How to Embed And Customize Youtube Videos

In this video we'll talk about how and why to embed YouTube video on your website, and share some cool embedding tricks you might not know about. The embed feature on YouTube lets you take videos from Youtube and display them on your website. This helps the video reach new viewers, it can increase the time spent on your website, and it increases the ranking potential of the embedded video. Here are the basics. On a video's watch page, simply click the share tab, and then click the embed tab. This will pull up the embed code that you can copy and paste onto your website. You can change the video player size using the provided drop-down. By default, the embedded video will show related videos at the end of yours, but you can uncheck that option here. Pretty basic, but there are a bakers dozen of different tweaks you can make to the embed code if you want to get a little more advanced. Looking at the embed code, you'll see a YouTube URL in quotes. You can add additional parameters to that URL to change the look and feel of the embedded player. When adding parameters the first one must begin with a question mark, don't ask me why that's just how it is. From there each additional parameter you add must begin with an ampersand. Don't be thrown off by the word "parameter" it's a lot easier than it sounds. Let's take a look at the standard embed code with just the plain video URL. You have some video info up here on the top, the player controls that stay visible, and when you reach the end of the video YouTube serves up some related videos. I don't want that, I want people to stay on my website and honestly? Forget that other websites even exist. So the first parameter I add to the end of the video URL is the "REL=0" parameter, starting with a question mark since it's the first parameter. Now when my video finishes, no related videos are shown and my viewers stay on my website for the rest of their lives. The next parameter I like to add is the showinfo parameter equal to zero. That removes the title bar from the top of the video because I just don't like it. Next I'll add the autohide parameter and set to to 1. That hides the player controls until you mouse over the video and leaves you with the absolute basics before you view: the video thumbnail, and a play button. I think it looks really sharp. Here's what my embed code looks like now with those three parameters added. There are no spaces in the URL and it still sits comfortably inside quotation marks. I just started my first parameter with a question mark and each additional one with ampersands. Congrats, you're now a YouTube embedding professional. You can head on over to my website for a full list of embed code parameters we didn't cover and if you're not a vidiSEO subscriber, you can become one with one click on this giant subscribe button, or jump right in to another tip by clicking the "next tip" button. Speaking of buttons, I've got more. Dive into any of my YouTube tip playlists by clicking a playlist Icon in the lower right. Or drop me a line in the comments section. I will read them, like them, respond to them, and cherish them. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next tip you click!