Skip to content
Katie Davidson
  • Home
  • Portfolio
  • Articles and Tutorials
  • Contact
Menu
  • Home
  • Portfolio
  • Articles and Tutorials
  • Contact
Search
Close
with and Without Meta Data

Why your images don’t show up on your Facebook posts

  • March 15, 2018
  • All, Articles
“Whenever I share a link on Facebook, the image doesn’t show up!” I hear this all the time, from small businesses owners and bloggers who’ve worked hard on their…
Katie Davidson

Katie Davidson

Twitter
Linkedin

A UX designer with roots in digital marketing.

“Whenever I share a link on Facebook, the image doesn’t show up!”

I see this all the time from new bloggers and small business owners. You see all the beautiful posts on Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter etc, but you’re struggling to figure out why your links don’t work like theirs. I even get this question from other Website Designers and Developers!

Back before the Facebook was eviscerated over the spread of fake news, you used to be able to add images and even titles after the fact when sharing them on social media. Facebook changed its policy to prevent people from linking to unreliable sources. Now, in order for your website to look “legit” on Facebook, you need to add open graph data or social meta data.

with and Without Meta Data

In my experience, if your website isn’t social media optimized, no amount of social media posting or digital outreach is going to help drive visitors to your website. I see a lot of DIY websites or out of the box websites completely neglect social meta data.  Even some of the most popular WordPress themes are developed without meta data! So many of the businesses just starting out are being given an unfair disadvantage because customers don’t know how to request social meta data as part of the website build.

So what is social meta data?

There are a lot of different terms that are used to mean the same thing. Sometimes you’ll see it called meta data (my preferred term), you’ll also see it written metadata, meta tags, and in some circles, you’ll hear the terms “Rich Pins”, “Twitter Cards”, or “Open Graph Data”.

All of these different terms refer to the same thing. Basically, it’s a way for one website to understand the content on another website.

Twitter Card: Social Meta Data

For example, a blog post has a title, text, and often some images or videos. Facebook (or any other website) doesn’t know what to do with all that info – or even what it’s allowed to share or not share. Selecting a random image from the site could be risky, for all Facebook knows the first image on the site could be from a banner ad, or it could be an icon that links to another social media account. So rather than taking a random guess, Facebook just doesn’t show anything.

When you add meta data to your site you can tell Facebook exactly what to use, and how to best display your website on their platform.

How can I tell if my website has meta data setup?

The easiest way to tell if your website has meta data is to use the Facebook Debugger. You can try a few links on your website if an image and a title show up – Congratulations, your website has meta data!

If you get an error, or it doesn’t load any images, you need to add social meta data to your website.

Try the Facebook Debugger!

Can I add meta data to my website?

If your website doesn’t have meta data, you’ll need to find a way to add it. If you’re a WordPress user, I’ve created a full course on how to add meta data to your website, and how to add optimize your website for social media.

If you hired a website designer/developer to design a website for them as them if they can add social meta data/open graph data to your website. Don’t be too surprised if they don’t know what that is (most designers/developers don’t)- you can send them this article to help explain it.

If you’re using a DIY website builder like SquareSpace, or Shopify do a search in their help forum for “social meta data”, “changing your social share image”, “open graph”. There are usually some tutorials on how to add it to your website.

with and Without Meta Data

Give your website a professional makeover with the Social Media Meta Data Course

Take the Course!
PrevPreviousIs Vero the next big social media platform?
NextResearch your Target Audience using the Facebook Audience Insights DashboardNext

More to explorer

Articles
Katie Davidson

How to make your website more accessible through IA

This was originally a presentation for World IA Day 2020. You can download a PDF of the presentation here. How to get started with accessibility

Read More »
February 24, 2020 1 Comment
A spectrum of colorful accessibility icons over the words Website Accessibility
Articles
Katie Davidson

Website Accessibility – How you can make your website function for people of all abilities, even if you’re not a coder

Making your website accessible to people with disabilities should be a high priority. Take the time to make these changes to your website to make the world a little more inclusive.

Read More »
January 18, 2019 No Comments
5 blogging mistakes that are holding you back
Articles
Katie Davidson

5 Blogging Mistakes You’re Making That are Destroying your Chances at Success

Just because I learned the hard way, doesn’t mean you have to! When I first started blogging, I made a lot of mistakes, that made it impossible for me to succeed. In this post I reveal my top 5 blogging mistakes, so you start out on the right path.

Read More »
November 17, 2018 4 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Katie Davidson

Work With Me

  • Freelance
  • Portfolio

Resources

  • Product Recommendations
  • Free Resources
  • Articles and Tutorials
  • Courses

Legal

  • Terms and Conditions
  • FTC
  • Privacy Policy

Latest Posts

How to make your website more accessible through IA

Website Accessibility – How you can make your website function for people of all abilities, even if you’re not a coder

© All rights reserved

Linkedin-in
Skip to content
Open toolbar

Accessibility Tools

  • Increase Text
  • Decrease Text
  • Grayscale
  • High Contrast
  • Negative Contrast
  • Light Background
  • Links Underline
  • Readable Font
  • Reset