The right image displayed before your article shows what your blog is about. A featured image is the visual description of your post and is often the first thing your visitors see when they land on your website. Most people either use a separate image or pick an existing image within the post as the feature image. Whichever you choose, a featured image is a great way to add value to your content, increase SEO, and attract visitors. However, sometimes you may need to hide your featured image in WordPress without removing it from your post.

So, how do you go about it? Before we dive into that, let’s first understand what a featured image is, why it’s necessary, and why you may want it hidden.

What Exactly Is A Featured Image?

A featured image, also known as a thumbnail, is a WordPress theme used to represent your posts, custom post types, and pages. You can usually find them in blog archives, post pages, and home pages.

Additionally, when your articles are shared on other platforms, featured images are displayed.

Why Use Featured Images?

There are many benefits of featured images. For instance, they:

  • Attract Visitors
  • Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Create the tone of your website
  • Improve the value of content

Why Hiding Featured Images is Useful

For some people, the featured image may attract people who may be interested. But in a real sense, that image will give their website a weird appearance. This is because:

  • That image is not related in any way to your article.
  • The image may repeat itself in multiple articles.
  • The image is not formatted for mobile and will appear as a big weird picture on your reader’s screen, distracting them from your content.

In this case, hiding featured images is an advantage.

Hiding Featured images

If hiding featured images makes sense for your site, here are four ways to do it.

1. Hide Featured Image using Theme

If your WordPress theme gives you options to hide a featured image, you are in luck, as this will only take you a few minutes. Once you open the theme settings’ block editor, you will see this feature, so all you have to do is hide the featured image. The best theme to use is the Astra theme. It’s highly customizable, lightweight, and has many unique features.

Hiding Image

There are also some instances where this feature is not visible. If it’s not available in your theme, don’t panic. Instead, use a plugin.

2. Hide Featured Image in WordPress Post Using plugin

If your theme does not provide an option to hide featured images, worry not. Instead, use plugins.

But, which is the best plugin to use?

Hide featured image plugin is the best plugin for this purpose. It is also popular among WordPress plugins that manage images.

Wordpress Plugins For Hiding Featured Image

To hide images using this plugin, follow these steps:

  1. Search for the plugin and check customer reviews. Before installing it, check if it’s compatible with the WordPress version you are using. Don’t use plugins that can’t be updated for a certain period because you may fail to receive support if you have problems. The plugins may also fail to work.
  2. Install the plugin. Navigate your WordPress Dashboard> plugins> Add New. Search for plugin Hide Featured Image then install.
  3. Activate the plugin. Once it’s activated, navigate to your dashboard and click on posts> edit post.
  4. Scroll down on the post edit screen, and locate the “Show/Hide featured image” meta box with the Yes/No option. Select yes, then update the post.

3. No Plugin Option in WordPress?

There are some instances where plugins are missing in WordPress. If you find yourself in this situation, worry not. The network has disabled possible reasons why it could be that your site is part of a WordPress multisite network and the plugins menu items on network sites.

To solve this problem, ask your network administrator to install the plugins on your behalf.

4. Hide Featured Image in Post Manually

If you fail to upload and install a plugin, do it manually by following these steps.

  1. Go to Word Press Dashboard>> Appearance>> Customize. It will launch a word press theme customizer that will enable you to modify or make changes and view a live preview of your site.
    Hiding Featured Image Manually
  2. Go to the “Additional CSS” option, then add some CSS code to manually remove the featured image.
  3. Add the following shortcode in the text area of Additional CSS:
    .single – post .wp – post – image{display:none;}
    Hiding Featured Image Manually 2
  4. Lastly, click on the publish button and check the website to see the featured image changes.

A featured image is an integral part of your website, and in an ideal situation, you would want to keep them visible. For instance, they help attract and increase visitors’ numbers, improve Search Engine Optimization, and content value. Still, there are situations where you want to hide the featured image. Now that you know how to do it, why don’t you give one of these methods a try?