What is a Featured Image in a WordPress Blog Post and is it Necessary?

As among the most popular web publishing platforms in the world, WordPress is a free, open-source, web publishing and content management system (CMS) platform.

Part of the desirability of the WordPress platform is not just the ability to easily manage and update content within a WordPress website, but the extensibility it offers. That includes the capability to create an eCommerce store, as well as a blog.

What is a Blog?

A blog is a website (or that part of a website) which enables you to create an ongoing entry of articles (blog posts) listed by date, such that the most recent article or post, is seen first, by being displayed at the top of the blog page, with older posts displaying subsequently and further down the page. This is referred to as reverse chronological order.

Like WordPress, many other CMS platforms that utilize a blog component, utilize some type of featured (main or cover) image for each post.

What Exactly is a Featured Image?

In WordPress, the featured image refers to the image which provides a visual hint that generally represents the topic of each blog post when listed within the main blog “archive” page. The featured image is also typically followed by the entry title, published date, author, category, etc.

The location where the featured image is to be displayed within the single post page, depends on how it is set up within a particular WordPress theme. Quite often, the featured image is the first image that appears within each blog article, above the post entry content itself.

So, for example, if you look at our blog post with the title “Should you let your web designer host your website”, the featured image is of a female web developer in front of dual computer monitors. Thus, that image alludes to what the article may be about.

Is it Necessary to Use a Featured Image in Your Blog Post?

Is it necessary? No. Do we recommend that you use a featured image in your blog posts, yes, absolutely. Why? That is because using a featured image can entice a website visitor to click and read your blog post/article, especially if it is a visually interesting image. Since humans’ brains process images much faster than reading text, as noted earlier, the featured image also gives readers/visitors a hint as to what that particular blog post may be about, before reading/processing all that text within the article itself. Thus, using a featured image, can increase conversions and enhance the user experience.

Is there an SEO Benefit from Including a Featured Image?

By utilizing a featured image, you have another opportunity to use image alt text, which can help search engines, such as Google, better understand what the blog post is about. The use of image alt tags are also helpful to those who are visually impaired, so that is a win-win.