4 Ways to Embed a YouTube Playlist on Your Website (2021)

Do you want to show YouTube playlists on your website?

Showcasing your embedded playlists on WordPress can help you show fresh content to visitors and boost your subscribers for your YouTube channel.

The methods for embedding a YouTube playlist in WordPress are often confusing, though. So if you’re not tech-savvy, it can be hard to display your YouTube videos how you want.

So in this article, we’ll show you how to embed a YouTube playlist gallery with thumbnails in WordPress with 4 different methods.

Here’s a summary of the solutions we’ll cover. Click any option to jump straight to the section you need:

1. Embed YouTube playlists in WordPress (best way)
2. Embed YouTube playlist to a WordPress sidebar
3. Add a playlist in WordPress using oEmbeds
4. Embed a YouTube playlist with iFrames

Let’s get started with why you need to embed YouTube playlists in WordPress.

Or, you can click here to skip ahead to the tutorial.

Why Embed a YouTube Playlist in WordPress?

Adding a YouTube gallery of your playlists to your WordPress site lets you update fresh video content without a lot of work. It’s also a great way to encourage visitors to subscribe to your YouTube channel.

Instead of adding video playlists manually to your site, you can upload them to YouTube, and they’ll appear on your website every time you upload a new video in your YouTube playlist.

You can also filter the embedded videos shown in your playlist using specific keywords.

This could be a great way to highlight videos of people using your products, which offers valuable social proof that could secure new customers.

How to Find Your YouTube Playlist

Embedding YouTube playlists means you don’t need to manually embed single YouTube video IDs on your website.

Before you embed a YouTube playlist with thumbnails in WordPress, you need to find it. After all, several methods covered in this article need your playlist’s URL to make the embed work.

To find your playlist URL, head to https://www.youtube.com/ and expand the menu in the top-left corner of the screen.

Then, under the Library heading, select the playlist you want to embed.

Clicking the playlist takes you to the playlist page. On that page in your browser’s address bar, you’ll see the playlist’s URL which looks similar to this:

Copy the URL and save it to a notepad or document to use later.

Or, if you’re watching a video that’s part of a YouTube playlist, you’ll see the playlist title on the right-hand side of your screen. If you click the title, it takes you to the same main playlist page to copy the URL.

Now that you know how to find your YouTube playlist, let’s look at the different ways to embed it on your WordPress website.

We’ll start with the easiest and best YouTube playlist embed options first.

1. How to Embed a YouTube Playlist on WordPress

The easiest way to embed a YouTube playlist in your WordPress site is with a WordPress YouTube plugin.

Solutions like the Feeds for YouTube plugin by Smash Balloon remove the need to mess around with code snippets and switch between multiple web pages, which many of the popular embed methods require.

Instead, you can add your YouTube playlist to WordPress with a few clicks, resulting in simple, yet deeply customizable video feeds. No need to have HMTL or Javascript knowledge!

With the Feeds for Youtube WordPress plugin, you’re not limited to showing only playlists. The plugin has lots of functionalities that can help take your YouTube channel to the top.

For example, you can show as many video feeds as you like throughout your site. Plus, you can customize the content to show only live streams or videos from an advanced search.

What’s more, you can customize your YouTube feeds to perfectly match your site’s theme and branding — with just a few clicks. This is something the other methods on this list don’t offer without a lot of code tweaking.

Also, you don’t need to mess around with code snippets if you want to make your YouTube playlist feed responsive. Feeds for YouTube Pro automatically makes it responsive for you, right out of the box!

With that in mind, let’s look at how to embed a YouTube playlist in WordPress with a plugin, the easiest way.

Step 1: Download and Install the Feeds for YouTube Plugin

To get started, simply download and install the Smash Balloon Feeds for YouTube plugin first. For more details, see this step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After, navigate to Feeds for YouTube » License from your WordPress dashboard and enter your license key.

Remember to click the Save Changes button and move on to the next step.

Step 2: Connect Your YouTube Account

Next, in your WordPress admin panel, click the Feeds for YouTube menu so you can visit the Configure page of the plugin.

Click the blue button to “Log into YouTube and connect an account.”

Then, the plugin will ask for permission to connect to your Google account. After following the on-screen instructions and confirming, you’ll be sent back to the Configure page with your YouTube account connected.

Several features of the plugin need your YouTube API Key to work properly. For example, you need to enter your YouTube API key to embed a playlist feed on your website.

Don’t worry, we’ve created this documentation for creating and using an API Key to help you get started.

Once you’ve entered your API key, you can access different feed type options, which we’ll explain in the next step.

Step 3: Choose the Playlist Feed Type

The Feeds for YouTube plugin offers 6 feed types you can show on your website, including:

1. Channel
2. Playlist
3. Favorites
4. Search
5. Live Streams
6. Single Videos

To display a YouTube playlist in WordPress, click the Playlist feed type, and enter your playlist’s ID.

The ID is a string of letters and numbers shown after the “=” symbol in your playlist’s URL.

Once you’ve added your playlist ID, click the Save Changes button.

Step 4: Select a Playlist Layout

By default, your YouTube feed displays a simple grid of videos on your website.

Clicking the Customize tab allows you to choose from a total of 4 different feed styles. This way, you can show your YouTube playlist feed in a style that works best for your site.

For example, clicking the Gallery option lets you show your first video in a full-width layout at the top of your feed, and smaller thumbnails in a grid below. Here’s a screenshot of how your YouTube playlist will look like using the gallery layout:

When you’re happy with your chosen layout and have entered your preferred number of columns and posts, click Save Changes. Then you can move on to embedding your feed.

Step 5: Embedding a YouTube Playlist in WordPress Posts or Pages

The next step is to add your playlist to a new post or page in WordPress. We’re going to create a new page under Pages » Add New for our playlist feed.

In your new page, click the Plus (+) symbol to add a new WordPress block, then select the Feeds for YouTube block from the Widgets section.

Your YouTube playlist is then instantly added to your page with the layout and button options you selected earlier.

If you’re using the classic WordPress editor, simply paste your feed’s shortcode directly into the page.

If you want, you can embed your YouTube playlist in your website’s sidebar area. We’ll show you how to do that in the next method.

2. Embed a YouTube Playlist on WordPress Sidebar

For this method, we’ll continue using the Feeds for YouTube plugin to embed your YouTube playlist widget in your WordPress website’s sidebar or footer widget area.

First, follow the steps above to connect your account and choose your layout.

Then, from your WordPress admin panel, navigate to Appearance » Widgets to view your available WordPress widgets and sidebars.

Next, find the YouTube Feed widget and drag it to your chosen widget area. You can drag it to your sidebar or footer area. In this YouTube playlist tutorial, we’re adding ours to our footer widget area.

Remember to click Save to preserve your settings.

After, you can navigate to your website and see how your playlist looks like.

3. Embed YouTube Playlists With oEmbeds

Don’t want to take advantage of the extensive customization options and ease-of-use a WordPress plugin?

There are other ways to embed your playlist — they’ll just be harder to follow and more complicated to customize, though. Plus, you won’t have access to top-notch customer support.

To add a very basic version of your playlist in WordPress, copy the playlist’s URL and paste it directly into your page or post editor.

WordPress will fetch your playlist from YouTube and automatically display it in your post using a technology called oEmbed.

The result is a single video with a menu you can click to reveal other videos in the playlist.

Want to customize how your YouTube playlist looks like?

Using this method, you need to manually tweak code snippets or hire an expensive developer to help you. That’s why it’s not the best option if you’re a WordPress beginner or if your marketing budget is limited.

4. Embed a YouTube Playlist Using <iframe>

The final method for embedding your playlist in WordPress involves using an iFrame embed code.

To do this, navigate to your playlist’s YouTube page and click the Share icon, as you can see below:

Then choose the Embed option from the lightbox popup.

A lightbox popup containing a video and your embed code appears on the screen. Highlight all of that code and copy it to your clipboard.

Then navigate to your post or page in WordPress and click the Plus (+) symbol to add a new content block.

Now click the Custom HTML block, which you can find in the Formatting section.

Within the block, paste the iFrame embed code you copied from YouTube and click Publish.

When you preview the page, you’ll see your playlist displayed in a similar format to the previous method.

The Best Way to Embed YouTube Playlists

In this article, we’ve covered 4 different ways to embed YouTube playlists in WordPress.

Out of them all, using the Feeds for YouTube plugin is by far the best way to get your playlists working and looking exactly how you want.

The plugin also lets you add different types of YouTube content to your website, so it’s an easy way to delight your audience with relevant videos and boost your subscribers.

Get started with Feeds for Youtube by Smash Balloon today!

Interested in getting more subscribers? You may want to read this next post on the best YouTube plugins to increase your subscribers right now.

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