WordPress Featured Image: What It Is, Plus How to Use It Right

Your WordPress featured image is the image that appears on your blog post list page, and sometimes at the top of your individual blog posts.

Featured images are tucked away in the sidebar of the WordPress blog post editor, yet are a key option. You can assign a primary image for each post, both to act as a header and to represent it on archive and search pages. Adding and optimizing featured images is a vital task on just about any WordPress blog.

In this post, we’ll explain what featured images are in more detail and show you some examples. Then we’ll walk you through how to improve the way you use each featured image on your own site. Let’s get to work!

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What featured images are (and why they matter)

The WordPress Block Editor enables you to add whatever text and media you like to your blog posts. Each new paragraph or piece of media is placed into its own block, and together they make up the content of the post itself.

However, you also have a number of page-wide options in the sidebar to the right of the editor. Some of these are settings we’ve discussed in the past, such as categories and tags. Though, one that’s particularly easy for newcomers to overlook is the Featured Image section:

You can see the Featured Image section in the sidebar on the right

Here, you can add a single image to represents the post as a whole. Simply click on Set featured image, then, you’ll be able to either upload a new image or choose a file from your Media Library. You can also provide a caption, ‘alt’ text, and description like any other image.

When you’re done, hit Select, and a thumbnail of the image will appear in the Featured Image section: