There are a few crucial things to know about preparing and adding images to your site.
The big don’t is do NOT upload images straight from your camera. They will undoubtedly be much too big both in dimension and in file size weight. And while you CAN reduce their size withing WordPress this will greatly slow down your site and annoy your visitors. So, if you do not have an image editing tool such as Photoshop what to do? Simple… use PicMonkey used to be free, easy-to-use online image editor. Or download the free Gimp to edit offline. Someone else recommended this very simple, free, online image resizer.
Here are a few guidelines for web images:
Choose images that help tell your story and crop to what is essential.- Don’t embed important text inside images.
- Re-size the image dimensions to be roughly the size you want it to appear on your site. A general guideline is around 250-300 px wide.
- The exception to this is if it’s an infographic or chart or some other image that viewers may want to see enlarged so they read the details.
Save optimized for the web which compressed the pixels so the file size is smaller. Most web images are saved as jpg files. Both png and gif files also work on the web though they have special uses (transparent backgrounds and animation). You cannot use TIFF and EPS files on the web.- Give your images detailed, informative file names as it helps with SEO.
- When you add the image in WordPress be sure to add an alt tag and title words. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context. You can test your content by using a text-only browser such as Lynx.
- You’ll also choose the alignment and size when you place it. You can adjust all of this once placed by clicking the image to edit it.
- If you’ve prepared it correctly to size you can go with full size and under Link To change from the default “media file” to NONE. That’s because you do not want your visitors to think the image is clickable only to find a copy of the image that is exactly the same size. It’s annoying.
- The only time you select Media File is when you’re doing the exception mentioned in item 4. In that case leave it on Media File which means that when you see the inserted image you’ll have a link to the larger version of the file.