If you run a blog, you’ll upload hundreds of images over time. Settling on a consistent size now saves you hours later and keeps your pages fast. Here’s a practical set of numbers you can adopt and adjust.
Start with your content width
Look at how wide your text column is. On many themes it’s somewhere between 650 and 900 pixels. That’s the widest an in-post image will ever be shown on a desktop screen. Anything wider than the column just gets scaled down by the browser, so it’s wasted data.
To keep images sharp on modern high-density screens, upload at about 1.5 to 2 times the column width. For a 800-pixel column, a file around 1200 to 1600 pixels wide is a sensible target.
Recommended sizes by image type
- In-post images: 1200 to 1600 pixels wide.
- Featured image: often 1200 x 630 pixels, so it also works as a social share image. See Open Graph image size.
- Screenshots: as wide as needed to be readable, often 1200 to 1400 pixels. Make sure the text in them can actually be read. More in how to resize a screenshot.
- Small inline graphics or icons: exact size needed, often 100 to 400 pixels.
File size targets
For most in-post photos, try to stay between 80 and 200 KB. A page with ten images at 200 KB is about 2 MB of images, which is a perfectly workable weight. Ten images at 2 MB each is 20 MB, which is not. Practical advice on getting there is in how to reduce image file size without losing quality.
Format choices
- Photos: WebP or JPG.
- Screenshots with text: PNG, or high-quality WebP.
- Logos and simple graphics: SVG or PNG.
Not sure which to choose? Our format comparison sorts it out.
Be consistent
Pick a standard width for your images and stick to it. A blog where every image is a slightly different shape looks messy. Using the same aspect ratio for featured images, such as 16:9 or 1.91:1, makes archive pages and related-post grids look tidy.
Check the camera size before you upload
A modern phone photo is often 4000 pixels wide or bigger and several megabytes. Uploading it straight to your blog is the single most common cause of slow pages. WordPress will make smaller copies, but the original still sits on your server and sometimes gets served. Resize before upload.
A simple repeatable process
- Resize the image to your chosen width (say 1400 pixels).
- Export as WebP or JPG at quality 75 to 80.
- Give it a descriptive file name, as in how to name your image files for SEO.
- Upload and add alt text. See the alt text guide.
If you have a stack of images to prepare, you can run them all at once with our online resizer and its batch options.