You put a lot of time & energy into building your website and/or blog; every page has a specific purpose and every photo was picked using great care! It goes without saying, when someone shares your web content, you want your eye-catching image to go along with it to instantly grab attention! But sometimes, the content isn’t optimized for sharing on Facebook and the image selection is either non-existent, or the person sharing the content ends up clicking through multiple random thumbnails before finding the one relevant image that actually goes with the content–a frustrating and time consuming effort.
In a recent report, the average number of items shared by Facebook users daily is 4.75 billion! (Tweet this stat)
Follow any of the three steps below to ensure that the image you want shared is actually the image that is shared!
Here are 3 ways to optimize your website for Facebook sharing!
1. Hide an image on your website–that only Facebook will see!
Use this method when the image you want shared is different than the one on the website page or blog post. The idea here is to give Facebook users the best thumbnail option possible for sharing with friends and fans. To do this you need to insert links to your desired images into your page’s header tag. These images will will not show up on your website, but they will be there for your fans to choose when they share your page! Here’s what the code you would be placing in the header might look like:
<link rel=”image_src” href=”http://www.YourImagesLocation.com/YourImageName.jpg“>
If you’re not familiar with your website’s Header, it’s code starting with “<head” and ending with “/head>” at the top of the page. This link from w3schools.com will show you what to look for in more detail or you can check out this link to learn more about website head tags.
Note: You’ll have to do this for each individual page you want shared!
2. Optimize images for Facebook viewing.
The secret here is to make it square! If you have text or other details you would like readable, proof your image at 90px by 90px.
3. Get Facebook to show your image of choice as #1 in the thumbnail selection area!
This can be done by making the image of your choice larger then the other images–even if it’s only slightly! Facebook will display the largest image on the page as the the first selection in the thumbnail selection.
