How to Put Links in a YouTube Background
YouTube allows you to upload and share video content with millions of users and has rapidly become a popular platform for all kinds of artistic, cultural and political expression. YouTube also allows users to set up user profiles in order to create video collections and attract subscriptions to individual YouTube channels. These channel profiles allow users and video creators to do several interesting things with their videos, including adding links in the background of videos to guide viewers to other content.
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Instructions
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Open the Annotations Editor
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Sign in to your YouTube account and click on your username icon on the top right corner of the screen to display the drop-down menu.
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Select "My Videos" from the drop-down menu.
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Click on the down arrow next to the video you wish to edit. The down arrow is located next to the "Insight" button to the right of the video and will open another drop-down menu. Select "Annotations" from the options to open the annotations editor window.
Adding an Annotated Link
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Click on the "Add Annotation" button on the right side of the editor window.
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Select an annotation type. YouTube allows you to select between five different types of annotations: a speech bubble, a mouse-over spotlight that displays text when the user places his mouse over the area, a simple text note, a pause feature that will stop the video while the message appears and a title for text overlay without a background. All of the annotations can contain links.
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Move your annotation location by dragging and dropping over the video or by using your keyboard arrows to move the location by one pixel. Hold down the "Shift" key and use your keyboard arrows to move the annotation 10 pixels in any direction.
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Select a time under the "Timing" option in which your link will appear. Specify both a start and stop time for the link to appear on the video screen.
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Check the "Link" box at the bottom of your options. Select a link type from the drop-down menu to the right and enter your full link text in the form "www.youtube.com/example" in the text box below. Save and publish your link.
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Tips & Warnings
In order to avoid spam and unauthorized advertising, YouTube only allows users to insert links to other YouTube content.
References
- Photo Credit Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images
