Embedding a YouTube Video on Your Blog

Embedding YouTube Videos

When you are maintaining a blog, you know that 'a picture tells more than a thousand words'. Using pictures adds readability to your blog. It makes the whole reading experience better for your visitors. A video adds even more to the fun, provided it adds value to your posts subject.

YouTube is the number one video provider and there's a video available for just about any subject. Just add a link using a wizard (add media / video) on your favorite blogging platform and you are done. Easy as that!

YouTube for the Masses

There are a few things you have to consider when you use a YouTube video linking in to your site.

● You have no control over the video once you linked it. The owner can do as he or she pleases and remove the video without notice.

● YouTube can remove any video without any notice.

● Copyright issues. Especially when you are using links to music videos on your blog, YouTube videos may not be licensed to run in the country where you are located, or your readers are located. Bummer. They will end up staring at nothing...

Video sharing has become one of the fastest growing activities on the Internet. All major Social Network Platforms, like Twitter, Google+, FaceBook, MySpace (especially the new version) will depend on sharing the video goodies.

Embedding a Video from YouTube

Embedding a video is usually done using the <iframe> tag in the HTML version of your blog post. Sounds complicated – maybe, but it's not. Really. There's 'all you ever wanted to know about iframe's and you were afraid to ask' at the W3 Schools site. Iframes are said to become obsolete in a few years, but I think they are still safe to use, because a gazzilion sites all over the Internet depend on iframes.

In it's simplest form using an iframe in your HTML page coding looks as follows:

<iframe src="http://<LinkToThatAwesomeVideo>"></iframe>.

See? Not to hard to do really. But as always the YouTube people do the harder work for us, because they want us to share the videos. Let's take a deeper look in the embedding options YouTube has to offer.

The most common options on this screen are pretty straightforward. In order to get the right code for embedding a video click 'Share' followed by 'Embed' and the basic embedding code is generated for you. From there it's just copy and paste and you're done.

The main options are:

● Show suggested videos when the video finishes -  Uncheck that option if you want your readers to stay focused on your content.

● Use HTTPS - Use this option if you want the video to be shared using an encrypted connection. This is typically used to provide enhanced privacy and security for services like web browsing, e-mail and instant messaging.

● Play in HD - Play in high definition. Bear in mind, that some of your readers are on slower internet connections and may not be able to watch video's in High Definition.

● Enable privacy-enhanced mode - Unchecking this option will allow YouTube to use cookies on the visitors computer.

● Use old embed code - Checking this option will generate 'old style' embedding code using the <object> tag instead of the <iframe> tag.

● You can also set the dimensions of the playback frame. In this case we picked 560 x 315 pixels. You can choose your own dimensions. For instance 640 x 360.

Here is the code we are going to use for this demo. Why this video? Because I like it. That's why. Here is the code:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/LuDN2bCIyus" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

As you can see, there are more options available, and here is the result when this code is embedded in the HTML code of your post:

Or smaller, let's say 280 x 157

Now you can even embed a video in your sidebar. Just add a text/html widget to your sidebar and copy and paste the embed code in it. Presto. Just keep in mind to keep the ratio of the dimensions as close as possible to the original.

I recommend you use W3 Schools Tryit Editor to get the hang of things, before you decide to use it on your site. Now git and start embedding vids!

About Guest Author

Jan Bierens from JanBierens.com is a Blogger since May 2011. Working in the ICT business since December 1997. Curious. Google and Social Media Adept. Owner, Editor, Janitor, Pizzaman and Author of The JanBierens dot Com. Doing my thing to the max in the Blogosphere, trying to entertain, question, baffle people. *This* is your daily dose of cereal with nuts! "In Heaven all interesting people are missing".

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