How to Embed a Live Website in WordPress

A while back, I wrote a blog post titled “How to Create a Blog in WordPress”. In that post, I explained how to get started with blogging in WordPress. Since then, I’ve had a lot of requests to write more in-depth guides on a variety of topics related to blogging in WordPress. In this post, I’m going to cover the basics of embedding a live website in a WordPress blog.

The Benefits of Embedding a Live Website in WordPress

One of the biggest reasons why you might want to embed a live website in your WordPress blog is because it provides you with a ton of benefits. To name just a few:

• You can use any web hosting service you want
• Your live site will be accessible from any device
• You can use any CMS you want (content management system)
• Many plugins and add-ons available for free
• No theme or style restrictions
• Optimized for SEO
• Mobile-friendly
• A variety of tools available to make editing the content easier

Now, I know what you’re thinking. If all of that sounds good to you, how on earth did I manage to fit all of that on a single blog post? Don’t worry. I’ll give you the quick and dirty on how to do it. But first, let’s discuss a few more things you should know before you begin.

Things You Should Know

As I mentioned above, WordPress provides you with a variety of useful features and tools that help you to create a nice-looking blog. However, if you want to take advantage of all those features and tools, you need to know a few things first. Here are some of them:

• You need a premium version of WordPress to do all that
• You need a plugin to embed a live website in your blog
• The plugin should be updated frequently to benefit from all the latest features
• You need to have a domain that’s dedicated to hosting a WordPress blog
• You need to pick a perfect theme for your blog
• You need to optimize the heck out of your blog before you publish it
• And last but not least, you need to be a bit of a tech geek to be able to do all of that

Now that you have all that down, let’s get to the good stuff. How do you actually embed a live website in a WordPress blog?

Step 1: Select the Right Plugin

As I mentioned above, WordPress provides you with a variety of plugins that allow you to do a variety of things. One of the first things you need to do is to select the right one. You want to find a plugin that allows you to embed a live website, but doesn’t unnecessarily bloat the size of your blog. For that, you can check out this post from the WordPress blog where I walk you through the steps to find the perfect WordPress plugin for your needs. At the end of it, you’ll have a shortlist of recommended plugins based on your needs.

Step 2: Install and Activate the Plugin

Once you’ve picked out the right plugin, the next step is to install and activate it on your WordPress blog. To do that, you’ll need to visit the WordPress Admin area of your blog and click on the Plugins tab in the dashboard. From here, you’ll see a list of all the plugins you have installed on your blog. To add a new plugin, click on the Add New button at the top of the page. You’ll then see a menu with all the different types of plugins available for WordPress. Click on the one you want and hit the Install button.

Once installed, you’ll see a green checkmark next to the plugin’s name. To activate the plugin, simply click on the Activate button next to it.

Step 3: Create Your Blog Post

The next step is to create your blog post to embed the live website in. For the purpose of this tutorial, I’m going to use the free Blogger platform because that’s what I happen to be most familiar with, but you can use whatever blogging platform you want. If you’re new to blogging or feel a little bit lost, check out my other blog post where I walk you through the basics of blogging in WordPress.

Once you’re in your Blogger dashboard, you’ll see your blog posts along the top. At the end of each post, you’ll see the option to ‘Add a comment’ or ‘Create a new post’. For the purposes of this tutorial, let’s say you want to add a new post. To do that, simply click on the ‘Post’ button at the top of your blog’s screen.

You’ll then see a form where you can enter your post’s content. To embed a live website in your post, simply enter the website’s URL in the ‘Website URL’ (*required*) field and click on the Add Comment button.

A popup window will then appear with all the comments that have been made on your post. Simply click on the “x” next to any comment to delete it. Once you’re done, simply hit the Publish button above the comments to publish your post. You can also add an image to your post by clicking on the “Image” icon below the text area. For this tutorial, I’ll put in an example of what a post with an image and some text might look like.

To embed a live website in your post, simply go back to your post and click on the ‘Edit’ button in the top-right corner.

You’ll then see a popup window with all the different content elements available for you to adjust. Simply hit the Update button at the bottom of the page to save your changes and continue editing.

Step 4: Preview and Publish Your Blog Post

After you’ve entered all of the content you want to feature in your post, you need to preview it to make sure all the HTML, CSS, and images are embedded correctly. Simply click on the Preview button at the bottom of the form to preview your post.

To test out your post’s look before you publish it, simply click on the Preview button again and you’ll see a different set of content fields. At the top of the page, you’ll see your post’s content with the image and any comments already entered. Below that, you’ll see the post’s HTML with links to other websites and social media accounts. Alongside all that, you’ll see the different elements used to style the post. For example, if you want to add a background image to your post, you can do so by clicking on the ‘Block’ icon next to ‘Background’ in the Preview screen. Doing that will give you a ton of options in terms of the images you can use.

To test out your post’s content, simply click on the Preview button again. This time, you’ll see all the various components that go into making up your post. For example, you can edit the images used in the post or simply look at the post’s content in a pop-up window.

If everything looks good, simply hit the ‘Publish’ button at the bottom of the page to go live with your post.

Step 5: Set Up the Necessary Automation

After you’ve successfully embedded a live website in your WordPress blog post, the last step is to set up the necessary automation to protect and maintain your blog. To do that, you can use a free service like Kissmetrics to track posts, comments, and other relevant metrics for your blog. Once set up, you can use the service to monitor the performance of your blog.

You can also use Bitly to shorten URLs and track them in a list. With these steps, you should be able to successfully embed a live website in your WordPress blog. From there, you can continue to use WordPress to power your blog’s content.