Tag Archives: api

15 Questions About the New Gator Website Builder

Posted on February 19, 2019 by Hosting

The post 15 Questions About the New Gator Website Builder appeared first on HostGator Blog . Gator Website Builder is a drag-and-drop website builder created by HostGator. Gator was created for anyone who has an idea for a website and wants a frustration-free solution to get a website online with ease. It even has eCommerce functionality! The HostGator team hosted a webinar announcing the Gator Website Builder, complete with a live demo. If you missed the webinar, watch the replay here . Attendees had quite a few great questions about how to use Gator for their needs. Here are the top 15 questions we received about Gator Website Builder during the webinar. 1. Will the Gator Website Builder be available for reseller accounts? A reseller account allows individuals to run their own hosting business and sell hosting accounts to their web design clients. At this time, Gator Website Builder is not available to resellers since Gator does involve a different billing system and platform. 2. I tried working with WordPress and it’s pretty difficult. Can I transfer my WordPress site into Gator? There are certainly many pros and cons to weigh when considering if you should choose between WordPress or a website builder . WordPress is popular and very robust, but does require some configuration involved when you are first setting up your website. We created Gator Website Builder to be a robust tool to create your website with minimal configuration from the beginning. If you want a frustration-free solution to get a website up with ease, Gator Website Builder could be exactly what you need! Watch the webinar to see a live demo or read this article for 10 reasons we think you’ll love Gator . Currently, we don’t have an import or migration capability that allows us to automatically migrate your content from WordPress or other website builders. However, you could manually move your content to Gator Website Builder by copying and pasting your text into the Gator editor. 3. I already have a HostGator account. Do I have access to the Gator Website Builder? If you already have a HostGator website, there is a drag-and-drop editor available in the customer portal. However, in order to access all of the features of the Gator Website Builder, such as the Gator control panel, professionally-designed templates, and the eCommerce functionality, you will need to create an account with Gator Website Builder. 4. What types of design templates come with Gator Website Builder? Gator Website Builder comes with more than 200 professionally-designed themes at no additional cost. The themes are even sorted by category so you can easily find a design that fits your website or business. We had questions about what types of designs are available. Here’s the full list of design categories. This is the full list of design categories available in the Gator: architecture & real estate beauty & fashion blog business & consultant computers & technology construction & trade design & creative hotels & travel lifestyle music & entertainment night life one pagers online store pets & animals photography portfolio professional services restaurants & eateries sport & leisure wedding 5. Can you add SEO elements such as meta tags and alt tags? Yes, Gator Website Builder comes with the ability to change SEO elements without needing an additional plugin! You can change the page title and metadescriptions for each page in the settings tab of each page. To add alt tags to an image, simply click on the image when you upload it, and change the SEO characteristics under the settings section. 6. What packages and features do you recommend for a nonprofit? If you are running a nonprofit website and want to be able to accept donations online, we have a “PayPal donate” element that can be added to the website. The PayPal donate element can be added to any of the Gator plans – even the starter plan – to accept donations. You only need an eCommerce plan if you want to sell physical or digital goods on your website. While there isn’t a specific category for nonprofit websites, all of the themes can be customized with your own photos so any design could easily be appropriate for your nonprofit website. There’s even a category called “one pagers” for websites that don’t need a lot of pages. Need to feature events? Calendar functionality is on our roadmap for future features. In the meantime, you could add HTML to embed Google calendar or something similar. 7. Can I import products into the eCommerce plan instead of entering them manually? The eCommerce store has a product import feature that accepts excel, google sheets, or CSV format. We also have a handy .xls template you can download! 8. Can specific HTML coding be added easily? Yes! Gator Website Builder has an element that allows you to add a block of HTML code anywhere you want on a page. 9. Can you add Venmo as a payment option? Currently, Gator Website Builder integrates with paypal, stripe, and cash on delivery is also an option for local businesses. Venmo is a great idea! We will add this to our roadmap for future development. 10. How many eCommerce sites can I have with the eCommerce package? You can create multiple websites under one account in Gator. Each websites counts as a subscription, and you would be charged for each website. 11. If I start a blog, can I upgrade to eCommerce later? Absolutely! You do need an eCommerce plan to start an online store, but you don’t have to do that right away. Within the dashboard, there is a ‘store’ button. Click this button and you’ll see the option to upgrade to an eCommerce plan and create your store. 12. Can I use my own domain name? Can I have more than one domain name redirect to the site? Yes! If you sign up for one year or more, you will receive a free domain for the first year. If you already have your own domain, you can easily connect it to your Gator website. You can transfer your domain to HostGator with a few steps. Or you can link an existing domain to your Gator account if you would rather keep your domain with your current host. If you would like to link more than one domain to your site, you can do that too! DNS changes would need to be made if the site is registered outside of Gator. Within Gator, you can simply point the domain to the your site in the control panel. 13. Can I edit from my mobile? Unfortunately, at this time, you can only edit your Gator website from a desktop. To fully utilize the functionality of the drag-and-drop editor, it’s really best on a desktop experience. 14. Can I add product categories in the eCommerce store? Yes, the Gator eCommerce store has product category functionality already built in. You can manually create category pages in the main editor and add more categories in the store app.   To add relevant subcategories that will show up in the dropdown for your main menu pages, add a new page for each subcategory and drag it underneath the page you’ve added to the main menu. You can use this page to highlight all the relevant products that fall into the category, and to optimize your site for the relevant SEO keyword. Click to read more about how to create your eCommerce store with a website builder. 15. When I enter products for the store, can I add weight and package size to calculate shipping rates? Your Gator store comes with integrated shipping options thanks to our partnership with Shippo! Shippo is an integrated software company incorporates shipping with multiple carriers through an API and web application. You can use weight-based shipping with priorities like, “Next Day, 2 Day, or Standard Shipping.” You can create your Shippo account from your Gator dashboard and create all the necessary details about your shipments. So what about you? Do you have any questions about the Gator Website Builder that we didn’t cover? Comment with your question below! Gator Website Builder is an affordable option for how to get your website online with ease. Check it out today! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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VPS Reseller Program with WHMCS Module – Fully Automated – SolusVM – 10% Discount – Join -Dewlance®

Posted on January 26, 2019 by Hosting

Hello, We recently released our API with WHMCS module, Now you can resell our VPS products from your WHMCS without need of manual work … | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1749959&goto=newpost Continue reading →

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8 Best Apps to Process Credit Cards on Your Website

Posted on January 23, 2019 by Hosting

The post 8 Best Apps to Process Credit Cards on Your Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . The internet makes it easier than ever to start a business or reach a larger clientele for the business you already have. But one of the most basic things you need in order to make money online is a way to accept payments on your website. In this article we review the top apps for processing credit card payments on your website, and walk you through how to choose the right app for your site. What You Need in a Payment Processing App No matter what type of business you’re in—or even if you’re just a blogger ready to accept donations— to accept payments through your website, you need to make sure of two things:   1. It’s secure. If people are going to give you their sensitive financial information, it’s your responsibility to make sure that doing so doesn’t put them at risk. You have to take the proper precautions to make sure you can accept payments securely. That means investing in basic security measures like an SSL certificate and security software , and using a reliable program for processing payments. Some hosting providers offer security packages that cover most of your bases, and picking the right credit card processing app will cover the rest.   2. It’s easy. Convenience is key when selling online. People aren’t going to take the time to write a check and put it in the mail or provide their bank account information for a transfer. In short, you have to accept credit cards. All of the best online payment processing apps make this possible and keep it convenient for your customers.   8 Top Credit Card Processing Apps for Websites Luckily, there’s a whole industry of products designed specifically to enable websites to safely and easily accept online payments. Here are eight of your top choices.   1. Flint Flint was specifically developed with small businesses in mind, so it’s easy to use and affordable. They promise security measures that are in compliance with PCI standards. And you can easily get it setup on your website within minutes, without having to use any coding. Their Pro plan costs $99.99 a year and allows for unlimited online sales.   2. Flagship Merchant Services Flagship ’s online payment product enables processing f or all major credit cards, as well as bank transfers. As with other payment processing apps, they offer a secure and convenient transaction process. They also have features to make recurring billing easier for repeat and subscription customers, and can be set up to sync with Quickbooks to easily import your sales details into the accounting software. They offer a number of pricing models that businesses can choose based on what works best for the way you do business.     3. Stripe S tripe ’s payment processing app allows you to accept both credit cards and wallets (like Google Pay and Apple Pay). They have a UI toolkit that lets you build your own checkout form. And they use an encryption process for security that’s in compliance with all the highest industry standards. They price per credit card transaction, with each sale costing 30 cents, plus 2.9% of the total charge.     4. Braintree Braintree  allows you to accept payments via credit cards, PayPal, Venmo and wallets.  They offer both a drop-in UI you can use to easily set up your checkout process, or a custom UI that allows you to tailor the details. They offer Level 1 PCI compliance for security, as well as additional features you can use for fraud protection. And they have features that make it easy to save billing info for repeat customers to make check out easier. They charge a per transaction fee of 30 cents, plus 2.9% of the total purchase.   5. 2Checkout 2Checkout ’s shopping cart product is easy to get set up and provides both an inline cart you can use that’s designed to be intuitive, and a gallery of different templates you can work from if you want a different cart design. All of their cart options are responsive, so you can count on them to work seamlessly on mobile as well as desktop. They accept payments from all the major credit cards, Paypal, Apple Pay, and bank transfers, and can process payments from all over the world. Their fees start at 3.5%, plus 35 cents for each sale.     6. PayPal Payments Pro The familiar brand for all types of online payments and money transfers also provides a product for accepting eCommerce payments through a website.  PayPal Payments Pro allows you to accept payments using credit cards or PayPal accounts. They offer a customizable API, if you want to create a particular checkout experience, and provide the option of financing, which can be useful for businesses selling big ticket items. They charge $30 per month, plus 30 cents and 2.9% for each transaction.   7. Authorize Authorize promises advanced fraud protection using a number of filters (velocity, IP, shipping, and transaction) to help you avoid scammers. They process all major credit cards, Apple Pay, PayPal, and Visa checkout. And they make recurring and repeat payments easier for customers. Getting set up is as simple as copying and pasting some html code into your site. The app costs $25 monthly, as well as 2.9% and 30 cents per charge.   8. Payline Payline promises PCI compliance for data security, as well as fraud protection features. They allow you to accept all major credit card options, as well as ACH transfers. They also offer free subscription billing features and integration with over 175 online shopping cart products. They charge a $10 monthly fee, as well as a 20 cent per transaction fee, and 2.3% for all credit card charges.   Get Paid Quickly and Easily The last thing you want is to make your customers feel like they’re jumping through hoops to give you their money. These payment processing apps make the purchasing process on your website quick and painless, so you get a higher conversion rate and more profits. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Top 10 Online Payment Methods for eCommerce Sites

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Hosting

The post Top 10 Online Payment Methods for eCommerce Sites appeared first on HostGator Blog . There are a few main features that every eCommerce website must have to do business. Perhaps the most essential of them all is a way to get paid. If you can’t take online payments, then the main goal of your business—making money—is impossible. In the competitive online marketplace, having one way to accept payments is required, but having multiple could put you at an advantage. eCommerce businesses have a number online payment methods to consider, each promising to provide an intuitive and secure checkout experience. To make sure you’re providing the best payment methods to your visitors (and capturing as many sales as possible), here’s the main information you need to know about online payment methods and the top options available. What are Online Payment Gateways? Online payment gateways are the eCommerce services that process payment information for websites. Online payment gateways offer two main benefits to eCommerce businesses:   1.They make the checkout process fast and easy. Have you ever started to make a purchase only to realize that the process of buying the item took too long and required more work than you were willing to do? The average rate of shopping cart abandonment —people who expressed a clear intent to buy and then didn’t—is around 70%. If your checkout process puts barriers in the way of making a purchase, the likelihood that you’ll lose sales because of it is high. A good online payment gateway makes the process simple and intuitive so you capture most of those sales rather than losing them.   2. They provide encryption to keep your customer’s information secure. The threat of identity theft means that every online transaction a customer makes requires trust. You have to make sure that the sensitive information they provide you is protected from hackers around the web that seek to steal credit card information from vulnerable sites. Since online payment gateways specialize in processing financial information, they have the proper encryption and safety features to keep your customers’ information safe.   Why Offer Multiple Online Payment Methods? While it’s possible to get by with one safe and easy online payment method, many customers are starting to have the expectation of using their favorite payment methods on sites across the web. With the growing popularity of services like PayPal, Square, and Apple Pay, customers are increasingly able to checkout on a variety of websites without having to spend time adding all their payment and address information for each purchase. Instead they only have to log into an account they use regularly, and in many cases may not even have to do that if their device remembers it. That creates a more seamless and convenient experience for them— especially on mobile, where a growing number of online purchases are taking place. The more your visitors come to expect this kind of convenience, the less likely they are to bother with a website that makes them do more work.   Is It Really Worth the Time and Effort to Add New Payment Options? Bayard found that 19% of shoppers who have abandoned a cart said  they didn’t trust the site with their card information. And another 8% directly said there weren’t enough payment options. So, let’s do some quick math: for the average eCommerce store, 70 out of every 100 shoppers who add an item to their cart will bail. And anywhere from 8-19% of those will do so because they’re not satisfied with the current online payment methods you offer. By adding additional online payment options, you could convert up to 13 (that’s 19%) of those 70 shoppers. And if you add the payment methods your target audience prefers, you could convert another 5 or so (the 8% who want other options). Earning up to 18 more conversions per 100 potential shoppers seems like a worthwhile use of your time. Let’s look at some methods to consider.   10 Online Payment Methods to Consider The online payment services on the market all aim to offer easy and secure ways to pay. Each has different reasons to consider using them.   1. Paypal Paypal is one of the biggest and most familiar of all the online payment options. The site has over 254 million users . That’s a lot of people who would have an easier time making a purchase on your website if you let them check out with Paypal. The service boasts that it’s currently used by over 17 million businesses and that customers who use PayPal to check out convert at 82% higher rates than with other payment options. That’s a pretty compelling reason to use PayPal. Luckily, adding a PayPal button to your checkout process is pretty simple (although you may need to work with a developer if you don’t use an eCommerce solution). Expect to pay 30 cents plus 2.9% for each purchase processed through PayPal.   2. Amazon Pay Paypal may be popular, but Amazon is undisputedly one of the most popular sites across the whole web, and one that almost all your customers will have accounts with already.  Adding  Amazon Pay to your store can make it easier for Amazon customers to shop with you without having to key in their payment data in your checkout. You’ll reduce barriers to purchase for hundreds of millions of customers, while also offering a payment option that the company promises has proven fraud protection. Amazon’s payment method works well on mobile devices, offering a seamless experience where it matters most. Setting up an Amazon Pay button your website with their Express Integration option can take a matter of minutes. Or you can use their API, which takes a little longer, but allows you to customize the experience to better fit in with your website. As with PayPal, the cost of using Amazon Pay is 30 cents plus 2.9% for each purchase.   3. Google Pay If anyone can compete with PayPal and Amazon for market share, it’s Google. The company now offers their own online payment method,  Google Pay . Google says hundreds of millions their users already have  card information saved to their Google accounts, which means providing a Google Pay option offers added convenience for a significant number of people. As with the other options, they promise an intuitive process—on desktop and mobile—and top-notch security through encryption. Google Pay also lets retailers set up loyalty programs, digital gift cards, and deals for customers so everyone can skip the paper and plastic cards. And Google Pay works with PayPal and Visa Checkout for added reach. Notably, they don’t charge you anything for using the service. It’s free for both you and your customers.   4. A meric an Express American Express might not have the market share that our first three online payment gateways do, but it has something just as valuable: consumer trust. While American Express is not as ubiquitous as some its credit card competitors, it has one of the highest satisfaction rates in the industry and tends to target a higher-income consumer than other credit card companies. As such, the people who would find an American Express checkout option attractive are likely to be some of the top visitors you’d want to attract. They promise fraud protection, 24/7 customer support, and the flexibility to work with a number of payment processors and consider different add-on features. And they can accept over 120 currencies, so if you’re interested in attracting international customers, that’s a big benefit. The catch, as you might expect, is that the option costs more than most of your other choices. Prices for American Express’s gateway start at $20 a month for up to 100 transactions, but go up for additional transactions. And they have a setup fee on top of that number which starts at $99. If you think you’ll have enough high-value customers likely to see a benefit in using the AmEx gateway to check out, the cost may be worth it though.     5. Apple Pay For people who use Apple devices—and that’s more than 64% of people in the U.S. — Apple Pay works as a mobile wallet when they’re out and about, and a one-click payment option on websites that accept it. For mobile users, customers can even check out with Apple Pay by using their touch identification—it doesn’t get much easier than that. Apple Pay uses tokenization to keep credit card information secure, meaning that once a user provides their credit card information to the service, the device communicates with the issuing bank to create a randomly generated number (or token) to represent that card. That obscures the information from hackers, keeping consumers’ financial data safe while working quickly. You can set your website up to accept Apple Pay by using their API, as long as you already use one of the compatible platforms or payment providers . Like Google, Apple’s payment gateway is completely free for both merchants and customers.   6. Stripe Stripe provides an feature-rich payment processing platform that makes it easy to accept payments from a range of sources (credit cards, digital wallets, ACH transfers, and different currencies). They also provide a number of options for the checkout process. If you have limited coding skills, you can add their embedded checkout to your site with one simple line of Javascript, or you can create a more unique payment form with their custom UI toolkit. Where some of the options we’ve looked at so far are primarily useful as an add-on checkout option, Stripe provides a good basis for other online payment methods to be added onto. As with some of the other options, Stripe costs 30 cents plus 2.9% for domestic credit card processing, and .8% for ACH payments.   7. Square While  Square is mostly associated with in-person point-of-sale (POS) payment processing, the company also offers eCommerce options. They have an online payment API that accepts many of the payment methods we’ve included here (Google Pay, Apple Pay, Masterclass), as well as credit card payments. In addition to payment processing, they offer an easy checkout solution that allows customers to set up profiles at the same time that they provide their payment information. Like many of the other solutions, Square charges 2.9% plus $.30 per payment.     8. Visa Checkout Like the payment gateway from American Express,   Visa Checkout  makes it extra easy for all Visa cardholders to check out on your website without having to fill in all their payment information. There are over 2 million people enrolled in Visa Checkout, so you’d be making the checkout process easier for a significant portion of your audience.   That convenience clearly makes a difference, since Visa’s data shows that offering Visa Checkout can increase conversions by 42%. The payment option includes advanced security features and easy setup options.   9. Masterpass Mastercard’s  Masterpass payment option is similar to those offered by American Express and Visa. It makes it easy for any Mastercard holders to quickly and easily check out from your website. And it provides the kind of advanced security in the payment process you’d expect from a credit card company—including user verification, tokenization, issuer authentication, and fraud monitoring. Mastercard doesn’t charge any fees to either you or the customer. And the company has developers available to help you get set up .   10. 2Checkout 2Checkout is a global payment processing solution that accepts payments from across the world in a number of different currencies. They provide a customizable checkout that you can design and add to your website, extensive fraud protection, and a responsive design that ensures customers can easily check out across devices. They offer an API that makes adding the processing solution to your website fairly simple, while also providing the flexibility to customize it as needed. The company charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, with extra fees for foreign customers.   Choosing Your eCommerce Payment Gateway As you can see, when it comes to getting paid, you have options. But it’s less a matter of finding the right one, and more a matter of determining just how many different online payment methods you want to make available to your customers. If adding more options to your checkout process makes buying products from you faster and more convenient, you’re likely to see an increase in sales as a result—so the question may really be, can you afford not to add more payment options? Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Embed a YouTube Video in WordPress

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Hosting

The post How to Embed a YouTube Video in WordPress appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’re here because you want to add YouTube videos to your WordPress-hosted website . You might want to embed your own videos, or maybe include videos that other people have made. Combining the power of your WordPress content management system and YouTube is just plain smart. By embedding videos within your content you’ll not only improve user engagement with your content, but it can result in more views for your videos as well—an added benefit if you’re trying to grow your own YouTube channel. Regardless, WordPress has a variety of methods you can take to accomplish this task. Below you’ll learn why adding YouTube videos to your site is a great idea, the different ways you can embed your video, and even uncover a few themes that are built for YouTube optimization right out of the box. Why Would I Want to Add YouTube Videos to My Site? YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Creating your own YouTube channel can be a great way to enhance your existing online marketing efforts. But, you can also multiply your efforts on YouTube by incorporating your videos into your site. Instead of having to run your YouTube channel in isolation of your existing site, you can actually bring the two together, and enhance both your website and channel at the same time. First, your website visitors might not know about your YouTube channel. By adding your videos to your content you’ll get more people clicking over to your new channel. As you grow your views and your subscriber count, you’ll be well on your way to making money on YouTube . Second, adding videos to your content can greatly improve the quality of your content. Just make sure that you’re only adding videos that add value to your existing content . Third, since YouTube videos are generally a few minutes long this will also help to improve your on-site metrics, such as dwell time, which will have a positive influence on your search engine rankings . As you can see, the simple act of inserting YouTube videos into your WordPress website can bring you a lot of benefits—all without too much additional work.   Bes t YouTube Video WordPress Themes Before we jump into how to actually embed YouTube videos into WordPress, we’ll look at a few themes that’ll help to simplify the process. Why would you want a WordPress video theme? If you’re building a WordPress site that’s going to be heavy on video content, then this might be a feature you require. Or, if you’re looking for a great way to showcase your videography work, then choosing a video-friendly theme might be the preferred route to take. Remember, if you’re going to have a media heavy website, then you’ll want to make sure your current web hosting for your WordPress site can support regular streaming video, without your site going offline. Here are a few of the best WordPress video themes currently on the market:   1. VideoPro VideoPro is a great theme that can help you create a massive video-sharing site that’s similar to YouTube. It’s a very flexible theme, so you can create any kind of video site you desire. There’s integrated support for the largest video sites out there, and of course, YouTube. It has many similar features to YouTube as well. For example, users can create their own video channels, create and manage playlists, and a lot more. Plus, there’s a useful membership feature that allows you to create a section of the site where you can sell premium content.   2. VideoFly VideoFly is an elegant video theme that has plenty of whitespace. The end result is a video site that’s very easy on the eyes and fun to spend time on. It’s very intuitive and easy to use, both in the setup and the user video submission feature. You can either embed, upload, or insert videos with this theme, or simply use the included YouTube importer. With the VideoFly WordPress plugin, there are plenty of customization options to help make your video site unique. Plus, you have multiple ways you can integrate ads into your site too.   3. Vlog Vlog is a theme that’s perfect for video bloggers. It’s very elegant and is equipped with a variety of layouts, so you can display your videos on your WordPress site however you want. You can embed the video in your blog posts, as a featured image, or even group your videos into playlists. Plus, this WordPress video plugin is compatible with most of the largest video sharing sites out there, including YouTube.   4. Soledad Soledad is a very versatile WordPress video theme. With its near endless ability to customize your layouts and display content in different ways, you can truly make your creative vision come to life. There are hundreds of included templates, or you can build your own layout entirely from scratch with the included Visual Composer. There are also built-in tools to easily embed and incorporate video content into your WordPress site. For example, you can use videos in place of the standard featured image.   6 Different Ways You Can Embed a YouTube Video in WordPress Like most things with WordPress, there are multiple approaches to accomplishing any task. Here are a few of the most common ways to embed YouTube videos into WordPress. As you’ll see below there are a few different embed types, depending on what kind of video content you want to embed, how you want it to display, or whether or not you want to embed your entire YouTube channel.   1. The Simple Add Media Approach The first method is also the most straightforward. With this approach, you’ll be using the Add Media function to embed a video into your site. First, navigate to any post or page on your site. From within the post or page editor click Add Media . Next, select the option on the left-hand side that says Insert from URL , and then input the URL of your YouTube video on WordPress . Click Insert into page and the video will automatically be inserted into your page. Note that this is different than uploading an entire video to your site. Instead, WordPress pulls and embeds the video from the URL. That way your site isn’t responsible for actually hosting the video. With this method, you can link to any video on YouTube, and it doesn’t even have to be your own video! This method is entirely functional and your viewers can either watch the video on your site or click through and watch the video directly on YouTube.   2. Embed Your Entire YouTube Channel If you have an existing YouTube channel, then you might want to embed your entire channel into a dedicated page on your WordPress site. This gives you a chance to show off all of your video content, and encourages your visitors to check out your channel on YouTube too. You can easily do this with the YourChannel plugin . To set up this plugin, navigate to Plugins> Add New , and search for YourChannel , then install the plugin that looks like the image below: Once the plugin is installed you can configure the plugin by navigating to Settings> YourChannel . On this screen, you’ll need to enter your YouTube API, along with your channel ID, or your username. The other options on this screen will let you configure the display options for your channel. Once these are to your liking you can copy and paste the WordPress shortcode and add it to any portion of your site where you want to display your videos.   3. Use a YouTube Video Widget Next, you may want to add a video to your site, but you want more options than the simple embed in step one gave you. If your site has multiple widget areas, or at the very least, a widgetized sidebar, then you can use the plugin called YouTube Widget Responsive . To install this plugin navigate to Plugins> Add New and search for YouTube Widget Responsive , then install the plugin that looks like the one below: Now that the plugin is installed navigate to the widget portion of your site under Appearance> Widgets . Now locate a widget called ‘Youtube widget responsive’ and drag that widget to any section of your site. Now, all you have to do is enter the video URL and click Save . Then you’ll have a few additional customization options you can change to your liking as well.   4. Create a YouTube Video Gallery If you want to embed a gallery of videos, but don’t want to embed an entire YouTube channel, then you’ll want to use a gallery plugin. There are a few different WordPress video gallery plugins like YouTube Gallery , YotuWP , and Video Gallery – YouTube Gallery . Since this post is all about YouTube, then we’ll be using the Video Gallery – YouTube Gallery plugin. To install this plugin navigate to Plugins> Add New and search for Video Gallery – YouTube Gallery , and install the plugin that looks like the one below: To configure this plugin find the new Gallery Video tab on the left-hand side of your WordPress dashboard. On this screen select New Gallery Video , add a title for your gallery, and select the kind of layout you want. Now it’s time to add a few videos. To do this click on the Add Video button, and then enter the URL of the video. Click Save Video and you’re all set. The beauty of this WordPress video plugin is that you can add as many videos as you’d like. Once you’re done adding videos hit Save towards the top of the page and then you’ll have a shortcode you can copy and paste anywhere on your site.   5. Add a Video Without YouTube Branding Maybe you want to insert a video into your site, but don’t want to have the YouTube branding present. This can help to create a more cohesive look and works well if the video is part of a landing page, where you want to keep your visitors on the page (not clicking off to YouTube). It essentially allows you to use the video on your site, under your own branding, while still hosting the video with YouTube. To do this we’ll be using a plugin called YouTube Embed Plus . To install this plugin navigate to Plugins> Add New and search for YouTube Embed Plus . Then install the plugin that looks like the one below: Now, you’ll see a tab called YouTube Free on the left-hand side of the page. Here you’ll have all kinds of options, which will allow you to embed and turn off certain video display features.   6. Add a Pop-Up Video Lightbox For the final YouTube video embed, you’re going to learn how to create a video lightbox. These can be effective in placing your viewer’s full attention onto each video while giving it a cool effect. To achieve this you’ll need to use a WordPress plugin called WP Video Lightbox . To install this plugin navigate to Plugins> Add New and type in WP Video Lightbox in the search bar. Then install the plugin that looks like the one below: Now, on the left-hand column navigate to Settings> Video Lightbox . Here you’ll be able to properly set up the plugin to your liking. If you’re having trouble configuring the plugin, there’s extensive documentation that can help to walk you through any issues you’re having.     Can’t I Just Upload Videos Straight to WordPress? One common question when adding videos to WordPress is: why can’t I just add videos directly to WordPress? Now, it is possible. Just upload your video directly into your media library. But, taking this approach (instead of first uploading your video to a third-party provider) will usually greatly decrease your overall site performance. If your site gets a lot of traffic, then your site will probably go offline. If you have managed hosting of some sort, then your site will probably be fine. But then you’re missing out on all of that additional YouTube traffic, which in turn can help to grow your channel. Plus, by uploading directly to WordPress you make it that much more difficult to share your video to help it reach a wider audience. The only people who will see your video are those who actually visit your site. Do yourself a favor and upload your videos to YouTube, or another supported video provider, before embedding them on your WordPress site. You’ll get the best of both worlds.   In Closing Video is quickly becoming one of the most dominant forms of content across the web. If you’re only relying on text to get your message across, then you’re missing out on the opportunity to engage your visitors in new ways. Plus, if you have any existing YouTube channel, then linking both your website and your channel together is a great way to promote both and expose your work to new audiences. Hopefully, you have a better understanding of the multiple approaches you can take to add YouTube videos on WordPress . You don’t have to use every one of the WordPress video plugins highlighted above, but instead, just those that make sense in the existing context of your site. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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