Using the Open Graph Protocol to Create Rich Media Experiences on Social Media

Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, and as a result, businesses have recognized the importance of utilizing social media platforms to reach their audience.

However, simply sharing a link on social media is not enough to capture users’ attention. To stand out, you must create visually appealing link previews that accurately represent the content on your web pages.

This is where the open graph protocol and open graph tags come into play.

What Are Open Graph Tags?

Open Graph tags are HTML meta tags that provide structured data about a webpage to social media platforms and other websites. They allow the webpage to provide specific information, such as the title, description, and image, that should be displayed when a link to that webpage is shared on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

The open graph protocol was created by Facebook and is used by many social media platforms.

Why Are Open Graph Tags Important?

Open Graph tags are important because they help optimize how a webpage appears when shared on social media platforms.

Typically, when a link to a webpage is shared on a social media platform, the platform will scrape the page for information about the content, such as the title, description, and image, to display a preview to users. By including these tags on a webpage, you can control the information displayed in the social media preview.

Some benefits that you stand to gain by using open graph tags include the following:

• Enhanced visual appeal: Specifying a high-quality image and a concise and informative title and description enables you to create link previews that are more engaging and visually appealing.
• Improved user experience: When users see a well-formatted link preview with a clear and concise description of the content on your webpage, they are more likely to have a positive experience when they click through to the page.
• Increased engagement: Your audience is likelier to click through a webpage with an informative and engaging link preview. It also makes sharing easier and potentially leads to more backlinks and social signals.
• Consistent branding: Open graph tags can help ensure that a web page’s branding is consistent across social media platforms. This can help to improve brand recognition and awareness and create a more consistent and cohesive online presence.
• Structured data for search engines: These tags provide search engines with additional structured data about your webpage, which can help them understand the page’s content more effectively. After all, part of specifying open graph tags is entering details of the description, title, and type of the webpage’s content.
• Increased search engine ranking: All the above benefits, once fulfilled, sum up to an increased ranking overall for your webpage on SERPs.

Types of Open Graph Tags

Although Facebook, which introduced the protocol, specifies up to 20 different types of open graph tags, the most important ones you must know and use consistently are just about five. These are highlighted below:

1. OG:title – The web page’s title should be concise and descriptive, accurately representing the page’s content.
2. OG:type – This tag is used to specify the type of content on the webpage. The type can be anything from “article” to “product” to “video.”
3. OG:description – This summarizes the content displayed under the title in the link preview.
4. OG:image – Select the image that should be displayed in the link preview. It should be a relevant image that represents the content of the webpage.
5. OG:URL – It is important to ensure that this URL is the same as the actual canonical URL of the webpage and that it is not a shortened or redirected URL.

To confirm that you have correctly set the open graph tags for your webpage, use the Eye10 On-Page SEO. Enter the webpage URL and run the audit to generate real-time results. Scroll down the content analysis section to find the Open Graph Protocol subsection.

Best Practices for Using Open Graph Tags

The following tips are highly useful when setting open graph tags for your web pages:

• Include all required tags. Besides the most important ones, some other tags may be necessary depending on the type of content.
• Keep descriptions concise and accurate. You could add a keyword or two to your description but avoid stuffing.
• Test the link previews on social media platforms before going live with the link. Your CMS would most likely have plugins that allow you to see how your link would be displayed on social media pages before publishing.
• Keep tags up to date. This is particularly important if you make major changes to the page’s content.
• Don’t focus on open graph tags so much that you neglect other more important aspects of SEO: creating high-quality content, setting meta tags, keyword optimization, etc. The Eye10 On-Page SEO tool displays various metrics that give you insights into the status of your page across various areas.

Conclusion

Implementing open graph tags on web pages is relatively simple, and by following best practices, you can ensure that your link previews accurately represent your content and maintain consistent branding.

The Eye10 On-Page SEO tool not only helps you to confirm the correct usage of open graph tags; it gives you a whole range of information concerning your webpage: keywords, header tags, alt attributes, etc. Combining this with other SEO tools from Eye10 gives you a super app. And all of these are available to you in a single subscription. Sign up today and start living the experience of enhanced SEO strategy.