How to Add YouTube Videos to Your Website: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Video adds value to your website, and the right videos can help drive increased traffic and conversion. As noted by Forbes, users retain 95% of the message when they watch videos compared to just 10 percent by text, making video a great starting point to streamline connection with prospective customers.

Your best bet for videos? YouTube. With more than two billion logged-in monthly users, YouTube videos now reach 74% of adults in the United States — so it’s no surprise that the platform is used by almost 90 percent of marketers to drive user interest. Ready to leverage video on your site and capture the growing YouTube marketplace? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

The Benefits of Adding Video to Your Website

Video rules the digital media marketplace, but popularity alone isn’t enough to drive widespread adoption. In practice, YouTube videos come with key benefits for your site, including:

Improved User Engagement

As noted above, visitors to your site retain more information when viewing videos than reading text. This makes it possible to drive improved user engagement by creating compelling content they’ll remember long after they leave your site — and will hopefully bring them back again. YouTube also incorporates features to increase engagement, like sharing options and playlists.

Reduced User Frustration

If users have to scroll through walls of text just to find the basics of your brand or understand your value proposition, chances are they won’t stay long. An embedded YouTube video provides a quick rundown of your site as soon as users arrive.

Simplified Storytelling

What’s your story? What sets you apart from the competition? This is what prospective customers want to know. While well-written text blurbs can give a general idea of what you’re about, they don’t have the same impact as video-driven stories that showcase your purpose and passion.

Increased Brand Connection

Organic marketing is now a critical part of business success. Buyers want to purchase products from brands and people they trust. Videos offer a way to connect with visitors face-to-face and help personalize and humanize your brand from the first moment visitors arrive.

Best Practices for Adding Videos to Your Website

While videos offer advantages in capturing and maintaining user interest, there are several best practices to keep in mind to ensure your videos deliver maximum impact.

Watch your file size.

When it comes to YouTube video viewing on your website, you’ve got two choices: link or embed. Linking to videos means that users must leave your page to view the content, while embedding allows users to watch the video on your site.

Although embedding is better for engagement, it’s worth considering your video’s file size — the larger your video file is, the more bandwidth it requires to display on user devices, which in turn can potentially slow down the user experience. Wherever possible, smaller and shorter is better.