I spent a long time trying to figure out how to get the right thumbnail and text to shop up when I share blog posts to Facebook. Finally I found 3 simples steps to control how the preview looks coming from a WordPress blog!
Step 1 – Choose A Feature Image
The first two steps are internally from your WordPress blog post or page. The image that will show up in the previews will be your feature image of that post/page. Keeping in mind that Facebook is a horizontal platform, choose a feature image that will reflect that. Remember this image doesn’t necessarily have to be on that post/page. For example let’s look at our Services Page and notice I picked a different image than one listed;
Step 2 – Specify The Featured Text
If you don’t specify the featured text it might grab the wrong page title or preview text. Notice how the preview texts looks terrible? Go from this;
To this;
To do this use your YOAST SEO plugin to correctly setup your page previews. If you’re missing this ability in Pages like I was go to your YOAST dashboard -> features -> and Enable Advanced Page Settings.
Be sure to also turn it on in the Screen Options on your page if you don’t see it.
After all that you should be able to see your page settings and choose your Header text and your Preview Text.
Step 3 – Debug The Link
You might say “but Lorina, I’ve been doing that and it still doesn’t look like that on Facebook!” We’re not done yet my friend 😉 Last step is to debug the link with this Facebook Developer Debugger which is necessary any time you make a change. The great thing is it works right away! Simply copy the link you want to share, paste it here and click “Fetch New Scrape Information” and that is all! Now if you refresh your facebook page and paste your link it will display everything perfectly!
Now when you paste the link anywhere on Facebook it should generate correctly!
Much better 🙂
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