
Being consistent with blog post featured images can be a challenging task. Creating and uploading images for every blog post can take a lot of time unless you use a predefined template and image automation tools.

RenderForm offers a WordPress plugin that automatically generates a featured image for any post or page on your site. It's simple to use, and you can generate high-quality images with just a few clicks.

## Create your template

To get started, create your image template in RenderForm. You will use it as a template for featured images throughout your WordPress posts and pages.

I created a simple image template with 3 components: main text, overlay and image. They will be changing for different posts. Main text will show the post title and image present the post character in the background.

Let's name our main text as `title` and image as `image`. This is just a template, so the actual text and image are not relevant here, but make sure you name each element correctly. You will need to identify the components while generating new images with different values.

![RenderForm: sample image template](/blog/wordpress/wordpress-featured-photo-template.png)

[Learn more about creating great blog post covers.](/blog/posts/tips-for-great-blog-post-covers/)

## Install RenderForm plugin

Once your template is ready, it is time to set up the image automation in WordPress. 

First, [download the plugin](/blog/wordpress/wordpress-plugin.zip).
Next, go to **Plugins** section in WordPress admin and **Add new**. Finally, choose the downloaded .zip on **Upload plugin**, and install the plugin.

![RenderForm plugin installation in WordPress](/blog/wordpress/install-wordpress-plugin.gif)

Activate the plugin and then the installation process in completed.

Next, you need you add your **API Key** to the plugin settings. You will find it in your RenderForm account under your profile or in template details.

![RenderForm API Key](/blog/wordpress/renderform-api-key.png)

Paste your API key into RenderForm plugin settings and save it. You can find this option in **Settings / RenderForm**.

![RenderForm plugin setting](/blog/wordpress/wordpress-api-key-settings.png)

## Render image in WordPress

Now it is time to render an image for your blog post. Open a blog post that you want to create an image for, and in **Post** section on the right side, scroll down to see RenderForm plugin.

Follow the steps below to generate a featured image for your blog.

1. From the list of RenderForm templates, select the template you want to use in your blog post.
2. In Changes, choose elements that you would like to replace. Select properties like our `title.text` and enter new text as value. The same with `image.src` that will replace the image with URL value.

![RenderForm image properties](/blog/wordpress/wordpress-properties-featured-photo-sidebar.png)

3. Click **render image** to see the results. **Use as featured image** will apply the image as main post image. 

![RenderForm rendered image](/blog/wordpress/wordpress-rendered-featured-photo-sidebar.png)

Publish your post to see your beautiful, hassle-free automatically generated image.

![RenderForm rendered image preview](/blog/wordpress/wordpress-rendered-featured-photo-preview.png)


## Automate your image generation

With RenderForm plugin created specifically for WordPress, you can generate beautiful images for your blog post covers. Create consistent, template-based images in your page style without time-consuming manual tasks.

Have fun with our image generation tool and create beautiful cover images for your WordPress site. [Get started for free](/register) and automate your image generation for blog post and more with RenderForm.


Featured photos for WordPress blogs

Meta Link is a way of accessing and generating images on demand without using any fancy tools. You only need to
edit your HTML code. Add a few magic links to your `<head/>` and you are good to go.

![Automatic blog post generation for social media](/docs/automatic-cover-generation-for-blog-posts.jpg)

## How to configure?

Configuration is simple and does not require any special skills nor WordPress plugins.

1. Open Wordpress admin panel
2. Expand Appearance menu on the left side
3. Open Theme Editor
4. On the right side choose 'header.php' file
5. Paste your configuration code into editor
6. Click 'Save changes' on the bottom


![Wordpress: Automatic Social Image Previews](/docs/instructions/wordpress-automatic-social-image-previews.png)

> Configuration code must be pasted between `<head>` and `</head>` tags.


## Test configuration

Open our [Open Grap Preview Tool](https://renderform.io/tools/twitter-card-preview-tool/) and paste url to your
blog post and see if the image is correctly generated.


### General Meta Link Example
```html
<head>
  <meta
    property="og:image"
    content="https://get.renderform.io/og/TEMPLATE_ID.jpg?url=YOUR_BLOG_POST_URL">
  <meta
    name="twitter:image"
    content="https://get.renderform.io/og/TEMPLATE_ID.jpg?url=YOUR_BLOG_POST_URL">
    
</head>
```


### Resources

- [Documentation: Dynamic og:images](/docs/general/dynamic-og-images/)

Zapier

Make.com

Integrately

WordPress Plugin

Mailchimp

Airtable Extension

Google Sheets

Excel/CSV file

REST API

RenderForm CLI

Webhooks

HTML to Image

Wordpress

Featured photos for WordPress blogs

Dynamic Social Images for Wordpress