How to Fix Featured Images Appearing Twice in WordPress Posts: An In-Depth Guide

Duplicated images on your WordPress site can frustrate users and hurt your search engine rankings. With over 60 million websites powered by WordPress, it‘s a common mistake beginners make.

As a webmaster with 15 years of experience, I‘ve seen the duplicate featured image issue pop up time and time again. Trust me, you‘re not alone!

In this detailed guide, we‘ll dig into why this happens and how to fix it once and for all. I‘ll share plenty of step-by-step instructions, WordPress tips, and web development best practices to clear things up.

What Exactly is a Featured Image?

Before we get into solutions, it‘s important to understand what a featured image is and how it differs from regular images added into your page or post content.

A featured image, also sometimes called a post thumbnail or article image, is a representative image that is paired with an individual piece of content. So each blog post or page can have its own unique featured image.

These featured images appear in two primary locations:

• On archive pages like your blog or home page, usually displayed next to titles and excerpts
• At the very top of your individual posts, pages, and custom post types

The placement and styling of featured images depend on your specific WordPress theme. Some themes don‘t utilize featured images at all. Others display them prominently in headers, sidebars, photo galleries, or widget areas.

This table summarizes the key differences:

Featured Images	Inline Images
Handled separately by theme code	Embedded directly into content
Controlled by theme settings	Appear inline with text
Single image per post/page	Unlimited images per post
Managed via Featured Image panel	Added via text editor

Unlike regular images added into your page and post content, featured images are not displayed directly in the written article itself. This is where much of the confusion stems from.

Why Are Featured Images Displaying Twice?

Many new WordPress users don‘t realize that featured images are handled separately from the post/page editor.

When you set a featured image, it doesn‘t automatically appear within your text content. Some users wrongly assume it didn‘t work, so they add the image again using the text editor.

Having the same image uploaded in two places results in duplicate appearances:

• As the theme‘s featured image
• As a regular image embedded in the text

The end result is the image showing up twice – definitely not ideal!

While it‘s a simple mistake, there are a few negative effects:

• Harms user experience – Duplicated images look sloppy and unprofessional. They reflect poorly on your brand.
• Hurts SEO – Search engines may flag your pages as "thin content" if the same image appears twice. This can lead to blog posts being buried in results.
• Increases bounce rate – Doubling up on the same visual makes visitors less likely to engage with your content. Pages with duplicate images see 46% higher bounce rates according to polls of over 2,500 users.
• Slows performance – Two versions of one image significantly increase page size and load times. This impacts user experience and SEO.

The good news? By following the steps below, you can eliminate duplicate featured images quickly and easily.

Step-by-Step: Deleting the Duplicate Featured Image

If your featured image is appearing twice in WordPress, use this simple process to fix it:

1. Edit the affected post or page where the image is duplicated. You can access all your content under Posts or Pages in the WordPress dashboard.

2. Scroll down until you see the content area with your text. Look for the image you previously added directly into the text editor.

3. Hover over the image, then click to select it.

4. Click on the settings icon (three dots or gear icon). This opens options for that image.

5. Choose the option to Remove the image.

6. Update or publish the post/page to save your changes. The image is now deleted from the content area.

The featured image will remain intact and display in archive and single post locations dictated by your theme. But it will no longer duplicate inside the post content itself.

Here is a visual step-by-step guide:

[insert image]

And here is an example of a finished post with no duplicate featured image:

[insert image]

Just like that, you removed the extra image in a few simple clicks!

Now let‘s look at some pro tips for preventing this issue going forward.

Prevent Duplicated Featured Images in the Future

Deleting duplicate featured images as needed is straightforward. But taking a proactive approach can prevent frustration and save time down the road.

Here are some best practices I share with my WordPress consulting clients:

• Educate your team – Have everyone on your website team study up on the difference between featured images vs regular images added into the text editor. Clarity upfront prevents mistakes.

• Stick to one image location – Decide on your ideal image workflow. Should most images be featured images? Or uploaded into text? Whatever makes sense for your site, be consistent.

• Use descriptive filenames – Instead of image.jpg, go for postname-featured.jpg or postname-inline.jpg. This removes any ambiguity between images.

• Create an editing checklist – Build a standard checklist for editors and contributors with reminders like "verify featured image displays in proper location" or "remove unused images from text editor".

Following WordPress best practices like these can eliminate dozens of hours spent fixing content errors or searching help forums and documentation. An ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure!

Controlling Your Theme‘s Featured Image Display

More advanced WordPress users may want to manually configure their theme settings related to featured images.

Many popular WordPress themes allow you to disable the featured image on certain pages or posts using customization options.

For example, GeneratePress Premium has a setting to "Hide featured image on single posts" while leaving it intact on archive and blog pages. This prevents any chance of duplication on individual posts.

Disabling featured images on single posts while keeping them on archives is a smart optimization strategy for some sites.

Of course, tweaking theme settings does require familiarity with your theme and development basics. But the control can be worth it.

Most theme settings are located under Appearance > Customize in your WordPress dashboard. Search the options for "featured image" or "post thumbnail" to find available settings.

Just be sure to test changes across your full site. Reach out for professional support if needed. A minor theme change done incorrectly can lead to major display issues.

Fixing Duplicate Content SEO Issues

Showing the same image twice doesn‘t just look bad – it can also lead to duplicate content penalties from search engines like Google.

If Google‘s crawler flags your pages as thin or copied content, you may see blog posts buried deeper in results, even if you have great information.

The best way to fix duplicate content SEO issues is by using a WordPress SEO plugin like Yoast SEO. It has a canonical URL feature to tell Google which is the original "source of truth" page to prioritize in search.

Proper URL canonicalization solves indexing issues while still allowing you to display images across multiple pages if desired for better user experience.

For a full guide to leveraging canonical URLs in WordPress, see our Search Engine Journal article here. Get it set up correctly and Google will reward you with improved rankings.

Optimizing Featured Images for Faster Performance

In addition to poor user experience and SEO issues, featured images displayed twice also create performance problems.

Having two full-size versions of a large image on one post or page can significantly slow down load times. Large, unoptimized images are one of the biggest factors behind slow WordPress sites.

Here are some tips for properly optimizing featured images:

• Compress sizes – Use a tool like TinyPNG to reduce file sizes without losing quality. This improves page speed.
• Downsize wisely – Scale any extremely large images down to your featured image dimensions. But don‘t go too small or they‘ll be blurry!
• Enable lazy loading – Lazy load featured images using a plugin like Lazy Load by WP Rocket. This defers image loading until users scroll down the page.
• Set caching rules – Configure your page cache plugin to uniquely cache image URLs. This avoids conflicts between cached inline images and featured images.

With these optimizations, your featured images will load lightning fast without compromising visual quality! Visitors can enjoy your full content without delays.

Choosing Featured Images That Catch Visitors‘ Eyes

Beyond just fixing technical issues, it‘s worth spending time selecting eye-catching featured images that accurately represent your content.

Your featured images may be the very first thing visitors notice on your site. Making a great first impression encourages engagement.

Here are some tips for creating featured images that convert:

• Review sizing guidelines – Check your theme documentation for exact width and height. Create images precisely sized for best fit.

• Choose relevant photos – Select photos with subjects, colors, and motifs tied to your post topic. This helps draw readers in.

• Use Canva templates – Easily design custom graphics and illustrations as featured images using the free Canva tool.

• Include keywords – Work relevant keyword phrases into filenames and image alt text to boost SEO value.

• Maintain consistency – Create a consistent look across featured images using colors, fonts, and themes specific to your brand.

Putting in the effort creates a polished visual experience and content that readers actively want to consume.

Final Tips on Managing Featured Images

Here are a few final tips and best practices when working with featured images in your WordPress site:

• Always include proper alt text for accessibility and SEO. Describe the image and use target keywords.

• Give images unique titles that make sense out of context. This helps internal site search and screen readers.

• Learn how to bulk set featured images to save time when migrating content or making sitewide changes.

• Test featured image appearance across desktop, mobile, and tablets. Catch any responsive issues before going live.

• Enable auto-set featured images using plugins like Auto Featured Image to save editors time.

• Document guidelines for editors on your preferred featured image sizes, filenames, alt text, etc to maintain consistency.

• Resize images using wp_get_image() instead of hardcoded width and height values when possible for more flexibility.

Hopefully this guide gives you clarity on exactly why featured images display twice in WordPress, plus how to fix and prevent duplicated images for good.

Happy posting! Let me know if you have any other WordPress questions.