When it comes to building your WordPress site, there are myriad options for creating a unique look that really defines you and your message, your product or service, your specific cause and so on. And many site owners, designers and administrators find that having eye-catching imagery is a great way to make yourself stand out from the crowd and build a wholly customized experience for your new and loyal readers and visitors.
If this is something you aspire to, consider creating, crafting, building and displaying an image gallery. On it you can showcase and highlight photos that give users a more complete picture (no pun intended) of what you hope to accomplish with your site while helping draw more traffic and creating a dedicated follower base.
To begin you’ll first need to decide whether you want to take the quick and easy route through the built-in gallery feature, which makes adding photos a snap, or go through the slightly more involved process. Be warned that using the easy method will cause all your images to appear in a line, one after the other. This might not necessarily look so good, and users will have to scroll through to see them all. However, depending on the amount of time you want to spend uploading pictures, this may be a good option, especially if you don’t intend for your imagery to be the main crux of your site.
To utilize the built-in WordPress gallery feature, first edit the specific post or page on which you’d like to add photos. On the “Post Edit” screen select “Add Media” to upload images by clicking on “Select Files.” Then select the “Create Gallery” link, click the “Create a New Gallery” button and view the images you picked. Here you can also add captions and choose how you want the images to be linked, the number of columns and the size of each photo. Then simply click “Insert Gallery” and log onto your site and make sure the images are appearing as you intended.
However, if you really want to put forth some effort in building an image gallery in an attractive layout—as well as give the ability to have them viewed as clickable thumbnails—in the end you’ll certainly achieve a much more professional and appealing result. And to do this you’ll want to create an image gallery using the Envira Gallery plugin. First install and activate the program and enter your license key (available at the Envira Gallery website). Then go to “Envira Gallery, Add New Page” and give your new creation a title before clicking on “select files from computer.” Once the photos upload you’ll be able to view them within the image section and add captions and other text to each picture.
Next click on the “Config” button and start your customization: you can choose from lots of settings, such as the number of columns, caption position, heights, thumbnail and image dimensions and more. Then click on the “lightbox” tab which lets visitors browse and enlarge specific images of their choosing. Now it’s time to publish your gallery by clicking on the edit feature for the post or page where you want the gallery to appear. Select “Add Gallery” and, once the pop up displays click on your new gallery and hit the insert button.
Voila, you’re all set! Your image gallery should now appear at the specified place (whether within or next to a specific post or on the page of your choosing). And there’s another nice bonus to using the Envira Gallery plugin: unlike the built-in program that comes with WordPress, Envira makes sure your images render perfectly on mobile devices as well, and will even allow for left and right swiping just like the most popular social media apps, creating a seamless transition that your visitors will no doubt appreciate.
