How to Add a YouTube Video to Your Blog

If a picture can tell a thousand words, then a video can be even more effective on your blog or website. You can add your favorite YouTube video to your blog by following these easy steps.

If a picture can tell a thousand words, then a video can be even more effective on your blog or website. You can add your favorite YouTube video to your blog by following a few easy steps:

1. Find or Upload the YouTube video There are thousands of videos on YouTube that you can show in your blog. You can also upload your own video by creating a free YouTube account and using their simple upload form. They’ll even convert your video into the right format for you, and will give you the HTML you need in order to view your video from your blog. One of my favorite YouTube videos shows a few guys who built a radio-controlled, jet-powered F14 model plane. They show the whole take off, some Top Gun flying stunts, and a near perfect landing. You can also convert snippets of your favorite DVD movies into YouTube videos using a program like Aimersoft DVD Ripper (free download). The converted file will have a .flv file extension and you’ll be able to upload it directly to YouTube using the link above.
2. Get the HTML for displaying the video Once you find the YouTube video you want (or once you’ve uploaded your own video), you’ll need to copy a set of HTML tags and embed them in your blog or website page. These HTML tags will tell your web browser where to find the video, and how to display it on your site. Don’t worry if you don’t know HTML. YouTube builds the HTML tags for you. All you have to do is copy the tags to your clipboard, and you’ll be ready for the next step (pasting them into your blog post or web page). Look to the right of the video on YouTube, and you’ll notice a text field labeled “Embed”. The text field contains the HTML tags, starting with an <object width=”425″ height=”350″> tag. When you click anywhere in this text field, it will automatically highlight all of the tags. Just press Ctrl+C to copy the tags to your clipboard, or select the Edit — Copy menu from your browser. Here’s what the HTML tags look like for a YouTube video:
   

   <object width=”425″ height=”350″> <param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rSRHNLxSzIA&rel=1″></param> <embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rSRHNLxSzIA&rel=1″
   type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425″ height=”350″></embed>
   </object>

3. Paste the YouTube HTML tags into your blog post The final step is to paste the YouTube video’s HTML tags into your blog post or web page, and publish it to your site. If you’re using WordPress, BlogSpot, or Drupal for your blog post, then publishing your video involves pasting the HTML tags directly into your post and submitting it. If you’re using a web page directly, then you’ll need to upload the web page to your website using FTP.

Be sure to test your work by viewing your newly submitted blog post or web page, and verifying that you can see your video. If your video doesn’t show up, then you may need to go back and use the plain text view of your blog post to make sure the HTML tags are the same as the original tags. Some rich text editors add characters to the tags when you submit them, which ruins them as far as YouTube is concerned.