One of the best ways to add a video to your website is by uploading your video to a service like YouTube or Vimeo and then embedding that video into your site. If you do not already have a YouTube account for hosting your church sermon videos, read this excellent tutorial on how to create one.

We do not recommend uploading video directly to your website unless you know how to properly convert it to a web safe format. Video sizes are enormous and will quickly consume your storage space and bandwidth.

Pasting in the YouTube Embed Code

  1. Go to the YouTube page for your video.
  2. Below the video, click the Share button:
  3. Click the Embed button:
  4. You’ll see the video’s embed code highlighted (in blue). Place your mouse over the code > right click > copy:
  5. Edit the page you want to add the YouTube video to and click on the HTML tab ( top red arrow) in the content editor > right click > paste the embed code (bottom red arrow) > click the Update button:

Extra YouTube Embed Options

Suggested Videos

YouTube by default will display “suggested videos” once the video has finished playing. Because YouTube hosts videos that some will consider inappropriate, you can disable this feature. Just uncheck the the “Show suggested videos when the video finishes” checkbox before copying the embed code:

Video Size

If you would like your video to take up the full width of your content column, then you can manually set the width to 516 pixels wide within the blue “Custom” box before copying the embed code:

Pasting in the YouTube URL

This is perhaps the easiest way to add a YouTube video to your site because you do not have to switch over to the HTML tab in the above example. However, this option may not work if the URL is converted to a hyperlink or is formatted (see the troubleshooting section below for tips).

Video: How to add a YouTube video URL to your website

  1. We recommend you have a dedicated Media Page (included by default in your Sharefaith church website) for all your audio or video sermons.
  2. Find the Youtube video you want to feature on your page and copy the URL from the address box of your browser:
  3. Log in into your website dashboard and edit the page where you would like the video to display.
  4. On the page, find the exact spot where you want the video to show and paste the URL (right click > paste):
  5. Click the blue Update button on the far right.
  6. Click on View Page on the top of your screen, and view your page.

Troubleshooting YouTube Embed Issues

Sometimes pasting a YouTube URL into your page link is displays instead of the video. When this happens there are three primary reasons:

  • The YouTube URL is a hyperlink
  • The YouTube URL has formatting (i.e. bold, italics, etc.)
  • The YouTube URL does not include the “http://”

The YouTube URL is a Hyperlink

This often happens when the URL has been copied from another webpage or an email. To resolve this issue highlight the entire YouTube URL and click the Unlink icon in the toolbar.

The YouTube URL has Formatting

Sometimes there is HTML code such as bold or italics tags lurking in the background of your page that prevent your YouTube URL from converting to a video. To resolve this issue you can highlight the YouTube URL and click the Remove formatting icon in the toolbar (it looks like a white eraser).

The YouTube URL does not Include the “http://”

Make sure you can see the entire YouTube URL including the http://. If the URL starts with www or just youtube.com then add the http:// to the beginning and update the page.