Embedding video on a public-facing Internet site is easy with SharePoint Online in Office 365. And it doesn't matter whether your video is hosted within a SharePoint library or on a third-party video hosting site, such as Bing Video or YouTube. The secret lies in the embed code. While using an embed code might sound frightening or difficult, it really isn't. This blog post demystifies the process for you.

What is an embed code?

The embed code is a collection of simple HTML attributes that when combined, control both the display and behavior of video on a web page. Here's the embed code I used to put video on a fictitious web site called Fabrikam:

<embed src="http://fabrikamol.sharepoint.com/Vid/Wildlife.wmv" width="320" height="260"/>

The first half of the code specifies the URL of the video that will be displayed (see two different procedures below for acquiring this URL). The URL includes the file name and location of the video in the SharePoint library. The remaining segments of the embed code control the size of the window where the video player will be embedded. Although, in this example, I'm embedding a Windows Media Player (note the .wmv extension indicating Windows Media Video), you can embed Silverlight and Flash players as well.

Video hosted in a SharePoint library

1. Log into your team site.
2. Navigate to the Internet-facing website section of your site collection.
   
   
   
3. Upload the video or videos into a folder that you use exclusively for Internet-ready content. You might want to create a folder specifically for videos.
4. Double-click the video to make sure it works as expected. Then right-click the video file and choose Properties.
5. Copy the URL of the video and paste it someplace safe, such as in Notepad or another text editor. You'll need this for the embed code later.
   
      
   
6. Navigate to the site collection for your Internet site and choose the page on which you'll insert the video.
7. When that page opens, place your cursor in the zone where the video should be inserted.
8. On the Insert tab, in the Gadgets group, click Video.
   
   
   
9. Insert the embed tag that includes the video URL copied in step 5 and click Preview. When satisfied with the video playback, click OK.
   
      
   
10. To preview the video on your website, go to the Home tab, and in the Site group click View. Note that end users will not see this video until you publish it.
    
     

Video hosted on a video-hosting site

1. Locate the video that you want to embed in your web page.
2. If the video has an embed code available, it will be indicated by an embed label or link on the page near the video. Click the embed link and copy the code. If the video that you want to embed is on YouTube, you can use the URL of the video instead of the code. 
   
   
3. Log into your team site.
4. Navigate to the site collection for your Internet-facing site and choose the page on which you'll insert the video.
   
   
   
5. When that page opens, place your cursor in the zone where the video should be inserted.
6. On the Insert tab, in the Gadgets group, click Video.
7. Insert the the embed code or video URL copied in step 2 and click Preview. When satisfied with the video playback, click OK.
8. To preview the video on your website, go to the Home tab, and in the Site group click View. Note that end users will not see this video until you publish it.

A note about blogs

SharePoint Online does not enable embedded video on blogs at this time. The procedures above apply to web pages only.