Your thoughts on featured images?
Hello peeps !
Ithink we all know how important adding featured images onto posts is important… but how important exactly? What kind is better ? Is it worth making a new one every single time, or does the “category” ones works fine?
I actually asked myself thoses questions while scrolling my blog. Upon starting blogging, I didn’t started with putting those images on posts right away.. and then I stumbled on thoses “things you should know” kind of posts where it was stated that you should, because it’s important and add the interest throught the visuals and such ..
The way I decided to do it, is to just have different ones for the “main cathegories” on my blog, which means : Bookish, Gaming, Book Reviews, Bullet Journal, Memes, etc. All on the same pinkish background that match with my blog colors. I changed the background on thoses atleast 3times – as I was never truly satisfied on thoses; until now, which I think it matches better.
Around the blogosphere, you see that every bloggers do it differently. There are the more creative ones of us who make up ones for each individual posts, with the title in them instead of the category. While they do looks so much prettier than what I work with … I don’t think I have the time and effort to do that (Kudos to thoses of you who do, you’re all amazing!!)
And mainly, except the time and effort necessary, my fear about thoses is mainly about the space it takes on the media library .. Which would have been an issue while on the free wordpress, but now that i’m self-hosted this shouldn’t be an issue at all; as I should have way more storage room…
My main line of thought, is that surely my way shall be better than no picture at all ? Though now that I have way more space, so that’s not a problem anymore, maybe i’ll pick up to add to my existing ones to maybe have like the title of the book after the “Book Review” Category, or just keep my plain background and add the title for every post — i’m not sure yet.
What’s your take on this ?
Which one do you use/prefer to see on other’s blog?
I really see it as everyone is different. Some people love GIFs, pictures of the book they’re going to talk about, etc. A simple blog is easier to read, but having GIFs show emotion to empathise a point. But they can be overdone or misused.
I take an anything goes approach: insta inserts, standard photos of books I don’t have, GIFs if I’m talking about a fandom.
The image reflects the blogger. I just made a header that I think is cleaner than the previous one but still has the elements I want to convey.
I can definitely see why they’re useful, especially when sharing the post on other websites like Twitter, it just makes it look much better. I think that having a pattern/template is what works for me, because I feel like using that helps make my blog feel more cohesive, but that’s just my personal experience!
Yeah, same! Like, for me as I have many different topics on my blog, I think it could be useful as readers know what kind of « content » the post would be touching on; if using tags or categories is being an extra step atleast you know from first glance.
I think feature images are really important but the way people use them differs and yes, it is must easier to just have one for the main categories. I keep varying – for example, I have just one for all book reviews but I make new ones for book tags, discussion, bullet journals and any other things I’m posting on my blog.
It’s true a mix of the two can be good also- that may be what i’d eventually go for in the future.
I admire the bloggers who have a beautiful, unique image for every single post but I just don’t have the time to do it. Like you, I just have an image for each feature or category. It’s way easier and as you said, it saves space. It’s not something that really bothers me when I read other people’s blogs as it’s the content I’m drawn to rather than the featured image. But I suppose if you are using your featured images to pin to Pinterest you’d want them to all be unique.
Thank you for your imput!
yeah, I guess it greatly help if your posts goes onto pinterest aswell (as of which I don’t use either xd) as it’s more prone to pictures, just like instagram is.
I’ve been trying to make a new featured image for every blog post since I redid my blog, but I’m honestly worried about the size limit on the free wordpress media storage space. My method to try to avoid maxing that storage space too soon is to only put my featured image + post dividers + signature in there : all the other pictures in my posts are hosted somewhere else on the internet, then added to the post via their URL. Hopefully, it’ll help me last longer with the free wordpress storage !
I don’t think it’s a requirement to have new ones for everything, though I do recognize that having one at all is a great plus when you share your posts on social media – having that little image to go with your link helps catch the eye of the readers much better than hashtags or titles only !
Ah I see, that can be a smart move! Even if I have PLENTY of spaces (exemple, 43G of space left on my phone) I can’t help but paranoid and delete everything that don’t serve me anyway 🤣 ; although we can’t do that with headers… which kinda bothers me in a way.
yeah that’s what I thought too ! Although since I used the plug-in to change my headers by replacing the media VS all one-by-one (because hell that takes a long time xd) they seems to randomly take the first pictures to show and NOT my header ?? 🙃 which bothers me a little but hell nah im not going to re-upload them one by one…
I’m an insane one. You’ll notice on my main page of my blog I’ve got square images that are different from my “featured” image on my blog post haha. I’m a little crazy. I like making graphics and I’m always trying to update them!
Well if you like doing that, go ahead! That’s good, nobody will stop you 😘
One thing for sure we can’t get bored of seeing the same graphics, ahah – so that’s not a bad thing in itself, i’d say
I’m the same as you on this one. In my baby blogger phase I didn’t put any images up but realised later how much more put together it looks (especially when sharing on twitter & co) and how much more appealing.
I’m somewhere in the middle. I have one design for all my posts, but I actually change the title for each one (so instead of only review I also add the title etc) I’m still on the fence about whether I should change that or not … but I’m also in general thinking about revamping my whole blog (and maybe going self-hosted??) and maybe changing the name etc. Sooo indecisive lately 😅
I love your blog design and the colour scheme btw! It looks amazing!
Ahh thank you very much !! ❤️
I was quite indescisive too for a while xd so far so good, I haven’t gotten the urge in a while to change things! ahah
yeaah i’m thinking of doing little changes like that too – but for now Ithink it suffice. Ohh if blogging is something you really love to do I would highly suggest going self-hosted! However, you might wanna do more research that I did 😂 and you must be comfortable with the fact that the money you put on your blog *may* not be earned back; which can be a problem for some bloggers who don’t really see “the point”, or that just don’t have the means to.