WordPress and Your Online Success – Using Images in Posts

WordPress has long led the industry in terms of popular blogging frameworks, but things have changed recently. Today, this framework is no longer confined to just blogs – everyone can use it. You’ll find professionally developed Premium WordPress themes for any need, whether you run an ecommerce site with thousands of products or want to create an online portfolio of your photography work. Another change to the way WordPress works today is the ease with which you can add images to your posts and then optimize those images to boost search engine rankings. What should you know?

Easy Upload

WordPress is constantly being updated as new methods to make using it easier are found. One update made is the simplicity of adding an image to your posts. While it’s always been relatively simple to put a picture (or several pictures) in your posts, it’s now even better. To start, just start a new post (Add New from the Posts menu). Once the new post page has loaded, click the Add media button at the top of the form field (just under the post title). This feature lets you add any type of media, from pictures to music and video files.

To add a picture, you have two options – you can add from your existing media library or you can upload a file. For the purposes of this introduction, we’re going to add a new file. Click the Upload Files link at the top of the page, and a new field will open below, allowing you to just drag and drop a file into the area (the size of your upload will be limited by your web-hosting provider). Once you have your file uploaded, you have a few basic options immediately visible – picture size, alignment on the page, etc. What you want is the link that says “Edit Image”. Clicking this link will take you to a new page where you can make further changes. Here’s what you need to do:

Caption:  The caption for the image will be displayed as text beneath the photo – “Bill’s farewell party”, “Jenna’s new iPhone”, etc. Make sure you use keywords within the caption to enhance search engine results.

Alternative Text: This is your image’s ALT tag field. You can add anything relevant here, including keywords, so make the most of it.

Description: Here, you can add a longer description of the image than what you can in the caption field. Again, use your keywords within this field for even better SEO.

Note that if you have the Yoast plug-in installed, you can amp up your visibility even more by defining the focus keyword, the SEO title and the Meta description for the image as well.

Use Your Images Correctly

Many WordPress themes out there give you the ability to use an image as a “Featured Image” for the post. This image will be shown as a thumbnail with the preview of the post (if you have post previews enabled, rather than the traditional in-line blog format). This can be a great way to add visual interest to the front page of your site and entice readers to click on the blog post to read further.

Make sure that you use this feature to your advantage. When you set the featured image, you’ll have access to the same fields as mentioned above (these will apply to every post/area where the image is used, not just the one featured instance).

You Need the Right Theme

Using visual elements in your blog posts and throughout your site is vital today. Users are no longer content with just large chunks of text – you’ll discover that this is a huge turn off. Use images throughout your posts to break up text and to add visual stimulation. However, you can do a number of other things with images as well.

For instance, some WordPress themes offer the ability to add an image carousel to your site and even individual posts. This can be an enticement to those users who just want “eye candy”. It can also work well for photographers, designers and visual artists. You can create an image carousel on the front page of your site so your users can scroll through the latest images uploaded. You can take it a step further and add the ability to highlight all the images within a post at the top of the page on which the post appears (within the actual post itself, not the main page of your site).

Adding images is simple, easy and effective with today’s WordPress themes, and you’ll find that you can easily optimize them for better search engine rankings and more visibility. Make sure that you are using these capabilities to their fullest extent, or you’ll be missing an important opportunity.

These are main reasons why you should use images in posts.

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Olga Ionel

Olga Ionel is an original writer at ThemeFuse.com - a leader in the premium WordPress themes industry. She is fond of sharing Online Marketing and Blogging ideas.

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• WordPress and Your Online Success – Using Images in Posts - January 1, 1970