Using modern web technologies such as HTML5, and web API’s, implementing videos into your WordPress website has never been so pain-free. You can transform any standard blog into a fully loaded video website using just a handful of free, hand-picked video plugins. In this article we shall sample a few of these video plugins that can add some form of video functionality to your website.
Video Sidebar Widgets
For our overview of video plugins, we start out with the Video Sidebar Widgets plugin which does exactly what it advertises. It adds additional widgets to your collection. This allows you to very quickly embed any video from a wide range of video hosting services. The plugin further offers a no frills solution to anyone who wants to display a variety of videos within any of their sidebars.
Video List Manager
Using Video List Manager, you can easily display any video from the most popular hosting services, in an attractive lightbox pop-up window, directly from any post or page. This video plugin allows you to quickly manage the videos you would like to display. It offers a simple interface which is easy to use.
Just copy and paste video URLs from either YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion and your videos will be displayed via a variety of shortcode-driven layouts. Handy sharing links are also provided for each video. You’re further able to choose from a small range of selectable skins for the player window.
Video Blogster Lite
Looking for a quick and easy way to import a whole bunch of YouTube video content into your WordPress site at the click of a button? Video Blogster Lite allows you to retrieve a list of videos, directly from YouTube. Your video list is based on the search query you define. The videos are then converted into actual posts, using the video thumbnail as a Featured Image.
Video Blogster Lite also imports the entire video description text, all neatly within your standard post template on your WordPress website. You can customize the search query as you like. The video plugin further provides simple WordPress options, like who to assign videos to and in which of your categories. You’re also able to install both video plugins – WP-PostRatings and WP-PostViews to display the ratings and view count of each video imported.
Video Grid
Video Grid is another video gallery plugin within our video plugins overview. It allows you to quickly display videos from a range of hosting services such as YouTube and Dailymotion. Using a shortcode based layout system, you can easily add perfectly responsive video galleries to any of your posts or pages on your WordPress website. Each video is presented nicely in a customizable lightbox window. You’re able to preview each gallery before making it go live.
Video Background
Displaying videos is now an extremely common occurrence on modern websites, especially when being used as the background of a particular element. The Video Background plugin makes it simple to add any video you like as the background to any existing element of your WordPress theme.
With this WordPress plugin for video backgrounds you can assign any self-hosted video as the background of any area of your WordPress theme by either using the easy to use meta fields on each of your posts or a simple shortcode within any post or page.
WordPress Video Overlay Ads
We’re now half of the way in our overview of video plugins. Next is WordPress Video Overlay Ads which you can use to easily add an overlay on top of every embedded YouTube or Vimeo video. You can include text, HTML code or even JavaScript within your overlay. This allows you to promote content, services, or products using the Video Overlay Ads plugin on your WordPress website.
Simply add your desired overlay content via the video plugin options page. The WordPress Video Overlay Ads plugin will automatically display the overlay on top of every embedded video on-the-fly.
Automatic Featured Images from Videos
As the title suggests, this video plugin will detect the first embedded video from a post and assign the relevant thumbnail image as its Featured Image. Automatic Featured Images from Videos will automatically set the image for you. It retrieves the thumbnail directly from the source. Popular video hosting services YouTube and Vimeo are supported.
Cool Video Gallery
Cool Video Gallery is another powerful video gallery plugin. It integrates the JW Player and enables you to display any number of videos and playlists within your posts or pages. Cool Video Gallery allows you to upload videos and manage galleries directly from the administration area.
There are also plenty of options available within the options page of this video plugin. You can use them to customize a variety of elements without modifying any code. Displaying your galleries and videos within any of your posts and pages is as easy as adding some shortcodes within your content.
Lazy Load for Videos
We conclude this list of video plugins with LazyLoad for Videos. It enables you to speed up the loading of your WordPress website by replacing embedded YouTube or Vimeo videos with a clickable preview image. The video you’re displaying on your WordPress website would only be loaded once the user clicks the preview image. This is ideal if a post contains multiple embedded videos.
Conclusion
There we have a fine collection of WordPress video plugins. These plugins allow you to launch your very own WordPress website including videos of any type and form. All video plugins in this collection work out-of-the-box and are free to use, although some plugins do offer pro versions for enhanced features. For more information on handling videos on your website, please also see:
Have you ever tried any of these WordPress video plugins? If so, then what’s your experience using them on your WordPress blog or website? Feel free to leave your comment just below.