How to add Featured Videos to WordPress?

A featured video is similar to a featured image. A featured video is a prominent video that visually represents the content of a post or page. It provides visitors with a quick, appealing preview and is especially useful for websites that rely on multimedia to tell a story, showcase products, or share tutorials. In short you can say in place of featured image you can have a video. In this guide, I’ll show you how to add a featured video to your WordPress site using a plugin. So, Let’s Begin! 🚀

Adding a Featured Video in Block Based Themes

For a dynamic approach, we are going to use the Really Simple Featured Video plugin to add a featured video as it’s super easy to use and is very convenient. Using this plugin, the featured video can be displayed in various ways and will not require any code.

You can choose to add a featured image without a plugin but the videos won’t display as an actual “featured” video thumbnail on the pages. So it’s better to go for a plugin in this case!

Step 1: Install and Configure Plugin Settings

• From your WordPress Dashboard navigate to Plugins > Add New Plugin and search for ‘Really Simple Featured Video‘ Plugin.

• Click Install Now and then Activate the plugin.

• After activation, it will redirect you to the Settings page of Really Simple Featured Video Plugin. By default it will be enabled for Posts, you can choose to enable featured video for pages, floating elements etc and click on > Save Changes.

Step 2: Add a Featured Video to Your Post

• Here’s a Blog having a featured image, I will replace this image with a featured video. You can also add a featured video even if the featured image isn’t t there.

• From your dashboard go to Posts > All Posts and select the Post you want to edit.

• In the Edit Mode, you’ll now see a Featured Video box at the bottom section. You can choose to Upload a Self Hosted Video or an embedded video from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion etc. For embedded videos you just have to paste the video’s URL. Let’s see how it works for Self Hosted Videos. Click on > Upload Video.

• Select the video you want to Upload.

• You can now see the uploaded video in the Featured video section. Click on Save in the editor and refresh your Website to preview the changes.

• As you can see here, the featured video has now replaced the featured image.

Step 3: Additional Featured Video Customisation

• For Adding extra functionality to your featured video like Autoplay, Loop and Picture-in-Picture etc you have to go to > Settings > Really Simple Featured Video > Controls. Enable the features according to your preference that you wish to add. And click on > Save Changes.

• Once you refresh your site you will be able to see changes. 🌟

Adding a Featured Video in Classic Themes

The Really Simple Featured Video plugin makes it very easy to replace the featured image with a video in classic themes as well. The plugin installation, activation and configuring the settings remains the same. You just have to do a few things differently.

• In classic themes, the Featured video will not show up until you add or upload a featured image because in Classic themes, the Really Simple Featured Video takes over the place of featured video thumbnail.

• For example, here we don’t have a featured image or video added to this post.

• Click on Featured Video box at the bottom section. You can choose to Upload a Self Hosted Video or an embedded video. Let’s see how it works for Self Hosted Videos. Click on > Upload Video. Once you upload the video it will show up.

• Here you can see even after uploading the video, the featured video does not show up. For the video to show up we need to add a feaured image.

• Click on ‘set featured image‘ and and upload any image.

• Once you upload the image, click on ‘Set Featured Image‘ button below.

• After uploading, the featured image will show up in the edit mode. Click on > Save and preview your blog.

• You will now be able to see the Featured video in your website.

Best Practices for Adding a Featured Video

• To make the most of your featured videos, make sure to add relevant videos. Ensure the video directly relates to the content of your post.
• Also, it’s better to embed videos from platforms like YouTube and Vimeo for quick loading and saving your own server bandwidth.
• Ensure that the featured video is displayed as expected before publishing.
• Use analytics tools to track engagement with your featured videos. This will help you understand what type of content resonates most with your audience.

Conclusion

Adding a featured video using the Really Simple Featured Video plugin is an easy way to make your WordPress site more engaging. By following best practices, you can ensure that your videos enhance user experience without slowing down your site. Whether you’re displaying storytelling ,or creating a tutorial, featured videos are an effective tool for captivating your audience right from the start.

To know how to add featured video to WooCommerce Products checkout 👉 our blog.

If you have any questions on how to add a featured video or how the Really Simple featured Video plugin works, feel free to share them in the comments section.

Also, Explore our JetixWP blog for more awesome and insightful articles like this one! 🌟