How to Serve Images and Videos via Forever FREE Cloudinary CDN on WordPress – Step by Step

In 2026, website speed remains one of the biggest ranking factors for Google. Large, unoptimized images and videos are still the top culprits behind slow-loading WordPress sites, poor Core Web Vitals, and high bounce rates.

The good news? You don’t need to pay for a premium CDN. Cloudinary’s Forever Free plan, combined with its official WordPress plugin, lets you automatically optimize, transform, and deliver all your images and videos through a powerful global CDN — completely free.

In this detailed guide, we walk through the exact process shown in the latest video tutorial by WP Themes, covering full setup, configuration for media library + theme/plugin/core assets, real before-and-after results, and how this setup helps save bandwidth while dramatically improving site performance.

Why Cloudinary Stands Out for WordPress Users

Cloudinary is more than just a CDN. It offers intelligent image and video optimization with features like:

• Automatic format conversion (WebP, AVIF)
• Content-aware cropping and resizing
• Lazy loading and responsive image generation
• On-the-fly transformations
• Global edge delivery for lightning-fast loading

The best part: The Forever Free plan provides 25 credits per month (1 credit ≈ 1GB storage or 1GB bandwidth or 1,000 transformations), which is more than enough for most small to medium-sized WordPress websites. No credit card is required, and there’s no time limit.

Metric	Before Cloudinary	After Cloudinary CDN	Improvement
Page Load Time	4.8 – 6.2 seconds	1.9 – 2.7 seconds	55–60% faster
Image Size (Average)	2.8 MB	180–450 KB	80–90% reduction
Bandwidth Usage	High (origin server)	Significantly reduced	Up to 70% savings
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)	3.8s	1.4s	Excellent range
Core Web Vitals Score	Poor / Needs Improvement	Good / Passed	Major boost

Note: Actual results may vary depending on hosting, theme, and content volume. Data based on real tests shown in the tutorial video.

Step-by-Step Setup Guide (As Shown in the Video)

1. Create a Free Cloudinary Account Sign up at cloudinary.com and get instant access to your dashboard, API credentials, and Cloud Name.
2. Install the Official Cloudinary Plugin Go to WordPress Dashboard → Plugins → Add New, search for “Cloudinary”, install and activate the plugin by Cloudinary.
3. Connect WordPress to Cloudinary Enter your Cloud Name, API Key, and API Secret (or use the connection string). The plugin validates the connection instantly.
4. Configure Optimization Settings Enable optimization for:
   • Media Library images and videos
   • WordPress core assets
   • Theme and plugin static files (JS, CSS, images)
   • Automatic lazy loading and responsive breakpoints
5. Advanced Image & Video Settings Choose delivery formats (AVIF/WebP fallback), quality levels, and transformation presets. You can also enable automatic cropping, aspect ratio adjustments, and video adaptive streaming.
6. Sync Existing Assets Run a one-time sync to migrate and optimize your current media library to Cloudinary.

After configuration, all assets are served from Cloudinary’s global CDN with optimized URLs like res.cloudinary.com/…

Real Performance Results

The video demonstrates impressive real-world improvements:

• Heavy images compressed dramatically (example: 18 MB → 135 KB)
• Faster page load times
• Better Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• Significant reduction in origin server bandwidth usage

These gains directly translate to improved SEO rankings, better user experience, and higher conversions.