Yes, you heard it right. By adding GIFs you can make your website attractive without spending hundreds of dollars on coding.  

So today we’re going to cover five ways you can effectively implement GIFs on your website, 

First off, let’s understand… 

Steve Wilhite, developed Graphical Interchange Formats (GIFs) in 1987. Basically, GIFs are multi-image or soundless videos that loop continuously without requiring a player to click play. It is this repetition that makes GIFs feel familiar.

5 Benefits of Using GIFs in WordPress 

Do you know that the number of Americans using GIFs has risen to 63 percent, and one out of five people cannot get enough of them? Okay okay… so animated GIFs are cool and popular. But can they be successfully used in WordPress? Absolutely! They certainly provide a few major advantages:

• A moving image or animated GIF is more likely to grab the attention of a visitor than a still image or plain text.

• Video animations do not always work as well as GIF animations. GIFs’ loading time is low, they use less bandwidth, and they can be looped to create immediate interest.

• By reducing load time, and improving content engagement, GIFs improve bounce rate. So, if you use GIFs to engage site visitors, you’re more likely to convert them into subscribers.

• Finally, many search engines, including Google, prefer websites and blogs with lots of multimedia content, such as images and videos, and GIFs.

• The consumption of visual content is taking over the media channels because it’s easier to consume and reaches a wider audience. A visual content approach can increase the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts and help you secure backlinks you could not achieve with text-based content alone. There is no doubt that text content is extremely valuable, however, GIFs can be more effective in link building. 

Now that you know that GIFs can be a game-changer for your website, let’s look at how to develop a fantastic one and use it to its full potential.

Top 5 tips for creating an amazing GIF

Just like adding way too much ketchup to fries can ruin them, adding excessive GIFs or the wrong GIFs can hinder the user experience. This is why we recommend 5 tips to create the perfect GIFs for your WordPress website. 

• Use fewer colors:

When creating a GIF, make sure you use relevant colors. Be sure you choose colors that are pleasing to the eye. Using fewer colors makes your GIFs more engaging and lesser in size.

• Eliminate duplicate frames:

If you pay attention to your animations, you’ll notice that they come to a screeching halt and then repeat. When one loop session comes to a halt, you’ll notice multiple duplicate frames, which will only add to the size of your file. So take a close look at what you’ve created and remove all of the repetitive frames from your gif in a way that doesn’t deteriorate its quality.

• Optimize Lossy on animated GIFs-

Using lossy optimization you can reduce the file size of your GIFs.Since human eyes can’t differentiate between subtle changes in color, lossy optimization uses fewer colors thereby decreasing the size. This can reduce some kilobytes without affecting your GIF’s quality.

• Stay away from flashy animation-

 As we already stated, keep your GIF clean and interesting. People become exhausted when they do too much of anything, so don’t overdo it. Simply choose the appropriate moment and create your own thoughts with the help of some pleasant effects.

• Use motion blur– 

 Blur gives your still image a fun effect. Consider how these still images would look if they were in motion with a blur effect. This gives your GIFs a more professional appearance and allows you to tweak things a little for matching the file size. 

5 Tips to make the most of GIFs for WordPress

• Use GIFs to Include CTAs – 

(A call to action for a class on Building Business)

You can now add a Call-To-Action to your GIFs to make them more interesting. The user’s attention is easily drawn to a WordPress GIF. So when it is paired with a CTA, it is more likely to receive clicks than without it. The GIF should be visually engaging, but not too complicated that viewers don’t see the CTA. To have a pleasant user experience, you should also make sure it is appropriate to the CTA’s purpose!

• Use Tutorials to Demonstrate Complicated Instructions-

(Demonstrating a step-by-step process)

Visual aids are quite important in this procedure. Tutorials without any audiovisual components can be difficult to follow. On the other hand, including multiple screenshots for the most basic instructions can decrease the quality of your content.

Thanks to GIFs, you don’t have to create lengthy tutorial videos anymore. GIFs are great for displaying instructions that would be hard to comprehend through text alone. While a screenshot may cause some confusion, a GIF shows you the exact tutorial. So while demonstrating instructions, you can use GIFs instead of screenshots. 

• Show Animated Data using GIFs- 

(Graph depicting the data between 2019 and 2022)

Instead of using endless rows of data, or using charts, you can take your content to the next level by displaying your data through GIFs.Animate Your Data- Discovering ways to make data interact is one of the most difficult aspects. Graphs go a long way toward assisting viewers in sorting through statistics. This not only improves your content but also makes a great impression about your site among the visitors. As an effect, it can convert your site visitors to subscribers. 

• To make a point, use GIFs-

(people protesting for their rights) 

The most natural approach to using GIFs is to make a point. You’re probably used to using GIFs in this approach in your daily life. When narrating a good joke or making a social media statement, the proper GIF may make the execution that much better. 

For example, 

If you’ve been on social media for a while, you’re probably already familiar with how to use GIFs to enhance your message. Writing for an audience, on the other hand, is not the same as conversing with your friends.

Both forms of writing, in theory, should be highly engaging. When writing for a website, though, you run the risk of overusing GIFs significantly. You have greater freedom to use animations in a chat with friends, however, in a more professional context, your audience is more likely to want to read your thoughts.

You should make sure that any GIFs you include are brief. Using an edited version may be a better option depending on how intricate what you want to present is.

• Use GIF to show expressions- 

“XYZ Company is giving 30% Discount”.

Or, 

(people dancing on getting 30% discount)

See how it immediately became more interesting. Sometimes words may not express the proper emotions. But that doesn’t mean you leave it halfway without expressing your thoughts properly. This is why you can use GIFs to express emotions in your content. 

•  Demonstrate the finished product action-

(A brand new mobile phone)

The quality of screenshots often demonstrates the completed designs well enough. Depending on what you’re working on, you can take as many or as few as you need, and they can provide readers with a decent idea of what the final result will look like. 

It is not suitable for every application, and especially not for dynamic online projects. The way people feel about websites or apps is also heavily influenced by usability. It’s often difficult to communicate how natural their designs are through still photographs.

GIFs, on the other hand, allow you to communicate short bursts of activity. You can demonstrate how certain elements function, and how testers engage with them.

 You can pinpoint usability issues with this degree of information. You can also use it to display the finished result in motion if you’re working on a tutorial.

Bonus Tip: 

Ever since WordPress allowed using GIFs everyone is rooting for it. But many people are facing a common problem: “After uploading GIFs they appear as a static image on the website”.

 We don’t want you to face the same problem, so here is a tip for you. After uploading the GIF, in the “file size” always select “full size”. This way your GIF will be posted as a GIF and not as a static image. 

(Pointing to the “full-size” option in the WordPress images settings)

Winding Up, 

Due to their simplicity, near-universal compatibility, and flexibility to be utilized as animation, GIFs are the oldest file format still widely used today. Despite these advantages, GIFs are huge files that cause page bloat, which can negatively impact the performance of your website and contribute to poor user experiences. As a result, you should think about optimizing static GIFs, moving away from animated GIFs, and adopting more current techniques like HTML5/MP4 movies to implement video snippets. 

Your website will come alive with GIFs! It will capture and hold the audience’s attention till they reach the point of conversion.

This does not imply that you should overdo it. Keep the GIFs simple but aesthetically appealing, as always. And your WordPress website is ready to make things more entertaining for itself and its viewers with these tips!