Do you want to integrate a YouTube feed into your WordPress website?
One of the best ways to increase engagement and traffic on your website is to include a YouTube feed. This can also help you get more YouTube views and subscribers. So it’s a win-win for both platforms.
In this tutorial, we will show you the best way to embed a YouTube feed on your WordPress site.
Why should I embed a YouTube feed in WordPress?
More than 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute. In addition, YouTube has become the second largest search engine after Google. This means that Google has one of the largest creator and user bases of all social media platforms.
To take advantage of this, many bloggers and businesses create both articles and videos on YouTube to expand their reach.
However, there is often a disconnect with this approach, as YouTube and website audiences are separate. Embedding YouTube on your site is a quick way to take advantage of both YouTube and website content at the same time.
If that’s not enough, here are some more reasons why you should consider adding a YouTube feed to your website:
- SEO Advantages: The amount of time someone stays on your site and the variety of content you have on it play a big role in SEO. A YouTube feed ensures that your readers stay longer on your site, watching videos while having different types of content to check out.
- User Experience: Giving users content options and the ability to decide what type of media they want to consume often translates into satisfied visitors.
- Visual content: Offering visual content makes a site look modern and practical. Sites with little visual content can look spammy. Images are all well and good, but videos take your site to the next level.
- Easy communication channel: Video content is a great way to deliver personalized content quickly and easily. Video tutorials, for example, offer a visual step-by-step process, making them a more practical solution than written content.
You can now manually add each YouTube video to your site. This can be time-consuming. You’ll also need to have basic coding experience. If you’re not able to customize the look and feel of your videos with code, your site could look unprofessional.
There is an easier way and that is to use a WordPress plugin. We recommend using Smash Balloon and we will tell you why.
Why use Smash Balloon to create a YouTube feed
Smash Balloon is the best WordPress social media plugin. It allows you to embed popular social media feeds into your WordPress site in a matter of minutes.
It has a dedicated plugin for YouTube called Smash Balloon YouTube Feed .
This plugin is very easy to set up and use, and it automates the entire video embedding process.
You don’t need any coding experience or knowledge of how to place different elements on your page. There are pre-made layouts and styles that you can apply to your feed.
You can also customize the color, size, location, properties, and position of the feed to fit your site’s design. There’s also a live preview to see how your YouTube feed will look.
The best part is that Smash Balloon only needs one setup. Once you’ve configured the settings and filters, the plugin will work on its own. It will automatically check for new videos on your YouTube channel and display them in your website feed. This will save you a lot of time and effort when it comes to manually embedding each new video you publish.
Aside from that, here’s where Smash Balloon shines:
- Easy-to-use dashboard
- Fully mobile-responsive fonts
- Filter by channel, playlist and more
- Compatible with all popular WordPress themes
- Supports live broadcasts
- Custom Video End Actions
- Optimized speed and performance
Now that you can see why we chose Smash Balloon,china phone number library let’s jump straight into the step-by-step tutorial on how to set up Smash Balloon and how to embed the YouTube feed on your WordPress website.
Step 1: Install and configure YouTube Feed Pro
To get started, you’ll need to sign up for Smash Balloon’s YouTube Feed Pro plugin .
If you want to try out the free version first, how to create a wordpress staging site (beginner’s guide) head to your WordPress dashboard. Go to the Plugins » Add New page and search for Feeds for YouTube. Then install and activate it on your site.
For this tutorial, however, we are going to use the pro version so that we can showcase all the cool features of this plugin.
To get the pro plugin, visit Smash Balloon’s YouTube Feed Pro website . Here you can choose a plan and sign up for an account.
Once this is done, you can log in to your account and you will see a Downloads tab . Here you can download the plugin file to your computer and copy the license key.
Now, go to Plugins » Add New in your WordPress dashboard. You will see an Upload Plugin button where you can select the plugin file from your computer and upload it.
Once installed successfully, you will see “YouTube Feed” appear in the left menu of WordPress.
You should be presented with an option to add your license key immediately. You can also access it on the YouTube Feed » Settings page . Simply paste the key you copied earlier virgin islands send and activate the license.
Step 2: Connect to your YouTube account
To embed the YouTube feed, the first thing you will need to do is connect to a YouTube account. To do this, go to All sources » Add new .
The plugin will ask you to select the feed type on the next page. On this page, you can choose to display;
- An entire YouTube channel
- A YouTube playlist
- Favorite videos of any user
- Search result
- Live broadcasts
- A list of individual videos chosen by you
Once you select the type of feed you want, a pop-up window will appear asking you to connect your YouTube account in one of two ways.
You can Add an API Key , which will give you more customization options, or Connect a YouTube account instead.
Both options follow a really simple process that doesn’t require any coding.
Connect with an API key
If you don’t have an API key yet, you’ll need a Google Cloud Console account. This will allow you to create a Google API key for your YouTube feed. Smash Balloon has a simple step-by-step tutorial you can follow here: How to set up and use a YouTube API key.
Once you have set up your Google API, go to Credentials and copy the API key.
Then, back on the Smash Balloon page, you can click on the Add API Key button and you will see a pop-up window appear. Here, you can paste the key you just created.
Connect a YouTube account
When you select the second option “Connect with a YouTube account instead”, you will be redirected to a new page where you can access your Google account connected to YouTube.
You will then see a pop-up asking you to grant access permission to Smash Balloon.
Select the Continue button and you will now have connected your Google account to Smash Balloon.
You can now create and customize your YouTube feed.