When used properly, background videos can instantly grab a visitor’s attention and keep them on your website. This makes videos a great choice for landing pages and sales pages. In this article, we will show you how to add a YouTube video as a fullscreen background on your WordPress website.
Why Use a YouTube Video as a Fullscreen Background? An engaging and eye-catching video background is a great way to keep visitors on your site. When visitors first land on your WordPress website, you only have a few seconds to grab their attention and get them to stay. These days, many different WordPress themes support video backgrounds. However, uploading and hosting a video on WordPress can take a lot of bandwidth. Depending on your WordPress hosting plan, you might even have to buy extra storage. At WPBeginner, we highly recommend not uploading your videos to WordPress. Instead, you can use a service like YouTube and then embed the video as a background for your WordPress website. In this way, you can stand out from your competitors without slowing down your website. That said, let’s see how you can add a YouTube video as a fullscreen background on your WordPress website. We will show you two methods, and you can use these quick links to navigate between them:
Method 1: Use Advanced WordPress Backgrounds for Fullscreen Video Background (Free)If you are looking for a free and easy way to add a YouTube video as a fullscreen background, then you can use Advanced WordPress Backgrounds. This free plugin adds a Background block that allows you to create a fullscreen background using any color, image, or video, including YouTube videos.
Method 2: Use Thrive Architect to Add a Fullscreen Video Background (Recommended)If you are looking to fully customize your fullscreen background video or even easily design all the pages on your website, then this method is for you. The best way to add a YouTube video as a fullscreen background is with Thrive Architect. Thrive Architect is an easy-to-use page builder plugin made for beginners in mind. Besides a video background feature, it has a drag-and-drop functionality that is flexible to use, so you can create the website you want without any hassle. Additionally, it comes with smart landing page templates that are optimized for conversions, so your landing page is set up for success from the get-go. For more information about Thrive Architect, you can read our Thrive Architect review. If you want to use this method, go ahead and purchase a Thrive Architect plan first. It’s available for purchase as a standalone product or as part of the Thrive Themes bundle. Then, simply install the plugin. You can check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for more information. After that, you can go to ‘Pages’ from the WordPress admin area and select a page to edit. Hover over the page and choose ‘Edit with Thrive Architect.’
