the channel URL for the subscribe button, how to choose the layout and pagination mechanism, and so on, can then be adjusted.

• Create tab

After adding a gallery name and category to the Create tab, enter the source URLs of the videos, playlists, or channels you want to include in the gallery and clickAdd to source list.

You can see how the gallery will look when uploaded by usingLive Previewtool. The source list, color mode, desktop design, subscribe button and intro video can all be changed on this page.

• My Gallery

Under My Gallery you can find the shortcodes for each of the newly created YouTube video galleries.

You can easily add the gallery to your WordPress site by copying and pasting this shortcode into the WordPress site's backend. Shortcodes can be selected by clicking the "+" in the block editor's drop-down menu.

After pasting the copied short code, clickUpdate. You can display one or more video galleries from your YouTube account by following these simple instructions.

• Adding the video to the product image gallery

The process is simple and requires no additional tools. Once the ELEX Embed YouTube Video Gallery plugin is activated, you can navigate toProducts > All productsfrom your WordPress Dashboard.

To enter the Gutenberg editor, select the product you want to add YouTube videos to, then clickEditbutton.

In the editor, navigate toELEX YouTube-videogalleriwindow. The window appears on the right side of the page.

In the window you will see a field where you can enter the URL of the YouTube video. Enter the URL of the YouTube video and click the arrow to add it to the product image gallery.

The YouTube video will now be included in the product image gallery. Repeat the procedure to add more YouTube videos. In addition, you can also choose whether to include the videos at the beginning or the end of the gallery.

With these methods, your embedded YouTube videos should appear on your WordPress site exactly as you intended them to!

Optimizing YouTube video on WordPress

UserELEX Optimize YouTube Videos Embed Plugin til WordPressto optimize videos, you can make sure that your pages and videos load quickly and efficiently. This will give you an edge over other sites in terms of page speed, resulting in customer satisfaction.

The process is very simple, start by installing and activating the plugin just like you would with any other plugin. Once the plugin is activated, follow one of the following methods to optimize the video with or without a custom banner.

Method 1: Optimize and embed with a custom banner

Go to one of the pages you want to embed an optimized YouTube video and paste the following shortcode:

[eh_optimize_youtube_embed video=”VIDEO LINK” banner=”IMAGE URL” alternate_text=”ALTERNAT TEXT” width=”560″ height=”315″]

The short code given above can be customized by adding the necessary details such as

• Video link
• Banner Image URL
• Alternative text
• Video dimensions

Below is an example of an optimized YouTube video with a custom banner.

Method 2:Optimize and integrate without a custom banner

The process is similar to method 1 with a slight change in the card code.Go to one of the pages you want to embed an optimized YouTube video and paste the following shortcode:

[eh_optimize_youtube_embed video=”https://youtu.be/KFvveeBVgyk”]

Paste the above shortcode with the YouTube link into one of your WordPress pages and clickUpdate. The video is displayed with standard YouTube play button and no banner as you can see below.

When you use one of the above methods with the plugin, the YouTube video will be displayed as shown above without the inline frame. When a customer clicks on the banner, it opens the YouTube video.

This optimization increases the loading and response speed of your web pages with YouTube videos. Below you can see the before and after results of using the ELEX Optimize YouTube Videos Embed Plugin.

Conclusion

In summary, YouTube videos are a great asset to your WordPress site, and there are many ways you can optimize your videos to ensure they are as effective as possible.

Embedding and optimizing videos in WordPress is relatively simple, and the ELEX plugins above can help automate the majority of the process. Whatever method you choose to embed and optimize videos, the goal should be to make them as engaging and informative as possible. Your customers will appreciate the effort and your website will benefit from the extra traffic.

We hope this post has helped you understand the process better!

Further reading

• How does WooCommerce integrate with Facebook Marketplace?

• Points to help you recover abandoned carts better than your competitors