3 Super Easy Ways to Add WordPress Audio Player
Did you know that time spent listening to online audio content is at a record high? This means that people are gorging on podcasts, audiobooks, online radio, and much more. Whether your website promotes your art or business, you really cannot go wrong with incorporating audio content and adding WordPress audio player to your site.
On average, people spend 17 hours per week listening to online audio content per week, and around 14 million new users have turned podcasts into their new weekly habit in 2018. Things have nowhere to go but up, so if you’re looking for new ways to make your website and brand come alive, audio content is a safe game.
There are a few ways to add audio content to your WordPress website – you can easily embed a YouTube video in WordPress. However, if you don’t want to rely on any third-parties, it’s just as easy to upload audio files to your own server and display them in a ready-to-go WordPress audio player.
There are three ways to incorporate WordPress audio player into your website – let’s see which one is the right fit for you.
Classic Editor
If you’re using a classic WordPress editor, here’s the simplest way to add WordPress audio player to your page or post.
Go to the page’s or post’s backend. Click on the Add Media button in the editor.
Select Create Audio Playlist and click on one of the two available options. If you already have audio files uploaded to your media library, click on Media Library to select them. If you still haven’t added your audio files to the website, click on Upload Files.
When you upload or select audio item, there are settings for each file’s description. It includes title, artist, album, as well as caption and description.
When you add all the details, click on Create a new playlist in the right lower corner. There you’ll find additional settings for the playlist. You can choose whether you want to show the full tracklist, artist’s name, and accompanying images.
Once you set up your place, you see the Insert audio playlist button in the right lower corner. Click on it to add the audio playlist to your page or post.
When you preview the page, the WordPress audio player should look like this.
This is the default WordPress audio player layout. If you want to customize it to blend it with your theme or color palette, you can change the settings or create an entire custom audio player.
Gutenberg Editor
If you are using Gutenberg editor on your WordPress site, adding an audio player to any section of your page or post gets even easier thanks to Gutenberg blocks. Go to the page’s or post’s backend, click on the “+” icon in the editor and search for the audio block. Click on the result.
Just like in classical editor, you have the options to upload files from your computer or to select audio files that are already available in the media library. However, there is also an additional option to insert audio from the URL. If you choose this option, be careful what kind of file you’re adding from the URL. For example, if you add the file from YouTube, it will be embedded as a video, not a track.
The downside of the Gutenberg editor is that it doesn’t offer the option to create a playlist – you can insert only a single audio file. If you want to create a WordPress audio playlist in Gutenberg, you’ll have to install a plugin that enables it.
However, there are some cool options you won’t find in the classical editor, such as enabling autoplay and loop.
This is the look of the WordPress audio player built with Gutenberg.
Theme With an Audio Player
If you’re running a website where audio content is one of the primary features, it’s much easier to skip classical and Gutenberg editor and simply install a fitting WordPress theme. It will provide you with numerous functionalities that will make it easy to upload, display, and promote audio content.
Take a look at the music WordPress theme Credence. Although it was designed for bands, singers, and producers, thanks to its customizability and great functionalities, it can easily transform into a website for your podcast.
Credence comes with nine homepage layouts, sporting a modern, fresh style. It is packed with layouts that allow you to effortlessly organize hundreds of audio files in discography or theme catalogs. This would take hours in classical or Gutenberg editor, but with an audio-oriented theme, uploading and organizing hours of audio content won’t take more than one hour.
Your audio player will be on-par with the rest of your website’s visuals, and you also have amazing options to add interesting descriptions, album art, backgrounds, and cool animations.
Credence is integrated with multiple music platforms, so you can easily insert audio and video content from YouTube, Spotify, Deezer, Soundcloud, Vimeo, AmazonMp3, and many other platforms. There is also an option to embed playlists directly from these platforms.
But this is not where Credence’s features end. You can also announce your shows or speaking events using tour & event templates. If you want to sell merchandise, there are ready online shop layouts that easily integrate with eCommerce plugins and payment gateways.
Conclusion
Based on your needs and volume of audio content you publish, you can easily choose which method of adding WordPress audio player to your website is the most suitable for you. Our recommendation is to build your site from the ground up having its purpose and content on your mind.
If you aren’t sure what kind of theme may be the right choice for your site, take a look at this list of creative WordPress themes for beginners.
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
