How to Add a YouTube Feed to Your WordPress Site (6 Steps)

Do you want to showcase your YouTube videos on your website? 

Adding a YouTube feed to your website is a great way to share your engaging content and keep people on your site longer. It’s also an easy way to get more YouTube subscribers. For example, if you run a blog, your blog readers might not even know that you also have a YouTube channel. But by displaying a YouTube feed on your site, you can introduce your channel to more people.  

Embedding your YouTube videos on your site is better than uploading videos natively because you’ll avoid higher bandwidth costs. Besides, embedding YouTube videos makes your content easier to share and creates a better user experience overall.

With video content on your WordPress website, you’ll connect with your audience and boost engagement. 

So, let’s look at how you can embed your YouTube channel feed on your website. 

How to Add a YouTube Feed to Your Site (The Easy Way)

There are two ways to embed a YouTube Feed to your site. First, you have the easy method that we’ll lay out for you step-by-step first. And then there’s the manual way. 

Let’s start with the easy way. With the method we’re going to look at now, you’ll be able to get your entire YouTube channel embedded on your site in just a minute. 

Let’s go! 

1. Install Smash Balloon’s Feeds for YouTube Pro Plugin

For this tutorial, we’re going to use an awesomeWordPress plugin called Smash Balloon. It lets you embed content from all the major social media networks easily. 

To add a YouTube feed to your site, download and install Smash Balloon’s Feeds for YouTube. This pro plugin helps you showcase your YouTube channel, videos, and playlists on your site. 

Note: Smash Balloon also has a free version of the plugin, if you want to try it out. The free version has a ton of great features that will let you display your YouTube feed on your website. But the pro version comes with additional features like the option to display a YouTube gallery in a carousel slider, the ability to show YouTube live streaming videos, and more.

After installing the plugin, you need to activate it. If you’re not sure how to do that, here’s a neat tutorial on installing plugins on WordPress to help you out. 

You’ll also have to insert your license key to access all the neat features we’re going to use in this tutorial. 

Here’s how to do that. 

Go to Feeds for YouTube » License from the WordPress navigations menu. Enter your license key and click Activate License. You can find your license details under your account on the plugin’s website.

Now you’re ready to take the steps to add a feed on your site. 

2. Connect Your YouTube Account

Once your initial plugin setup is complete, the next step is to connect the plugin to your YouTube account.

Click on Feeds for YouTube in your WordPress dashboard. Under the Configure tab, click on the blue button that says Connect to YouTube to Create a Feed.  

Follow the prompts to connect your account. Easy right? 

Now, aside from connecting your YouTube account to Smash Balloon, we suggest that you add your YouTube API key too. Doing so will help reduce YouTube API requests and makes your feed load super fast. You’ll also be able to show live streaming videos on your site.

To add your API key, follow these easy steps to create and add an API Key.

3. Find Your YouTube Channel’s ID 

Since you’re going to embed your entire YouTube channel feed into your website, you’ll need your channel ID. You can find it in the URL when you go to your channel page on YouTube. 

The image below will show you where to find your channel ID in the URL. Copy the ID because you’re going to use it in the next step.  

4. Add the Channel ID to the Right Feed Type

Smash Balloon’s Feeds for YouTube has several options under the Feed Type setting. 

Select Channel under Feed Type. Paste your YouTube channel ID that you copied earlier here.

As you can see from the image below, you can also create other feed types following the steps we outlined here but with the appropriate IDs for different content types. 

Click the Save Changes button and you will have covered the basic steps needed to embed your channel on your website.

5. Customize Your YouTube Channel Feed

Now comes the part where you customize your YouTube feed to look more aligned with your website. You’ll find the Customize tab right next to Configure tab. Click on it to adjust different parameters like your feed’s height, width and background color. 

You can also choose different layouts for your feed. Scroll down to find the Layout Type option. 

Choose the uniform Grid to present all your videos the same way. The Gallery option lets you showcase one video in a large format with the rest as small thumbnails underneath. You can also go with a single-column List feed and a Carousel. 

You can also control the kind of information that’s displayed on your feed. Scroll further down to find the Info Display area. You can choose to keep or remove data like a Username, Date, Views, and other details. 

Do you want to show your channel’s description or how many subscribers you have? The Header section will allow you to manage this. 

Now that you’re done with customizing your YouTube channel’s feed, it’s time to embed it on your website.

6. Display Your YouTube Channel Feed 

For the final step, you can choose where you want to display your YouTube Channel feed. 

To display the YouTube feed on a page of your website, create a new page by going to the Pages » Add New option in your WordPress Dashboard. 

If you want to showcase your YouTube feed in a post, then create a post by choosing Posts » Add New. 

In both cases, embedding your YouTube feed is as easy as adding a new block. Click on the Plus (+) icon, type 'youtube' in the search box, and you’ll see the Feeds for YouTube block. Click on it to add it to your page or post content. 

You can see a preview of what your YouTube channel feed looks like before publishing. 

Here’s an example of a grid YouTube feed live on WordPress:

You can also embed your channel feed on your sidebar. It’s just like adding any other widget to your sidebar. 

Go to Appearance » Widgets on your WordPress Dashboard. Under Available Widgets, you’ll be able to click and add the YouTube Feed widget. 

Choose where you’d like to see the feed displayed i.e. the sidebar and click on Add Widget to save.

 Here’s what the feed looks like in the sidebar: 

You can also embed videos to your WordPress site without a plugin. But you should be aware that it’s inconvenient to do and it doesn’t come with customization options like you get with a YouTube feed plugin. 

How to Manually Embed Your YouTube Videos

There isn’t a way to embed your entire channel feed manually, but you can add each video to your WordPress site to populate a page or a post with your video content.

Today, WordPress has an auto-embed feature that automatically gets the embed code from YouTube when you copy and paste a video URL into the editor. Check out the GIF below to see how it works.

Note: Using this method means you’ll have to do this every time you upload a new video on YouTube. You also won’t be able to automatically share live videos to your feed or automatically get your website’s YouTube Feed populated with your uploads. 

Add Your YouTube Feed to Your WordPress Site Today

There you have it! Hopefully you’ve found this post on adding a YouTube feed to your WordPress site helpful. 

YouTube is the most popular video content platform there is and you can leverage it to engage your audience and grow your business. 

By adding YouTube channel feeds to your website, you’ll create a way to keep users on your site. Follow the steps outlined here and you’ll be on your way to making your website a one-stop location for all your content.