You can add a video as featured image on your website, which will help visitors quickly identify the content of the video, even before they watch it. With PostX, you can easily achieve this. This tutorial will walk you through the process of adding a WordPress featured video instead of image. So, how can we display WordPress video as featured image?
For displaying featured video instead of image you need to follow the steps:
- Step 1: Install PostX
- Step 2: Add Featured Video to Desired Post
- Step 3: Display the Featured Video on the Blog Post
- Step 4: Customize the Featured Video (Optional)
What is WordPress Featured Video?
WordPress featured video, also known as featured video thumbnail, is an interesting feature to add videos instead of featured image to your WordPress posts, pages, and custom post types. It allows you to embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, other video-hosting services, and self-hosted videos.
Why Should We Display WordPress Featured Video Instead of Image?
As businesses continue to use WordPress to manage their websites, many are looking for ways to make their content more engaging and visually appealing. A great way to do this is by adding a video as a WordPress featured video to the WordPress posts. You can also highlight your posts using the PostX featured slider or featured posts.
A great benefit of adding a video as a featured image to your WordPress posts is that it can help boost your SEO rankings. Search engines like Google rank pages with videos higher in their search results, as videos are more engaging and informative than text alone.
It can be a great way to connect with your audience. Adding a video as a featured image to your post can help draw in visitors and make them more likely to engage with your content. Additionally, featuring a video can attract your readers quickly.
How to Display WordPress Video as Featured Image
Enough talks about the featured video, but did we mention you can’t add or display a WordPress video as featured image without using a plugin? You’ll need a plugin for that.
Confused about which plugin to choose? Well, we have a solution: PostX, the #1 Gutenberg Dynamic Site Builder Plugin.
With PostX’s Featured Videos and Thumbnails feature, you can easily add videos as featured images for your WordPress posts.
Video Tutorial
Here’s a short video where you can see how you can display WordPress video as featured image:
So let’s move towards the steps of displaying WordPress featured video.
Step 1: Install PostX
The first step of using PostX is by installing it. Here’s how you can install it.
- Go to the “Plugins” section on your WordPress dashboard.
- Then click on “Add New.”
- On the right search panel, type “PostX.”
- You should now see the PostX plugin.
- Click on “Install.”
- Then you can click on the highlighted “Activate” button.
You can now add WordPress featured videos instead of images on your WordPress posts. This feature allows you to embed and showcase videos on your website easily. You can also add a custom video playback icon to the thumbnails to make them more recognizable. Additionally, the feature includes a sticky video preview while scrolling to ensure a seamless video experience.
Step 2: Add Featured Video To Desired Post
This step allows you to add a featured video thumbnail to your post, making it more eye-catching and engaging for readers. To add a WordPress video as featured image to your post, follow these simple steps:
- First, go to the WordPress Dashboard and navigate to the post to which you want to add a featured video.
So, now you have entered the post for further editing. As you very well know, WordPress, by default, has the option to add “Featured Image” in the right sidebar. But we won’t be needing it today.
Adding a WordPress video as a featured image is relatively simple. Now, to add the featured video:
- From the right sidebar, click the Panel named “Post.”
- Scroll down till you see “Featured Video.”
- In the ‘PostX Featured Video” box, you can enter the Youtube/ Vimeo/Self-Hosted URL link.
- You can also Click “Upload/Use Media” to upload the video to your media library and select it as the featured video.
- Once the URL is pasted correctly or the video is uploaded successfully, you need to update your post by clicking the Update button in the top right corner of your page.
Now You have the featured video in place of your featured image. However, remember that the featured video is top on the priority list, so no matter if you have already added a featured image earlier and afterwards added the PostX featured video, your posts will show the WordPress video as featured image on the post, no matter what.
Step 3: Display the Featured Video on the Blog Post
Displaying the featured video’s thumbnail is likely the first thing you’ll think of after attaching the video.
You must create a template using the PostX Dynamic Site Builder to accomplish this.
Let us walk you through the process of making a single post template. If you want comprehensive instruction, you can go through our documentation.
Here’s a short version:
- Go to WordPress Dashboard → PostX → Site Builder. Now, Click “Add Singular.”
- If you want to create the template from scratch by adding Gutenberg blocks, click “Start from Scratch.”
- If you don’t want to get the extra hassle and want to use a premade template, select the desired template and click “Import.”
Afterward, you’ll see a template built with several customizable Gutenberg blocks by PostX. And if you do the process correctly, the featured video will be displayed properly.
So, let’s check if we have succeeded in displaying the featured video.
We have successfully displayed the WordPress featured video instead of image in the thumbnail. So, let’s move forward to the customization options.
Step 4: Customize the Featured Video (Optional)
If you have used PostX earlier, you know how much customizability this plugin gives you. The featured video has some customization options as well.
Adjust the Height, Width, and Alignment of the Video
- Go to the Video Settings of the “Post Featured Image/Video” block.
- We can customize the following options:
- Video Width
- Max Video Height
- Video Alignment (Left, Center, Right) and several other typographical settings.
Make the Video Sticky
We can also make the featured video sticky, so let’s see how we can do that.
- Select the “Post Featured Image/Video” block.
- Go to the Video Settings.
- Enable the “On Scroll Sticky Enable.”
Now let’s see if the sticky featured video is working or not.
Display Featured Video on Home and Archive Pages
You can also display the WordPress featured video instead of image on a home page or other archive pages. You can do that, too, with the help of PostX Dynamic Site Builder.
Same as a single post template, we need to create a home page or archive page template with the builder. Get the complete custom homepage creating tutorial here.
Here’s a short version:
- Go to WordPress Dashboard → PostX → Site Builder. Now, Click “Add Front_page.”
- If you want to create the template from scratch by adding Gutenberg blocks, click “Start from Scratch.”
- If you don’t want to get the extra hassle and want to use a premade template, select the desired template and click “Import.”
- Now you can publish the page, if you don’t want to make any more customizations.
Let’s see how it looks on the front-end.
You’ll see a home page with similar PostX Gutenberg Blocks. And also, see the typographical customization settings. You’ll see 2 interesting options: Play Icon Customization and Pop Up Enabler.
Customize Play Icon
You can customize the play icon for every featured video.
- Click on the Post Grid/ Post List you want to customize the icon.
- And you can change the following icon-related settings:
- Icon Color
- Icon over Color
- Icon Size
Enable Pop Up
The same goes for Pop Up settings.
- Select the Post Grid/ Post List.
- Toggle the “Enable Video Popup”
- Also, you can change the Close Icon Color, Close Hover Color, and Close Icon Size.
Let’s see how amazing the pop up looks.
Conclusion
In conclusion, adding WordPress video as featured image by PostX is an excellent way of enhancing the visual appeal of your news/magazine/blog-based website. This plugin makes adding featured videos to your posts incredibly easy, which can help engage your visitors with your content. With this plugin, you can easily add attractive featured videos to your WordPress website, increasing the likelihood that your visitors will stay on your page longer.
You can check out WordPress video tutorials on our YouTube Channel. Also, find us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates!
