When sharing content the three meta tags often used to generate the link to your content are:
- title
- description
- image_src
WordPress already has a title tag, so you’re all set there. You will need to ensure you have a description tag if you want to maintain control of the snippet of text used – the description tag is used by search engines also, so it is good practise to put some effort into crafting your descriptions.
To ensure you have a description tag you can use one of several plugins:
- Add Meta Tags (very easy to use)
- All in One Seo (very popular)
- Headspace 2 SEO (my own preference)
I’m sure there are others too, but I have personal experience of these three, so I thought I’d share them with you.
Now you have your title and your description set up, what about image_src which will define a thumbnail for your content?
I use Dlvr.it to automatically post my blog postss to FaceBook, unfortunately I noticed that often there was no thumbnail image associated, and sometimes it was my Twitter icon or RSS icon that was being used instead of a relevant image.
The image_src meta tag is what tells sites what image you would like associated with your content.
I have released a plugin, developed for me by John Blackbourn, that adds the meta tag to any posts or pages that have a post thumbnail / featured image. You will need to be using a theme that has post thumbnail enabled, of course, but other than that you simply upload and activate the plugin and then set post thumbnails / featured image for your content.