Almost every WordPress theme comes with featured images as a standard component. Featured images are also called thumbnails. All main WordPress themes have default support for them.
Why are they important? They are the main images that all of your posts feature. When you add an image to a post, it appears as a thumbnail when you send a link to the post you write. The image is visible under your post’s title.
This guide shares a few good practices for choosing featured images in WordPress.
Best Practices for Choosing a Featured Image in WordPress
Keep a consistent style
Featured images make up a great deal of the media visitors to your site can see. Each post or article you write has a unique WordPress image that can surface in several locations.
Choose the image wisely because it represents your site and your brand’s content in part. All of your featured images should have certain elements in common. Many WordPress users choose images that appear relevant to a post, but this isn’t a good idea.
If you opt for abstract photos, use them consistently. The same with greyscale photos, real-life photos, etc.
In every event, your images must reflect your site’s tone and branding.
Optimize featured images
Your site has to load quickly if you want it to be successful. If it takes three or more seconds to load, your visitor is likely to leave.
Large, high-res images can slow a website down substantially. To avoid this problem, optimize every featured image you use on WordPress before uploading it.
To do this while you upload, you must change the file size of the images. The end result will be a lightweight image that won’t damage your site’s speed.
How to change image size
To change featured images’ sizes, first check the WordPress theme you’re using. Many of the most commonly used themes replace default image dimensions with their own. Look for your theme’s Appearance tab and the options under it to adjust the dimensions.
You need to make these changes in the WordPress core software if your theme of choice has no setting to adjust image dimensions. This isn’t as complicated as it sounds. Go to Settings > Media in the dashboard and look for Thumbnail Sizes. “Thumbnails” means the same as “featured images.” Enter the size required in the area by Thumbnail Sizes.
Use copyright-free images
This might sound obvious, but it’s very tempting to download images and repurpose them as your featured ones. In the long term, this won’t work in your favor. Almost every image on Google is owned by someone. You won’t be allowed to use most of these images for free on your WordPress website.
If you know someone who’s good at photography or you are, it’s best to make your own original featured images for your WordPress site. You can use an illustrated image if that kind of style is suitable for your content.
Featured images are a crucial element of WordPress. They make a visual portrayal of your brand possible. Your audience will benefit from appealing images on your pages and posts.
Finally, featured images increase user engagement and can drive more traffic to your site.
