How to Upload WordPress Images for Beginners

A picture is worth a thousand words couldn’t ring truer when it comes to writing on your blog, which is rather ironic. As good as your text or other content might be, you could be handicapping your website when you choose to ignore the immersive powers of images. That’s why it’s essential for newbie bloggers to learn how to upload WordPress images.

It sounds easy enough, right? However, in WordPress and search engine optimization (SEO), simplicity can be deceiving. There are hidden layers of methods one usually has to observe in order to fully maximize keywords and every other resource you have to help your blog rank better. Suffice to say, to upload WordPress images is to optimize your SEO.

It’s not just an act of placing icebreakers in your content or visual aids. So, we’re here to inform you of the proper ways to upload WordPress images if you’re a beginner who’s looking to maximize them for your blog. These steps below ought to help.

1. Tweak your image first before uploading it

So you finally found and downloaded the perfect image that complements the content well? Hold your horses and don’t upload it just yet. You need to make sure that it has the proper size both in bytes and in resolution. If you’re on Windows, simply mouse over the image and you’ll see a popup dialogue box containing information such as the data size of the image as well as the resolution.

You’ll want to make sure that the data size is only in kilobytes (KB) because anything bigger than that will exponentially tax your website and the servers when uploading and downloading. In addition, visitors with slow internet might get frustrated with the long loading time of the image if it’s too big. So, do everyone a favor and try to compress the image data size with tools like this.

In addition, images that are too big in resolution tend to be bad especially for mobile viewing as they take up the whole screen. If they’re not too important, try to make the resolution smaller (below 2000 pixels for the width) or even crop it at a ratio of 2:1. Tools like this one can do it for you easily with minimal quality loss.

Last but not least, you also might want to make sure that you have the correct image format. Usually, the most optimal one is JPEG or JPG. PNG provides the best image quality but it also comes at a bigger data size.

2. Christening your image

Okay, that sounds a tad dramatic but naming your images for better SEO is a useful practice. It ensures that your images are easily indexed and recognized when someone searches for something related to your article or the image itself. For best practices, you can even put the keyword of the article or the content on the image title.

To do this, you only need to right-click on your image and click on rename. There are cases, however, where your images need to maintain their original names especially for photography websites or other kinds of sites. This is a case per case basis so you might want to discuss with the site owner or admin the best course of action.

3. Upload

Now the moment you’ve been waiting for, uploading the image itself. Ever since WordPress updated its editor to Gutenberg from WYSIWYG, uploading images has never been easier in WordPress. If you have the Gutenberg editor and did not purge it with a Classic Editor plugin, then you can simply drag and drop the images from your computer, or even the site itself (assuming the name, file type, and size are appropriate).

Meanwhile, if you do have the Classic Editor whether by using a plugin or refusing to update (which is not advised), then dragging and dropping is not something we recommend. Instead, you’ll want to click on the spot where you want to put the image and then click on the “Add Media” button on the upper left corner of the editor toolbar.

This will open up a screen like this:

At the top, you can choose to upload the image (Upload Files) you have on your computer or pick an uploaded one on your online media gallery for the blog. Before you finally click on “Insert into post,” read the next entry below.

4. Alt text and other data

Now, before you finally upload the image and insert it on the content, you have one final bit of data to input. That would be the Caption and the alt text. The usual SEO recommendation is to place the keyword into the alt text bar in order to better optimize your images, especially if they’re directly related to the keyword. As for how many images need their alt text bars filled with keywords depends on your text length.

As for the image Caption, this is the perfect place to put your image’s credits or source especially if you obtained it from a rather sensitive owner (assuming you asked for permission). This could also be a great way to build links or promote other blogs or websites. For a guide on how to do proper image crediting, refer to this article.

5. Image alignment and placement

Last but not least, we have the final touches of uploading your images for your content. Depending on your preferences, you can either pick the centered, left, or no alignment. If you want a newspaper-style layout, you can choose the text-wrap option for your image, assuming it’s a small enough size for the text to wrap around.

Moreover, you’ll want to be strategic with your image placements, especially for articles. It’s better to spread them out throughout the content and to place them in areas where visual aids can help with reading comprehension. Follow these steps and we promise you’ll see longer staying times for visitors.

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Author: Natividad Sidlangan