Where does it appear?
It often appears at the top of the blog, usually near the heading. The featured image for this page is above: my logo plopped over a landscape with seagulls. Yes, I’m silly. And I like seagulls. A featured image is also important because it appears as a thumbnail next to a link in search engines and social media posts. The website designer integrates it into the metadata of the page so it appears on any platform that supports a link + image.
Why do I need one?
What is a featured image on a website? It’s the picture or graphic which you assign to represent a post or page. Mine is quite silly.
If you don’t assign a featured image some platforms may randomly select an image from your site. Some won’t show an image at all.
I add featured images to all my posts and pages, and it should be a priority for you. Images grab viewers’ attention. A picture, after all, is worth a thousand words. The Yoast panel gives you a place to customize the image for Facebook and Twitter, which allows you to format to their specs. You can also add Alt text and a Description to featured images to enhance your SEO. For more on images and SEO, see my post here.
Let’s look at my friend Mickey Marion-Rowe’s book, Fearlessly Different (which, BTW, you should buy here). He’s posted about his book on Facebook & LinkedIn, and I’ve searched the book on Google. Here are the featured images that automatically load.
A featured image in action
What is a featured image on a website? It’s the picture or graphic which you assign to represent a post or page. Mine is quite silly.
Let’s look at my friend Mickey Marion-Rowe’s book, Fearlessly Different (which, BTW, you should buy here). He’s posted about his book on Facebook & LinkedIn, and I’ve searched the book on Google. Here are the featured images that automatically load.
Use featured images on your site
A link with an image is more polished, more professional, and it offers an opportunity to reinforce branding by putting your image in front of more eyeballs, more times.
