Want to organize your image galleries into photo albums? Albums provide an intuitive way to categorize gallery content. Visitors can browse galleries by topic, event, or other custom categories you define.
In this in-depth guide, we’ll show you step-by-step how to create responsive photo albums using the Envira Gallery WordPress plugin.
Benefits of Using Albums for Organizing Galleries
Here are some of the top reasons to use albums with your galleries:
- Improves visitor navigation – Albums make it easier for visitors to browse related galleries
- Enhances SEO – You can optimize each album around specific keywords
- Custom categorization – Group galleries into any categories that make sense
- Flexible display – Album grids, masonry, slider, and other responsive layouts
- Works perfectly with lightboxes – Display album galleries in immersive lightboxes
According to research by Hubspot, articles with relevant images get 94% more views. Using photo albums improves the display and discoverability of your visual content.
Why Choose Envira Gallery for Albums
There are a handful of WordPress plugins that offer gallery albums functionality. However, through hands-on testing and experience building dozens of WordPress photography sites, we believe Envira Gallery is the best choice.
Reasons Envira stands above the rest for albums:
- Intuitive drag and drop album builder
- 10 album styles with extensive display options
- Lightbox and standalone album support
- Modular system with 20+ gallery addons
- Active development and stellar support
Comparatively, plugins like NextGEN have clunky album interfaces and lack modern features. Envira offers the whole package for both robust galleries and albums.
Step 1: Install and Activate Envira Gallery
First, you’ll need to install and activate the Envira Gallery WordPress plugin.
- In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New
- Search for Envira Gallery
- Install and activate the plugin
This will add Envira Gallery to your admin menu.
Step 2. Enable the Albums Addon
By default, Envira Gallery focuses on image galleries. To add album functionality:
- Go to Envira Gallery > Settings
- Click the Addons tab
- Activate the Albums and Standalone addons
Step 3. Build Your Image Galleries
Before grouping anything into albums, you first need some galleries!
Follow this step-by-step guide to create Envira galleries. Once you have galleries published, come back here to keep going with albums.
Step 4. Create and Organize Albums
- Go to Envira Gallery > Albums in your WP dashboard
- Click Add New Album
- Give your album a Title and Description
- Drag and drop published galleries onto the album container
I recommend creating different albums for your top categories. For example:
- Wedding Album
- Family Photoshoot Album
- Vacation Album
- Hawaii Album
- New York Album
Get specific with your albums subjects and keywords for better SEO. For user navigation, I suggest keeping the total number of albums under 10 for most sites.
Step 5. Customize Album Display Options
Envira comes packed with options for customizing your album appearance and functionality.
Under Envira Gallery > Settings:
- Choose from 10 different album styles like Grid, Masonry, List View, and more
- Set the number of columns per row
- Show or hide gallery names / descriptions
- Select hover effects and transitions
- Enable lightbox functionality
- Adjust thumbnail aspect ratios and dimensions
- Set custom pagination, load more buttons, and slider controls
- Add custom CSS and margins around albums
- And tons more across 5 album setting tabs!
Each album also has individual settings like gallery sort order, names, SEO fields etc.
Step 6. Displaying Albums on Your Website
Once your albums look good, it‘s time to display them:
Embed Albums on Pages and Posts
Edit any post or page, click the Add Album button then select the album you want to insert. The album will embed automatically.
Standalone Album Shortcodes
To place an album outside of post content (like sidebars or templates):
[envira-album id="123"]
Conclusion & Next Steps
I hope this beginner’s guide was helpful for learning how to organize Envira galleries into albums! Albums provide an intuitive way to browse related image galleries.
Next, explore lightboxes and the other add-ons available in Envira Gallery. The modular system offers unlimited possibilties for building a cutting-edge photography website.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Resources:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy
https://enviragallery.com
