Do you want to embed YouTube channels for free?
YouTube is the biggest social media platform if you want to share video content. And a great way to promote your own videos is to embed a YouTube channel on your website.
But manually displaying YouTube videos can be tough – especially if you’re not used to dealing with a lot of custom HTML code.
To help you out, we’ll show you how you can add a YouTube channel to WordPress for free.
Let’s take a look at the simplest way to embed YouTube channels free of cost.
Or, you can click here to skip directly to the tutorial.
Can You Embed a YouTube Feed for Free?
To add an entire YouTube channel to WordPress, you can simply use Feeds for YouTube, which is a FREE plugin from Smash Balloon.
In fact, this is the free version of the best YouTube feed plugin in the market: Feeds for YouTube Pro.
With the help of Feeds for YouTube, you can start displaying YouTube content on your site in just a few clicks – no need for HTML embed codes or any kind of coding.
All you have to do is follow the 3-step guided flow, and it will take you through the whole process of creating, customizing, and embedding YouTube feeds.
Using these feeds, you can show content from your YouTube channel and turn website visitors into viewers and subscribers.
Since the plugin automatically copies the design of your WordPress theme, your feeds will perfectly match your branding right out of the box.
On top of that, you can easily customize the design of your YouTube feeds with the user-friendly live feed editor.
You can easily change your YouTube channel feed’s layout, the number of videos, color scheme, header type, and much more – no need to touch a single line of code.
Plus, the plugin will only load a YouTube video once the visitor clicks on it. As a result, you can show tons of videos at once, and your site will still be as fast as ever.
With a faster website, you can get much better SEO and reach even more people.
And that’s just the start!
You can easily upgrade to Feeds for YouTube Pro at any time and get access to all the premium features.
Feeds for YouTube Comparison: Free vs Pro
Since Feeds for YouTube is forever free, you can use it to embed YouTube videos as long as you want, with absolutely no limits!
But if you want more features from this plugin, there’s an easy solution. All you have to do is upgrade to Feeds for YouTube Pro.
With it, you get all the features of Feeds for YouTube, along with tons of useful premium features, including:
- Show YouTube videos from your favorites list
- Pick a search term and display the YouTube search engine results
- Embed live-streaming YouTube videos
- Display a YouTube carousel slider to engage visitors
- Combine videos from multiple YouTube channels, playlists, and more
- Add a call-to-action at the end of videos
- Import design from beautiful pre-built templates
- Moderate the videos in your YouTube feed
- And much more!
On top of that, Feeds for YouTube Pro also comes with dedicated customer support from a team of WordPress experts.
As you can see, it really is the best YouTube Feed plugin in the market and a fantastic tool for growing your YouTube channel.
Get Feeds for YouTube Pro today, and you can start creating beautiful YouTube feeds with ease.
With that, let’s get started and check out our tutorial on how to embed your YouTube channel for free.
How to Embed YouTube Channel for Free on Your Website
Ready to embed a YouTube channel feed in WordPress? All you have to do is follow our step-by-step guide below:
Step 1: Install the Feeds for YouTube Plugin
First, you can install the Feeds for YouTube plugin directly from the WordPress.com repository.
To do that, open the Plugins » Add New menu from your WordPress dashboard.
Doing that will open the plugins page of your site so you can install a new WordPress plugin.
Now use the search bar at the top to look for the “smash balloon youtube” plugin.
In the search results below, look for the Feeds for YouTube plugin and then click on Install Now.
After that, you can just wait a few seconds for the plugin to finish installing.
Finally, click on the Activate button, and the plugin will be ready to use.
You can now go to step 2 and use the plugin to create a YouTube feed.
Step 2: Create a YouTube Channel Feed
Now, you can use the guided flow to create a new YouTube feed to show videos from your channel.
To do that, go to your WordPress dashboard and then navigate to the YouTube Feed » All Feeds menu.
After you do that, just click on the Add New button at the top.
After that, you can choose the type of YouTube feed you want to create. With the Feeds for YouTube Pro plugin, you can embed YouTube playlists, favorites lists, search results, live streams, and more.
To embed your YouTube channel, select the Channel option and click on the Next button.
As you can see, this plugin makes it super easy to create a YouTube channel feed. And in step 3, you can connect your feed to YouTube and start showing videos on your site.
Step 3: Connect Your YouTube Channel
Connecting your YouTube channel lets your feed fetch videos and display them on your site.
There are 2 ways you can connect your site to YouTube:
- Add API Key (Recommended way)
- Connect a YouTube account instead
For the first method, click on the Add API Key button on the popup.
If you don’t have your YouTube API key, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to create an API Key. Once the key is ready, just copy it and open your website once again.
There, paste your YouTube API Key into the popup and then click on Add.
If you’re using Feeds for YouTube Pro, connecting your API key gives you access to tons of different feed types, including YouTube playlist feed, live stream, search results, and more.
The next option is to connect your YouTube account instead.
For that, click on the Connect a YouTube account instead button on the popup.
This will now open https://www.youtube.com, so you can give the plugin read-only access to your YouTube account.
Feeds for YouTube will use this access to view YouTube content and can’t make any changes at all. As a result, it’s completely safe to use this plugin.
To connect your account, click on Continue on the popup.
You’ve now connected your new feed to YouTube in a few simple clicks. After this, you can choose which YouTube channel you want to display on your website.
Step 4: Select a YouTube Channel
To start, open YouTube on your web browser and navigate to the channel you want to embed for free.
Now look at the URL at the top and then copy everything after “/channel/” or “/user/” like this:
After you do that, go to your website once again and then paste the code in the Channel ID or Username field.
To finish connecting this YouTube channel, click on the Next button below.
Now that you’ve selected the YouTube channel, you can go to step 5 and customize the design of your new feed.
Step 5: Customize Your YouTube Channel Feed
The plugin will now send you to the live feed editor so you can easily customize how your new YouTube channel feed looks.
Using the customization options on the left, you can change your feed layout, number of posts, header style, color scheme option, and much more.
Towards the right, you have a live preview of your YouTube channel feed where you can track your changes in real-time.
To get started, you can click on the Feed Layout option to change the layout of the videos on your site.
With Feeds for YouTube, you have 3 feed layouts to choose from: Grid, Gallery, and List.
But if you use the premium version of this YouTube feed plugin, you can also display your videos as a beautiful YouTube slider.
First, you can go for the grid layout that shows photos and videos in neat rows and columns.
By doing that, you can show tons of YouTube videos at once and engage your visitors.
Want to put the focus on a single video?
You can use the gallery layout that displays a large YouTube video with smaller thumbnails right underneath it.
If you go for the list layout instead, your YouTube channel feed will show videos in a single column.
As a result, your YouTube content will be clearly visible.
To continue, you can select the feed layout that you prefer and then click on the Save button.
You can then return to the main customization options by clicking on the Customize button in the top left corner.
With this plugin, you can also change the colors of your YouTube channel feed with ease.
To do that, click on the Color Scheme option on the left.
To change your YouTube feed’s colors, you can pick from 4 different color schemes here:
- Inherit from Theme: Copy your WordPress theme’s colors
- Light: Show a bright background and dark font
- Dark: Display a darker background instead, along with a light font color
- Custom: Manually select all of the colors
Like before, click on the Save button and confirm your new color scheme.
Using the remaining options here, you can change the number of videos, header style, button option, and more with ease.
After you’re happy with how your YouTube channel feed looks, click on Save.
Finally, click on Save once you’re happy with the design of your YouTube feed.
If you want even more customization options, you can upgrade to Feeds for YouTube Pro. That way, you can import pre-built templates, enable the carousel layout, filter YouTube videos, and much more.
You can now move on to the final step and embed YouTube channels for free using this plugin.
Step 6: Embed YouTube Channel Feed in WordPress
With the help of this plugin, there are 2 ways you can embed YouTube feeds on your WordPress website:
- Embed YouTube channel on a WordPress page
- Embed YouTube channel feed on the WordPress sidebar or footer
Not sure which option to use? Let’s take a look at both of these options below:
Embed YouTube Channel on a WordPress Page
Using the live feed editor, you can start embedding your YouTube channel with ease — no coding needed.
To get started, click on the Embed button in the top right corner.
This will open the embed options for your YouTube channel feed. From here, you can choose where you want to embed this YouTube channel.
For now, click on the Add to a Page button on the popup.
Next, you’ll see a list of WordPress pages where you can embed your YouTube feed.
Select an option from the list, and then click on Add.
Doing that will open the page in the WordPress editor so you can embed your YouTube channel.
To do that, click on the plus (+) icon to add a new block.
Next, search for “youtube feed” using the search bar at the top.
After that, simply click on the Feeds for YouTube block from the search results below.
Finally, click on Update, and your YouTube video feed will be live on your WordPress site.
You can open the webpage to see how the YouTube channel looks to your visitors.
Next, we’ll show you how to embed the YouTube channel on the widget-ready areas of your site.
Embed YouTube Channel Feed on the WordPress Sidebar or Footer
Another way to embed video content is to display them on your sidebar or footer as a YouTube video widget. Like before, you can use the live feed editor to do that as well.
The first step is to open your YouTube channel feed in the live feed editor once again.
You can do that by navigating to the YouTube Feed » All Feeds menu from your dashboard and then clicking on the feed that you want to embed.
Just like that, you can open any of your YouTube feeds in the live feed editor once again.
After that, click on the Embed button at the top.
This time, you can use the new popup to display your YouTube feed widget in the sidebar or footer areas.
For that, click on the Add to a Widget button.
From the WordPress widgets page, you can choose where you want to embed your YouTube channel feed.
To display the YouTube videos on your sidebar, click on the Sidebar panel here.
Or you can click on the Footer option instead if you prefer to embed videos there.
For this example, we’ll use the WordPress sidebar.
To embed YouTube channels on your sidebar or footer, first, add a new widget by clicking on the plus (+) icon.
After you do that, select the Feeds for YouTube widget from the options.
Finally, click on Update to finish embedding your YouTube channel widget.
If you open your website after this, you can see how the videos look to the people visiting your website.
So, there you have it!
Now you know how to embed YouTube channels for free using the Feeds for YouTube plugin. As a result, you can easily get tons of views and subscribers with ease.
If you want to take YouTube marketing to the next level, Feeds for YouTube Pro is one of the best tools in the market.
Ready to embed YouTube feeds with ease? Get your copy of YouTube Feed Pro here.
Do you want to get more out of YouTube for your business? You can follow this guide on how to make money on YouTube without showing your face.
Finally, if you found this guide helpful, go ahead and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more useful YouTube tutorials.
