How to add images to WordPress blog posts
With the new WordPress editor, it is easier to create excellent content for your blog. In this post, I am going to show you how to add images to WordPress.
In the WordPress editor, you can add single images, images with text, galley images, and images side by side. I will show you step by step on how to prepare and compress your images.
Images take up space on your hosting server, therefore it is important to get your images right.
Let’s get started.
- Preparing your images
- Add images to your blog post
- Single images
- Image and text
- Gallery
- Columns
- Compress your images with a plugin
- Add images to WordPress video tutorial
- Conclusion
Preparing your images
Before you upload your images to WordPress you should re-size them. If you upload full resolution images to your blog, your page will take forever to load.
Before I upload images to my blog, I resize them with a free online tool called, ‘resizeimage.net‘.
Upload your image to this tool, specify the size you require, then click on the ‘resize image’ link at the bottom of the page.
Add images to your blog post
The new WordPress editor uses blocks, the blocks make it easier to design beautiful and engaging blog posts.
To add images you have different block types. You can add single images, galleries, images with text, and multiple images side by side.
Let’s look at each type.
Single images
To add a single image, click on the ‘+’ symbol on the top left, in the popup menu look for ‘image’.
If you don’t see ‘Image’ in the popup menu, type ‘image’ in the ‘Search for a block’ search bar. Once you find the icon, click on it to create a new block.
From the new block, select ‘Upload’, and choose the image you want to add to your post. Once you have added your image, you should also write a short description of what the image is. This is called ‘Alt Text’, you can add this text to the box on the right.
‘Alt text’ is good for SEO (search engine optimization). When Google visits your website, the ‘Alt text’ helps them understand what the image displays.
Image and text
This block allows you to have two halves, one half has your image, the other half has text.
In the block popup, it is called ‘Media & text’.
You upload your image using the ‘Upload’ link and type your text next to your image. You can swap the image to be on the right or left.
Gallery
The gallery block allows you to display multiple images on your blog.
From the block popup, look for ‘Gallery’, if it isn’t listed in your most-used icons, you can type ‘Gallery’ into the search bar or open ‘Common blocks’.
You can add as many images as you like to the ‘Gallery’ block. On the right, you can change the column setting and also select the option to have images the same size.
Columns
An alternative to the gallery block is the ‘Columns’ block. With a ‘Column’ block you can build blocks within blocks.
You can have anything you want within the columns, images, text&images, text, Q&A, etc…
Compress your images with a plugin
Loading speed is one of the many factors Google looks at when ranking websites. Slow websites don’t rank high because they give a poor user experience. How do you feel when a website takes ages to load? You don’t hang around, right?
Images are one of the reasons why websites are slow to load, it takes a while for the data to transfer to the user’s browser. To help reduce this loading speed, you can compress the images stored on your website.
For my websites, I use the plugin ‘ShortPixel’. When you sign up, you get 100 images automatically compressed free per month. If you need more images compressed, they have several paid plans.
You can download this plugin through your plugin library. Type ‘ShortPixel’ into the search box.
Or, you can go directly to the ShortPixel website. Select the monthly plan tab, and sign up for the 100 free images plan.
Add images to WordPress video tutorial
Conclusion
Images help make your blog content more engaging for your visitors. With the new WordPress editor, adding images to your blog post is so easy.
You have many options when adding images. You can add single images, images with text, or galleries.
Images take valuable space on your host’s server so it is important to prepare your images by resizing them before you upload. Once uploaded to your site, you need to compress them to make them take up as little space on your site as possible.
Compressing your images helps your site loading speed, which is important for ranking in Google. Google does not like slow sites. I use the plugin Shortpixel. With ShortPixel, you get 100 free images per month, if you are a new site with few images, this is a great start.
If you want to learn more about WordPress, then please check out my YouTube channel, or go to my WordPress tutorial post category.
Comments
How do you resize your images?
What plugin do you use to compress your images?
I look forward to reading your comments.
