Keeping people interested in your WordPress website can be challenging, especially since there are more and more ways to kill time online.
A good way to keep your audience’s attention is to inject some life into it through dynamic features. If you want other options to keep your audience’s attention you can visit our guide on how to start a successful blog.
That’s why it’s a good idea to incorporate animated GIFs into your website.
GIFs are a creative and interactive way to express meaning and boost engagement and reinforce the brand personality of your blog whether you make them yourself, buy them online, or find them through a free resource.
This article will explain how to add a GIF to WordPress.
We recommend you try various sizes of your animated image to see which one best suits your WordPress theme without forgetting to check how they look on mobile devices.
What Is a GIF?
GIFs (pronounced “gif” or “jiff”), short for Graphical Interchange Format, are, at their core, just image files. In the same way that JPEG and PNG formats may be used to create still images, so can GIF. However, GIFs have a unique feature that allows you to make animated images. The US software developer Steve Wilhite came up with the idea for the type of image format in 1987 as he was trying to find the most space-efficient method of animating a series of images. Simply put, a GIF is a sequence of images that can be played automatically in an infinite loop. Like memes, GIFs are growing in popularity due to their effectiveness in conveying emotions, humor, and ideas. And with the help of websites like GIPHY and Gyfcat, making and sharing GIFs is a breeze. Using GIFs in your blog posts is an excellent way to attract more readers and encourage engagement. You can try using this strategy to increase your shares, backlinks, conversion rate, or any other metric.
Benefits of Using GIFs
The benefits of using GIFs are many. For instance, it’s far easier to absorb the information presented visually. About 80% of visual information sticks in our minds, whereas just 20% of what we read remains. Assuming this holds even for a non-moving full-size image in WordPress, we can be confident that animated graphics will significantly enhance user retention rate. In addition, it improves people’s capacity for social interaction. GIFs have popped up on various social media sites over the years. They add a lot of fun to conversations as compared to regular text. You have most likely used them a few times when chatting online.GIFs are also a great way to demonstrate a process quickly and clearly. For instance, GIFs can be excellent visual aids while writing a WordPress tutorial. An animated GIF file format is a great way to promote your products while giving your brand some personality, posting them on social media platforms also seems like a good idea. Having fun and getting creative with your website is a way to get people interested in your store. Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of using GIFs on your WordPress page.
Pros of WordPress GIFs
Smaller File Size Compared to other file formats, animated GIFs can be much lighter, which is a significant benefit when using them on a WordPress site. In addition, this has the potential to be useful for uploading images to a website, as they will load more quickly without sacrificing quality.
Polished Appearance Not only do GIFs have a small file size, but they can also have transparent backgrounds. Websites that use animation over a dynamic background will benefit from this since it will give a more professional appearance. Send your message with more impact. One more advantage of GIFs is that they can effectively convey any idea. They can communicate emotions and feelings that still pictures simply cannot. Furthermore, this can be ideal for creating instructional animations that improve the experience. Keep in mind that animations are particularly effective at catching the eye of young consumers and inspiring them to pay close attention to details.
Cons of WordPress GIFs
Limited Range of Colors: Due to its limited color range of 256 shades, the resulting animated graphics may fall short of expectations compared to those of more sophisticated image formats. In some cases, images may have a slightly grainy or blocky appearance.
Cannot Be Edited: Another drawback to using GIFs is that they cannot be changed after the animation has been programmed into the file. That’s why the final images must be prepared before the GIF is created. If you don’t, you may have to start from scratch just to slightly adjust your own GIF
Affected by the Internet Connection: Although gif files are compact and supposed to run seamlessly once the sequence of still images is coded, the smoothness of some animated images may rely on the bandwidth available to the viewer. When the internet is slow, the images won’t load as quickly, and you’ll see a lower-quality version of the file instead.
How To Add a GIF to WordPress Posts
Incorporating a GIF into your WordPress site may appear to be a simple task. However, some steps are necessary to ensure the animation will run smoothly. To that end, here are the simple five steps How To Add a WordPress original gif.
- Optimize Your Animated GIF. You should take the same precautions with your GIFs that you would with any other images or video on your site to ensure it doesn’t affect performance. This will not happen if you use a classic editor like Compressor.io. If you take this step, it will help maintain your site’s optimal performance. This is crucial if you want to store your media files locally on the server that hosts your website rather than using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) or third-party media host.
- Place your first Image Block (thank you Gutenberg editor for this) on your site when you’re ready, you can upload your WordPress GIF and insert it into any post or page via the Image block by clicking the “Add block” icon. An alternate solution is to type “/Image” into an empty area. Either option will add a blank block to your page where a media object or gallery would typically be.
- Choose a GIF To Upload. The image block provides several options for adding your animated GIF. To get started hit the upload’ button and choose the GIF you wish to use. Alternatively, you may select a GIF from your media library by clicking the “Media Library” button (we will discuss the steps on how to do this below). You can also use the “Insert from URL” button to enter the URL of your GIF, but this won’t post the image or animation to your WordPress site, so it’s not the best alternative.
- Resize the Image. After inserting the GIF inside the page, click “Image Size” in the edit window’s sidebar on the right. The default size is probably going to be “Large.” If you change the size, the GIF’s animation might be lost, so select the full size’ option instead. If you want your GIF to play without interruption, set it to “Full Size.”
- Add Your Animated GIF. Using the Media Library When creating a new image block, you’ll have the option of using the WordPress Media Library if your GIF is already stored there this is one of the useful tools of this software. When you go to the Media Library, you may choose the GIF you wish to insert. The animated gif image settings can then be modified to guarantee it displays in “Full Size.” With WordPress’s built-in live preview, your GIF should now be playing in a continuous loop on the page.
Conclusion
Keeping people on your website might be difficult, but GIFs go a long way toward overcoming this challenge. Animated GIFs (GIFs) are a lot of fun and can be a great addition to your site. They can make your content more engaging and entertaining, increasing your site’s traffic. However, it is essential to prevent us as WordPress users from making our page look cluttered by using too many gifs. By doing so, we risk slowing down the site. So take advantage of this feature, but remember to keep page load times in mind. We hope the information in this new post serves as an excellent starting point.
