If a picture is worth a 1,000 words then a video is perhaps worth 10,000 words. Unlike pictures, videos are interactive and conveys the message more easily. So if you’re a WordPress beginner, then here’s how you can embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion and other such popular video sites to WordPress posts and pages.
Prior to WordPress 2.9, you were required to copy the entire embed code from the video site and then paste it on your blog. But thankfully after the introduction of WordPress 2.9, with its new oEmbed feature, embedding videos to WordPress posts and pages is as easy as a piece of cake.
How to Embed Videos to WordPress
So let’s say if you want to embed a video from YouTube, then all you need to do is to paste the video URL in the visual editor in its own line. If you’re in the “Visual” view, then you will be instantly able to view the video preview right in the visual editor, and if you’re in the “Text” view, then you just need to ensure that the video URL is in a separate line, and not clickable (it should not be hyperlinked).
In the below screenshot, you can see how the embedded video should look like:
To remove the video, simply select the video and click on the X icon. To edit the video URL, or insert a different video instead of the current one, click on the pencil icon and then change the URL.
List of video sites that supports WordPress’s oEmbed feature:
- Animoto
- Blip
- CollegeHumor
- DailyMotion
- FunnyOrDie
- Hulu
- TED
- Vimeo
- WordPress.tv
- YouTube
This means that you can embed videos from these sites by just adding the URL in the content area (visual editor). For other video sites, you will need to embed a video manually, by getting the embed code and pasting it in the “Text” view.
Why you shouldn’t upload videos to your WordPress site
Well, you can definitely upload a video manually to your WordPress site by clicking on the “Add Media” button and uploading the video, but we don’t recommend you to do so. That’s because videos will consume lots of server resources and if you’re on shared hosting, then your site might get crashed, or you can get a warning message from your web host to upgrade to a new plan to support your video hosting needs. Also if you’re hosting a video on your own site, then you’re missing out the traffic that you could have received from YouTube, the world’s most popular video sharing site. But in the end it depends on you, because sometimes you might want the video exclusively on your own site and not on any other site.
Hope this article cleared your doubts on how to embed/add videos to WordPress posts and pages. If you have got any questions, then feel free to post it in the comments below.