Videos bring a website to life. They’re way more engaging than still images, and like webpage sliders, videos can help you share information. For example, visitors to your website may be looking for a product review or a how-to tutorial. Or perhaps potential clients or employers are examining your work. Regardless, video is a powerful, persuasive medium for any audience. Thankfully, various WordPress plugins make it easy to insert video right into your website.

Like photo galleries, video plugins for WordPress work best when leveraging a free video service, such as YouTube, Vimeo, and DailyMotion. These services are designed to optimize videos for use online, making the ideal video experience for your website visitors. Once your videos are uploaded to one of these services, you can then use a video plugin with WordPress to leverage your videos into your site with just a few clicks.

Of the countless plugins available, we identified three that are easy-to-use and offer unique features to help you get the most out of sharing videos on your WordPress site.

Artiss YouTube Embed
This is a powerful, simple method of embedding YouTube videos into your WordPress site.  Artiss has several customization capabilities including: sizing, playlists, multiple profile integration, transitions, and much more. It is also adds Google compatible metadata to the video output, making it ideal for SEO.

Vimeo SimpleGallery
This Vimeo plugin is great for sharing a gallery (or playlist) of videos. Create thumbnails for videos in your playlist and even set a Shadowbox or Thickbox in which to play your videos on your page. The plugin also fetches titles from your Vimeo automatically, as well as height and width. Despite all these features, we found it simple to use and easy to install.

Easy FancyBox
A simple and flexible media lightbox solution for your website. In addition to YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion support, Easy FancyBox also supports images, WordPress galleries, PDF, and SWF (flash files). This plugin is great way to incorporate videos in a beautiful overlay on your site, and Easy FancyBox is multi-site compatible and supports iFrame and Flash movies.

Let us know how these plugins worked for you. Or if you have a different plugin that you prefer, share it in the comments below! Remember, if the plugins mentioned here don’t fit your needs, you can always search for alternatives.

Tiffany
Bluehost

Bluehost is a special place to work. If you’ve ever called in seeking technical support, you know our team is amazingly good at actually helping solve technical issues. There are lots of reasons our people rock, but one major contributor is the fantastic culture Bluehost has cultivated from day one. This video is all about what life’s like here as a member of the Bluehost team. We think you’ll agree…it’s a good gig.

And in case you hadn’t heard, Bluehost is growing by leaps and bounds! We’re already one of the largest shared web hosts in the world and are always on the look out for passionate, talented individuals to join our team and help us take web hosting to the next level.

Check out our careers page for available positions. Every department is growing and more talent is needed across the board, from technical support staff to super savvy Perl Developers. If you’ve got what it takes, submit an application!

Technology may change, but every successful business still needs one thing: customers. Gone are the days of catalogs and phone books. Pretty much everyone now uses search engines (like Google) to find what they’re looking for. So if your business website doesn’t appear in search engine results, it’s almost like you don’t exist!

That’s where SEO comes in. SEO refers to actual actions that, if taken, help your website appear towards the top of relevant search results. This is what gives your website more traffic by interested individuals.

Our video explains all this and runs through a real-word example of why SEO is so important for a business, or any website for that matter that could benefit from increased web traffic. Hope it helps!

Our servers are optimized to host WordPress sites and our one-click installer makes it easy to get up and running in seconds. Still, to make it even easier for those new to WordPress, we’ve recently created video series demonstrating how to use it, step-by-step, click-by-click, and uploaded it to our Bluehost YouTube channel. Check it out and let us know what you think!

WordPress began as a blogging tool, but it has evolved over time: now it’s a full-blown content management system (CMS), which means it lets you to build a website without having to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc… Instead you just install WordPress on your Bluehost hosting account and log into an administrative “back-end” tool (or “Dashboard” as WordPress calls it). There you can upload pictures, add text, install free plugins, create pages, change the look and feel of the website, and more! WordPress handles all the complicated coding work for you so all you have to do is click publish.

Still, as with any tool, it does take a few minutes to learn how to use it. Our new WordPress Walkthrough series covers everything you need to know, from how to install it on your Bluehost hosting account to how to build real, functioning web pages. We demonstrate how to:

• create a home page
• change the theme and appearance add a photo gallery
• make a static page
• upload a resume
• add a blog
• install and use plugins
• insert pictures
• remove comments from pages
• and much more…

We’ve tried to make the videos quick, crisp, & clear as they guide you through the process of building a website step-by-step. In fact, you can visit the actual site we created to see the finished product! Check it out here: www.examplewordpress1.com

And we’re making more videos just like this, so make sure you don’t miss out! Subscribe to our Bluehost YouTube Channel, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter! And as always, let us know what you think and what you’d like to see next!

But how does it all work? Where do websites come from? If you’ve ever wanted to know the answer, just watch our video explaining the basics of how websites work, from start to finish. Check it out and let us know what you think!

See, a website is basically made up of files and computer code. The files are just like those on your computer at home, such as pictures from the last family reunion or the spreadsheets tracking quarterly revenue projections. The computer code then acts like the scaffolding behind the scenes. Written in languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc… this code instructs your computer on where the files go and what they do. So think of the files as pieces of a puzzle and the computer code as the instructions on how to solve it.

Now, these files need a place to be stored. Just like the music and photos on your computer, they take up hard drive space. Well, websites are stored on powerful computers called servers. And these servers have one purpose: to store and deliver data. (That’s why they’re called servers.) Often hundreds of these servers work together, stacked into towers; the effective apartment complexes of cyberspace, with each server holding many websites.

When you build a website, you rent space on these servers through a web hosting company, like us here at Bluehost. Then you upload all your text, photos, videos, and computer code, making it possible for anyone in the world to obtain these files and view your website.

But how do people find the servers on which websites are stored? When someone visits a website they usually enter a domain name into their browser, right? Well, here’ s what actually happens:

Each website address (or domain name) is tied to the IP address of the server on which it resides. Servers all have IP addresses, and these are managed and tracked via the Domain Name Server, or DNS, for short. Think of the DNS as phone book for computers, revealing the actual server IP address tied to a given domain name. Your computer can then use this information to find the correct server, connect to receive the files and computer code, and then present the information on your screen.

So that’s it. Now you know the basics of how websites work! Make sure to check out our video about SEO to find out how to help more people actually find your website.