Publishing articles with feature images

Feature images can give meaning and context, encourage social sharing, and help differentiate your posts.

BySherwin Arnott
Looking over the shoulder of a person takes a photo of their soup with their smart phone, but a lizard is the screen.

Not every dispatch has to have it’s own feature image. But, on the other hand, it’s really nice.1

I encourage folks to add a feature image. Feature images can be beautiful, improve reach and impact, and give meaning, improve clickiness, and add whimsy. But I don’t want it to be an obstacle to publishing. It’s better to publish without an image than get stuck.

Also, there is no best image format. There just isn’t. But here’s the recommendations I give most often, to most people these days for the feature images on their blog posts.

Summary guidelines

  1. Use a feature image that is 1200 x 630 1400 x 735 pixels,
  2. Compress the image to less than 150kb 250kb 300kb; less is better,
  3. Use JPG
  4. When you upload the image:
    • add a simple title so you can find it later in the media library,
    • add alternative text,
  5. Respect copyright, and understand the provenance of the image.

A few resources to help you

For cropping, editing and compressing, there are many tools. I use Photoshop, but there are many alternatives. I recommend looking around for an app for your phone. Here’s a few I can recommend:

See also:

Uploading and inserting photos with WordPress

Notes

  1. See for example, Not every article needs a picture.