Take advantage of Open Graph

Open Graph is a system devised by Facebook in 2010. The goal of this system is better integration of websites with facebook. Facebook saw the increase in the number of links being used in posts and figured that this should be nicer and better defined. The links were called “Rich Graphs. With this, they gave companies some “control,” how your website or link will look within facebook. This happens not only on facebook, but also at LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, these Rich Graphs emerge.

Why?

Social media is one of the largest sources of Web traffic. Therefore, it is important that your Open Graph tags are set so that your website creates maximum results. This allows you to avoid the problem of displaying the wrong image or title when sharing on Facebook. Open graph can help you set up news, job postings, press releases or, for example, a link to your homepage. This makes it look good and relevant, which in turn is important when shared. So with Open Graph, you control how your content looks on social media and it also works for the discoverability of your content.

How?

To use Open Graph, you will need to implement this on your website. If you use WordPress as your content management system, it’s pretty easy. There are several plugins on the market that provide this. The extended versions of plugins Yoast SEO and of AlinoneSEO are examples. Install the plugin of your choice through WordPress and you’ll see the extra input fields in your CMS when you write an article.

What should you enter?

• og:title → The title of the page.
• og:type → Specifies exactly what kind of content will be shared. You can’t just enter anything here, but must choose from a list of possible options.
• og:image → The location where the image can be found.
• og:url → The url of the page to which the open graph object points.
• og: description → A description of the page. This description is displayed in the rich snippet below the title.

Thanks to the Open Graph tags you just added, your posts will look much more professional and attractive on social platforms that use the Open Graph system.