You’re new to this whole blogging thing. You want to put a cool video in your post like you see everywhere on the web, but you haven’t figured out how to do it. I got your back. Everything’s easy when you know how, right? 
So watch this video to see how it’s done the easy way. Here’s what you’ll get out of it:
- What NOT to do (the “Add media” buttons are wrong)
- Where to get the embed code on a YouTube video
- How to customize the embedded movie player
- How to embed the movie the easy way, WITHOUT extra plugins
So enjoy (you may want to go full screen but the quality’s not as good as Viddler–since I used YouTube in the video, I wanted to use them for this post).
If you can’t see the video in your email or reader, it’s on YouTube: How to Add Video to a WordPress Post.
20 Comments
Good video.
I’ve noticed that the Add Media buttons don’t always do the job for me (especially the image one, it never seems to do the align right).
One thing to add to this is that you can edit the dimensions of the video if you need to. I use the Revolution Magazine theme and need to downsize the video so it won’t throw my layout off - I just take the YouTube embed URL and reduce the dimensions by 50%.
Interesting. I’ve never noticed that “Add Video”-button. I have always added videos by adding embedded code in the code-tab. Thanks for posting the video!
@Dave - when you use the align features, specific CSS classes are created. It is possible, then, to have CSS styles created for these classes so that when you use them in your theme the pictures will always look good.
Thanks for bringing up the video resizing idea, I know a lot of people would benefit from knowing that. In the code the dimensions are given twice, so make sure you change both instances.
@Marko - In previous versions of WordPress, the html tab didn’t faithfully render the code, resulting in botched video embdeds. People like me had to use the permanent code view (set in user options) while less technical folk had to try and find a plugin that would work halfway decently.
@Michael -
My issue with WP 2.5 is this - I click Add Media, add a photo and tell it to align (left or right), and it tosses it in but doesn’t do the text wrapping (so the image looks awkward). I then select on the image, click on the image edit button, and lo and behold … the alignment doesn’t show as set. If I set it from within *there*, then it does the wrap.
Weird. Annoying.
I had tried putting video on my blog but it threw out the layout (too big). I just followed the advice to cut the height and width by half and I just successfully added a YouTube video to my blog. Thank you.
This is a great tutorial. Thank you!
Thank you, I was having a little problem with embedding a video in the post but now its fine.
Super. It took almost a day to find this info. Thanks, great job.
Thanks Mark!
I have the video embedded in my blog post now, but when I view the post in the Categories section, the video disappears. It works fine on the front page or when I look at it in the Recent Posts section. Same with images. Am I doing something wrong?
@Kim - Who’s Mark?
The reason why you don’t see the video in the categories or date archives is because the code in those pages does not show videos, picture, or links. That is the default behavior of the “excerpt” code that is on those pages.
It can be changed by editing the archive.php file, which is one of the files that make up your WordPress theme.
However, it can only be done by a person who knows what they’re doing with the code and an FTP client (for a self-hosted blog–for a wordpress.com blog, you’re just out of luck).
@Michael, not Mark
heh, sorry about that. My brain’s mushy from all this html stuff. :p
Okay, I probably won’t mess with it then. I’m not proficient with html, but I’m learning as I go.
Thank you for your response and all the great info on your site!
Kim
@Kim - Any time! Thank you for reading and commenting!
I’m trying to get a video embedded, resized, and then aligned somehow so that I can have text wrapped around it. I’ve tried everything I know how to do and even some things that are way above my pay grade. I can’t even seem to find a plug-in that can help me with this.
Any help?
@Clark - In order to do those things, you will need to edit the html for the embed. That will let you change the size. You’ll need to wrap the embed code in a div tag and use css to float the div left or right so text can wrap around it.
Thanks. I was afraid that that was the case. I’m setting up a blog for my father to use professionally, and I’m afraid that he would find that too inconvenient to be worth it.
@Clark - If your father is on a PC I suggest you download and install for him Windows Live Writer and get the YouTube video plugin for it. Super easy. I use it myself even though I can write html as fluently as English.
This is a perfect solution for him, I’ve been searching for a WYSIWYG that he would be able to use so this is nailing 2 birds with one stone!
Thanks a lot!
@Clark - You’re welcome. The only thing WLW doesn’t do is help you deal with comments, but it IS great for writing posts.
Wow! That was so cool, thank you sooo much! I had messed around with adding video through that very same option in Wordpress, and went - what the heck? Could have done that by just adding a link.
I absolutely LOVE the customization from youtube - I had NO clue.
Now this is what I call one HELPFUL video - so quick and simple!
Can’t thank you enough for this little gem!
Thanks!
Michelle
@Michelle - You’re welcome. Glad you got a lot of value out of it.