Adding video to your website can be a powerful tool. It engages users to stay on your website longer and can even lead to a higher conversion rate.
There are several ways to embed a video onto a website, but the most popular is to utilize the platform YouTube. To give you a clearer picture of the popularity of YouTube, here are some statistics:
- YouTube boasts over 1.5 billion users
- 4 billion daily views, half of which come from mobile devices
- The monthly number of hours spent watching YouTube is up 50% year over year
- YouTubers upload 300 hours of video every minute
I bet you’re wondering, “Isn’t embedding a YouTube video as easy as copy & paste?” Well, yes and no. Copying and pasting the URL of your YouTube video into the text field of most CMSs will embed the video, but YouTube embeds can also include a number of little-known, useful add-ons. So we’re pulling back the curtain to show you the add-ons that we use every day when developing websites and embedding videos.
If you are just starting your video marketing campaign, you might not have a full digital library. This means that when your video ends, the related videos suggested by YouTube will direct your users to content located outside your website. Since your goal should be to hold your audience’s attention for as long as possible, it would be beneficial to prevent YouTube’s suggestions from appearing. To do this, you can add the rel tag to your embedded video. Supported values for the rel tag are 0 and 1. Think of these values as an on/off switch. If the tag is set to 0, then it has been turned off; if it is set to 1 then it’s been switched on. To “turn off” related videos, be sure that your rel tag has been set to 0.
