6 Best WordPress Plugins for YouTube Publishers

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1. YouTube Channel Gallery

To embed a YouTube video in WordPress, you need to copy and paste the video URL. What if we told you that you can automatically display latest videos from your YouTube channel on your site in a nice gallery view?

Simply install and activate the YouTube Channel Gallery plugin. Upon activation, you can go to Appearance » Widgets to drag and drop the YouTube Channel Gallery widget in your sidebar.

You can also add your YouTube channel gallery into a WordPress post or a page using the shortcode [Youtube_Channel_Gallery user="wpbeginner"].

Make sure to replace WPBeginner with your own channel name. For more detailed instructions take a look at our guide on how to show latest videos from YouTube channel in WordPress.

2. Record and Upload YouTube Videos from WordPress

Did you know that you can record and upload your videos straight from WordPress. You can use YouTube Upload Widget plugin to record a video using your webcam directly from your WordPress site and upload it straight to YouTube.

See this tutorial about how to record and upload YouTube videos directly from WordPress for more information.

3. Add Thumbnail for YouTube Videos

Many popular news sites display a thumbnail image of their videos on the front page of their websites. When a user clicks on the image, they are taken to a WordPress post containing the YouTube video.

Showing thumbnails for your YouTube videos is easy. All you need to do is install and activate the Video Thumbnails plugin.

Upon activation, go to Settings » Video Thumbnails to configure the plugin. Most options there are quite self-explanatory and default settings would work for most sites. After saving your settings, you can simply paste a YouTube video URL into any WordPress post, and the plugin will automatically generate the video thumbnail along with setting it as featured image for the post.

For more detailed instructions take a look at out step by step tutorial on how to add thumbnails for YouTube videos in WordPress.

4. Automatically Post Videos From YouTube to WordPress

If you embed your YouTube videos to your WordPress site, then there are some easy tools that can help you automate the process.

First tool is a plugin called Automatic YouTube Video Posts which allows you to automatically create a new WordPress post containing the YouTube video as soon as you publish the video on your YouTube channel.

The second tool is a web based service called IFTTT (if this then that). It allows you to create a recipe which automates the whole process for you. Check out our tutorial on how to how to automatically create WordPress posts from YouTube videos using IFTTT.

5. Allow YouTube Video Embeds in WordPress Comments

WordPress uses oEmbed protocol to embed content from third party services like YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, etc. This allows you to just paste the URL of an item and WordPress will automatically embed it for you.

By default oEmbed is only enabled for WordPress posts and pages. By installing oEmbed in Comments plugin, you can enable this feature for comments too.

Your users will be able to simply paste the URL of a video to share it in comments. For detailed information, take a look at our guide about how to add videos and more in WordPress comments with oEmbed.

6. Add a YouTube Subscribe Button

When people are viewing videos on your website, you may want to provide them options to subscribe your YouTube channel directly. Simply install and activate the YouTube Subscribe Button plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit Appearance » Widgets and drag YouTube Subscribe Button widget to a sidebar.

Next, provide your channel name or ID, choose layout and theme. Currently there are two layouts normal and full. Using the full layout the subscribe button will display your YouTube avatar as well. There are two color schemes light and dark to choose from.

We hope this article helped you introduce to some new WordPress plugins for YouTube publishers. You may also want to checkout our other useful YouTube tips to spice up your WordPress site with videos.

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