The easiest way to add video to a WordPress post or page is to do it via YouTube.

YouTube takes care of hosting the video files and managing file formats – whatever format your video is in, YouTube will convert it so that it can be viewed over the internet without concern about different video players.  Also, if your video becomes a big hit and everyone wants to see it,YouTube will manage all of the bandwidth requirements for large numbers of hits on your video.

So, let’s assume that you have a YouTube account, you’ve made your video and you’ve uploaded it to YouTube.   (Here’s some YouTube video help if you need it to get started).

WordPress 3.1 changes this slightly.  If you have WordPress 3.1 or later, see Easily Add Video to WordPress 3.1 for updated instructions.

Here’s all you need to do to add that video to your page or post:-

1. Position your cursor in the WordPress Editor

When you are editing the page or post where you want to place the video, position your cursor where you want the video to appear.

Decide now whether you want the video to be centred on the page or not and, if so, click the “center alignment” button  before you add the video.  It’s best to get the position right before you start because you can’t edit or move a video around the page the way you can with an image.

2. Click on the add video button in the WordPress Editor

Click on the “Add Video” button in the edit box.  It looks like this  and it’s on the second row of editing buttons.  (If you don’t have a second row of buttons, click on  to display them.)

You’ll see a box that looks like this (the “Insert embedded media” box):-

3. Copy your YouTube video URL

Go to YouTube and get the URL of your video (not the embed code).  You can just grab the URL from the top of the browser when you view the video (it will look something like this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECnAT_NV3GY).

4. Paste the YouTube URL into the File/URL field

Paste that YouTube URL into the File/URL field in the “Insert embedded media” box.

You can leave the file Type as Flash.  The dimensions will be set automatically from the video URL that you paste in.  You can edit them if you like, to fit your page better – make sure you tick Constrain proportions to ensure the width and height stay in proportion.

That’s really all you have to do.  Click Insert to place the video in your page/post.

You’ll see a placeholder like this in your edit window.

And that’s it

Here’s my sample video.

Hosting your own Video

If you want to show video without the YouTube logo and host it yourself, it’s not quite such a simple process, but it is still quite easy, with the right additions to WordPress.  Watch out for more about that.