How to Embed A YouTube Playlist on Your Website or Blog

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Playlists are a great way to group videos of a similar theme on the YouTube website, but their reach can be boosted by embedding them on your website or blog for whatever reason you wish. In my case, I place an embedded playlist above my YouTube "Subscribe" widget - you can see it at the bottom of this site's sidebar - to add some visual clout to the widget and encourage new viewers to click for updates.

How to embed a YouTube video playlist 

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1. On your YouTube account, select "Playlists" from the menu on the left-hand side. On the Playlists page (pictured above), hover over the group of videos you want to embed and select "Play all" if you want to add a whole playlist from the beginning, or click on the name of  playlist and select an individual video from which you want the playlist to begin.  

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2. On the video page itself, select the "Share" and then "Embed" tab beneath the player. Use the drop-down menus to choose whether you want to begin the playlist from the current video or from the beginning, and at what size you want the video player to appear on your website.

3. When you're done, copy the embed code and paste it into the HTML on your website where you want it to appear, as I have done above.  That's it!

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How to Engage YouTube Viewers to Increase Audience Retention and Watch Time

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Even though most YouTube content is no longer than a few minutes long, there are still plenty of barriers to the goal of having a viewer engaged to the very end of one of your videos once they have clicked on it, and that will put a heavy dent in arguably YouTube's most influential analytics - audience retention and watch time. Reasons for viewers not watching to the end of a video include:  

  • Video unexpectedly buffers early on
  • Viewer sees more appealing suggested video in sidebar
  • Video does not get to the point or be clear on what it will contain

It is the last bullet that I want to focus on for this blog. Once you have attracted someone to click on your content with a great title, description, and thumbnail image, it is so important to set expectations  or hook the audience in the first few seconds of the video. Here are two ways this technique can be used:

In how-to videos, show off the finished product first

No one wants to sit through even a few minutes of video instructions if they don't know what the end result will be, so if your video is a tutorial, show your audience what they will achieve at the end of the video in the first few seconds. 

Create intrigue to compel your audience to continue watching

Whether he pops onto screen with a fascinating fact or intrigues his audience with his tone of voice and location, Vsauce  does a great job of compelling his audience to continue watching, even though his videos are - in YouTube terms - very long. 

Similarly, you could use a teaser clip of a scene coming up in the video or a spoken line ike, "Want to know that links a pot of jello and a punch in the jaw? Keep watching to find out!" to hook in your audience. 

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How to Choose A Powerful YouTube Thumbnail Image | 5 Examples of Effective Video Thumbnails

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YouTube video thumbnails act as mini marketing posters for your videos, so the more clued up you are about using them effectively, the more clicks you will attract through to your content. Here are five examples of great YouTube video thumbnails:


1. Looks great at small and large sizes

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hilahcooking's 'How to Cook a Lobster' video wasn't the first to appear in YouTube's search when I went looking, but its branded thumbnail, complete with a quality close-up image of the cooked lobster, encouraged me to click on it over a handful of others.  And whether displayed in a big or small size across the site or on the web, the image always looks great.

2. Visually compelling

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Vlogger, Louis Cole, has experimented with several different types of thumbnails - often including channel branding - but has most recently settled on choosing one powerful image to represent the video. Whether you're a One Direction fan or not, you'd be hard-pressed not to be tempted to click through and see what all that crowd-filled craziness is all about! 

3. Close up of faces

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For most social media platforms (Pinterest being a notable exception), the appeal of connecting with viewers instinctively by using a close-up image of a human face, is extremely strong. And while this example is on the extreme end of the scale - after all, Barbie isn't a real person! - for people who see this thumbnail in search results and are hunting for a particular look, the effect is extremely powerful. 

4. Foreground stands out from background

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With YouTube's background colour being white, many channels use this to their advantage with thumbnails that are a complete contrast. In this example from 'whatever', the bright orange leaps from the page to attract viewers who catch eye on this video in search results.
 

5. Accuately represents content

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This might be the most important point of all. One of the worst things any content creator on YouTube wants to do is to mislead their audience, so implementing a custom thumbnail that is a true representation of the video itself, is very important in helping to build loyalty and trust. While the above example might not make for the most exciting thumbnail image, it is a fair and true reflection of what the video is about and does its job very well.

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YouTube Cover Art Template PSD | 2560 x 1440 Photoshop, GIMP

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There was something bothering me about my last YouTube One Channel cover art template - not just the fact that, since it was made, YouTube has significantly upped its recommended dimage size without warning!  While it aids well in creating an image that will scale well for any resolution or device, it does not take into account the position of the channel icon, which overlays the image from the top left-hand corner. This new template is the new, bigger size, and optimised to take into account channel icons.

A quick recap on how YouTube channel art works: The YouTube One Channel artwork is massive (2560 x 1440 pixels), and designed to present consistent branding on whichever device it is viewed on, from a HD television down to a mobile device. What proportion of the image a person sees depends on the device they are using. On HD televisions and mobile devices, the channel icon does not even appear, but this template is designed to provide an optimised design for any device: television, desktop, tablet, or mobile. 

Example of Non-Optimised Channel Art

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As you can see in the above example from the EpicMealTime channel, the channel art looks great at higher resolutions on desktops, but at 1024 x 768 pixels, the channel icon infringes on their cover art branding. My new template will help you avoid encountering any problems like this.

An Explanation on the Template

When you open up the .psd template in Photoshop or GIMP, it'll look like this (click for an enlarged view). It might look complex, but it's pretty simple, really. Here's how the different sections break down:

  • Lime green background: portion of art seen on HD televisions
  • Orange rectangle (full width): maximum portion of art seen on desktops.
  • Purple rectangle: Maximum portion of art seen on tablets. 
  • Brown rectangle: Logo safe area - this portion of the art will be visible on all devices. 
  • Multicoloured squares: Representation of the positions and size of channel icons at different resolutions - it does not appear on mobile devices.

How to Use the Template

              Here are a few quick steps to use my YouTube One Channel template: 

              1. Hide or delete the instructional text layers. 

              2. Design your channel art over the coloured rectangles, covering the whole space as you like. However, make sure to add the most important elements in the LOGO SAFE AREA, so that whichever device someone views your channel on, they can see it.

              Avoid placing important elements of your design behind the multicoloured squares that represent the position of channel icons at different resolutions on varying devices, otherwise they will be hidden and obscured.

              3. Once your design is complete, hide the remaining template layers - the coloured rectangles and squares - and save your image as a .png or .jpeg. 

              5. Upload your channel art to YouTube. Do not  adjust the crop.

              6. Click Select and admire the finished work!

              Download the Template

              Download the template

              This YouTube cover photo template (and several others for all the biggest social networks - expertly measured, simple to use, and up-to-date) is available instantly as a downloadable zip file via the purchase link above. For more information on all my social media templates, click here.

              Note: Payment is fast and secure via PayPal, but you do not need a PayPal account to buy and download. 

              Simply work around the template layers to add your design, save it as a .png file and upload it!

              ABOUT THE AUTHOR

              Andrew Macarthy is the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, available for Kindle and in paperback.

              Buy 500 Social Media Marketing Tips
              Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L50HE6
              Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007L50HE6

              Follow Me:
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              http://www.twitter.com/500socialmedia
              http://www.youtube.com/500socialmediatips

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              How to Add a YouTube Subscribe Widget Box to Your Website or Blog | YouTube Widget Embed Code

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              If you regularly blog and create video content for YouTube, one of the simplest ways to permanently promote your YouTube presence on it and to encourage new subscribers is with a YouTube widget. box, which you can embed in your site's side bar or somewhere else similarly prominent

              The Anatomy of the YouTube Widget

              Above is an example of a working YouTube widget - in this case, it's mine, but yours will be customised to reflect your account details. It features several elements, all of which, in their own small way, should help to attract people to click and/or subscribe to your channel:

              • Username (which is a clickable link to your channel)
              • Total number of video uploads (proof of your activity on the site) 
              • Current subscriber count (proof of your popularity on the site)
              • YouTube channel icon (also a clickable link to my channel)
              • The all-important "Subscribe Button."

              How to Install and Customise Your YouTube Widget

              Here's how to install and customise your own YouTube widget,:

              1. Copy the code in the text box above and paste it into the section of your site where you want your widget to appear. 

              2. Replace the youryoutubeusername text to your own YouTube username - do not delete the single speech mark that follows it. 

              3. Change the "height" and "width" numbers to increase or decrease the size of your widget in pixels as required. 

              4. Save, refresh your web page, and voila! 

              The Finished Result

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              Here's how your YouTube widget will look. In my example above, you'll notice I have embedded a playlist of my most recent uploads on top. While the widget might work okay by itself, by adding a playable video for people to click on as a sample of your content, you're increasing your chances of snagging another new subscriber.  You can embed any individual video here, but in a future blog post, I'll show you how to embed a playlist too. 

              ABOUT THE AUTHOR
              Andrew Macarthy is the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, available for Kindle and in paperback.

              Buy 500 Social Media Marketing Tips
              Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L50HE6
              Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007L50HE6

              Follow Me:
              http://www.facebook.com/500socialmediatips/
              https://pinterest.com/500socialmedia/
              http://www.twitter.com/500socialmedia
              http://www.youtube.com/500socialmediatips

               

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