Here's how you can create great-looking featured images for your WordPress content. I'll show you how to make them quickly and easily using a fantastic free tool. The tool I'm using here is Canva, which is my go-to graphic design tool. Forget photoshop because that's far too complicated. Canva is easy, it's fast, and it's free. Although Canva is free, there is a pro version available.
I think it's excellent because it brings in some extra features. For example, a stock photography library is essential when you need to create featured images because you probably haven't got all the photos you need. Using stock photography is inevitable. Another great thing about using Canva is that you can add filters. You can do something to the stock photography to make it look a bit less stocky.
How to use Canva for creating featured images
I'm going to create a featured image for content that I'm about to publish on my Best Pressure Washer website. The size of the featured photo is going to vary depending on the theme you're using. But, as a rule of thumb, I think 1050 x 500 px is probably going to work for you. It's a rectangle size. It's perfect for creating WordPress featured images. With Canva, you get loads of templates. But here, we're going to make it from scratch. The article is the best pressure washers for boats. So, I'm going to dive into the photo area and search for pressure washers.
Searching for images
Let's go for this guy here with the boat. I'm going to make that the correct size. Also, I want to put the text on the right. Text is optional, and it's up to you, but I think it makes the featured images look good.
Pick a nice-looking font
You can scroll through text options, and you can find pretty fancy fonts out there. I'm trying to find something that is a good fit for my site when it comes to look and feel. Pay attention to your website's fonts and try to create something that will fit nicely.
Then you can adjust the text. I'm going to make it right-aligned. You can resize it by grabbing all of the corners. Use effects to make text stand out more. That's a lifting effect that makes it look professional.
Adjust Overlay & Colours
You can add a filter to the image. The main reason for doing this is it will make it look less stocky. Click on the image and go to effects and choose from these fantastic looking options. I pick the Cherry effect. It looks pretty nice.
It's up to you to play around. Get it looking as you want. I think making that text wider is better.
Export your work
To export it out of Canva, you need to click a few buttons. Now, it's ready to upload to WordPress, and you go to the download button. Then select jpeg, and you can adjust the quality to reduce the file size (around 70 to 80 is the best) and click download. Then you can download it to your computer, and then it's ready to upload to WordPress.
Final word
I created tons of nice-looking featured images for my sites using this fantastic tool. I hope you will create a nice featured image for your WordPress using Canva as well. It's perfect for people who want to save a ton of time and for those who are not well versed with Photoshop.
