What does it mean to embed a video? This question is sometimes confusing for beginners in content making. In this article, we‘ll learn why you really need to embed YouTube clips on your website or blog, in socials, office files, and emails instead of simply uploading them from the desktop.

Below you‘ll also find illustrated step-by-step guides on how to embed a video on popular online platforms, mail messages, text files, and presentations.

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What does embedding a video mean and why it matters

Embedded clips are useful for anyone working with content, particularly for SEO and digital marketers. This method of sharing clips will help you deliver better visual quality, save storage and comply with requirements on email services, spare time for manual uploading.

What does it mean to embed a video? Simply put, it is a piece of code with a link to a clip hosted on some sharing platform, such as YouTube. It is generated automatically on each service and looks like this:

You don‘t necessarily need a third-party platform to store clips. If you have a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, just add a video to your media library and embed it using a third-party tool, e.g. Elementor.

Visitors of this page will be able to play a clip by clicking the thumbnail. Here‘s what it looks like in a draft:

That is all about the technical perspective of the subject. But what does embedding videos do for your website? Why is it necessary?

Improved SEO

One of the priorities for any content maker is search engine optimization (SEO) that positions your website or blog on the first page of search results against the required keywords. Search algorithms of Google are not subject to disclosure but experts recommend embedding YouTube clips and images from external sources to promote an article. Another important factor of ranking is the thumbnail of the embedded video — it can improve searchability and the overall look of the clip.

New traffic from socials

By embedding a video from YouTube, Facebook, or other popular video hosting platforms, you win traffic to the source channel. This parameter improves your social media marketing even if you focus on your website.

Saved storage

When you embed a video hosted on a sharing platform, you save storage space on the computer. Large AVI and MP4 files can possess many gigabytes of a hard disk drive.

Higher visual quality

Uploading a clip from a computer will compress the file resulting in its poorer visual quality. Embedding a video is the best way out if you want to deliver the best viewing experience and make the content more competitive.

Less time spent drafting an article

Embedding means just copying and pasting the code of a video to the HTML text of your article on WordPress or elsewhere. Hence it is much quicker than simple uploading. No fast Internet connection or advanced HTML skills are required.

We learned why embedding videos is important. Let us see how it works on popular platforms for sharing clips.

How to embed a video on your website

Today you‘ll find lots of video hosting platforms where you can upload clips for further embedding into your website or blog. In this paragraph, we‘ll give an overview of the four services that are most widely known.

From YouTube

With over a billion users watching videos daily, YouTube is the second most visited website in the world. It is free and familiar to most Internet users. Anyone can sign up and start uploading clips or streaming in real time right away.

• Open the desired video on YouTube.
• Click Share and specify the starting time, if needed.

• Click Embed and copy the code on the right side.

• Paste the code to the HTML text of a web page.

From Vimeo

Another big online video sharing platform Vimeo has an audience of more than 230 million people. Creators have to register and choose one of the pricing plans that provide various volumes of storage and streaming capabilities. Vimeo engages professional filmmakers and does not contain ads.

• Open the desired clip on Vimeo.
• Click Share on its right side.

• Copy the code and paste it to the HTML code of an article.

From TikTok

TikTok is a young booming video sharing service. Users post shorter clips often with music and additional text. Many vids became viral in 2020 and brought content makers high income. TikTok is free and mostly visited from mobile devices.

• Open the desired clip in the TikTok app.

• Tap the Embed button in the right area.

• Copy the code and paste it to the HTML code of an article.

From Instagram

Instagram is where people create and share photos, videos, stories, and even messages. Many creative businesses choose the network as their number one promotion channel, for example, flower delivery or coffee houses. Instagram photos and videos can be embedded into your website or blog.

• Open Instagram in a web browser and find the desired clip.
• Click the three dots at the bottom right of a video.

• Click Embed.
• Copy the code and paste it to the HTML code of an article.

From Facebook

This social network is mostly about people interaction and communication rather than videos. However, one of the most consumed content on Facebook is still videos. The behavior of watching videos here is different from those on other platforms.

• Open the desired video on Facebook.
• Click the Ellipsis button on the right-side panel.

• Click Embed and specify the starting, if necessary.
  You can also share the video with a source and description — just activate the checkbox nest to Include full post.

• Copy the code and paste it to the HTML code of an article.

As you can see, the different interfaces of popular online video sharing platforms have similar ways to embed a clip into your website or blog. All you need is simply copy and paste the code to a content management system like WordPress.

How to embed a video in social media

Another use case of video embedding is sharing clips on social networks. In most cases, it is easier than embedding in blogs and on websites.

Twitter

Still one of the most visited social platforms, Twitter allows exchanging shorter messages with media files, namely images and videos.

• Open a video on a sharing platform, e.g. YouTube.
• Click Share and copy the URL of a video.
• Paste it to your post.

The clip will be embedded in the feed. Another way is to post to Twitter right from YouTube.

• Open a clip, click Share and choose Twitter.
• Edit the description to the post, if needed.

Watch this tutorial to see the process of embedding a video on Twitter step-by-step:

Facebook

As we mentioned above, Facebook can also be used as a video sharing platform. That is, many people simply upload clips to their accounts. But what if you want to embed a YouTube video to Facebook feed?

• Open a video on a sharing platform, e.g. YouTube.
• Click Share and copy the URL of a video.
• Paste it to your post.

The clip will be embedded in the feed. Another way is to post to Facebook right from YouTube.

• Open a clip, click Share and choose Facebook.
• Edit the description to the post, if needed.

Watch this tutorial to see the process of embedding a video on Twitter step-by-step:

LinkedIn

Sometimes you may want to add some videos to your portfolio or share an interesting case with LinkedIn contacts.

• Open a video on a sharing platform, e.g. YouTube.
• Click Share and copy the URL of a video.
• Go to your LinkedIn post, find and click a small box with a plus sign next to one of the paragraphs.
• Choose Video and paste the URL in the corresponding field.

In this tutorial Dane Golden from HEY.com shows how to embed a YouTube video to a LinkedIn post:

Tumblr

This microblogging website allows posting multimedia and share it to friends. Embedding a YouTube video to Tumblr will add view counts to your channel.

• Open a video on a sharing platform, e.g. YouTube.
• Click Share -> Embed and copy the coding.
• Paste the code into the Embed a video section on Tumblr and choose Create Post.

Reddit

This social news aggregator includes thousands of communities where people discuss everything from politics to gardening.

• Open a clip, click Share and choose Reddit.
• Choose a community, where the video should be embedded.
• Click Post.

Watch this tutorial to see how you can embed a YouTube video in Reddit:

Medium

Medium is not really a social network, rather paid blogging platform where experts exchange their opinions and how-to articles.

• Open a video on a sharing platform, e.g. YouTube.
• Click Share and copy the URL of a video.
• Paste it to your post and click Enter.

Embedding a video is simpler in social media, the process is similar in each network. It attracts traffic to your channel and forwards content to subscribers over the large scope of socials.

Embedding a video in email

Email is still one of the primary communication channels in the business. Many email services have rather strict limits on the size of attachments. Most likely you won‘t be able to attach an MP4 file lasting half a minute.

No matter if you use Gmail, Yahoo!, Apple Mail, or other services, just copy the video URL from the sharing platform and paste it to the body of your message.

Recipients won‘t be able to view a clip from the mail service. They need to open YouTube or other source platforms via the link in your message. Nevertheless, this method helps send larger video recordings.

How to embed in office editors

Whether it is a digital catalog or a presentation, you may want to embed a video into an office file. Most popular suites provide such capability.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft Word and PowerPoint let you embed videos from PC, library, and online platforms.

• Open a text document or a presentation.
• Go to the Insert tab.

• In text documents, click Online Videos and paste the URL.
  In presentations, click Video -> Online Videos and do the same.

Google Docs

Free online office suite by Google also supports embedding videos.

• Open a text document or a presentation.
• Go to the Insert tab and choose Video.

• Search the desired video on YouTube. Alternatively, switch to By URL and insert a link to your clip.

ONLYOFFICE

This office suite provides desktop document editing on Windows, Linux, and macOS for free.

• Open a text document or a presentation.
• Go to the Plugins tab and choose YouTube.

• Enter the URL of a preferred YouTube video.

Keynote

All Apple devices have the pre-installed free office software on board, including presentation editor Keynote.

• Open a file in Keynote and go to Insert —> Web Video.

• Enter the URL of a preferred YouTube video.

Embedding videos in office suites is another method to share larger clips per email. A text document or presentation with embedded videos is much more manageable in size.

Final words

In this article, we learned what does embedding videos mean and how to do it on websites, blogs, social media, emails, and office editors.

It will help you improve website SEO, win YouTube traffic, send larger video files, spare storage place on a computer, and time for uploading.

In the useful links below, you‘ll find handy tips for making and posting YouTube and Facebook clips.

Useful links

What is YouTube native editor? Read post

Best YouTube editor alternatives in 2021. Read post

How to make a YouTube intro. Read post

How to make a spectacular Facebook clip. Read post

How to reduce video file size. Read post