A few months ago, we told you about the incredible power of WordPress SEO by Yoast, a plugin with the power to drastically improve your search engine optimization.
With the recent update, this WordPress SEO plugin can increase your social shares as well!
Have you ever seen a Facebook post look a little…off?
Take the post below, for example. This is a post shared by an individual Facebook user rather than a page. The image is poorly cropped and the description under the title has been cut off.
Compare this with another article shared.
This post has a properly proportioned image, a Facebook-friendly headline and a short description.
When readers are sharing a blog post on your site, you want to be in control over what’s being shared. Rather than trusting Facebook (or another social network) to pull the right information, there’s an easy way to tell these websites what your post should look like.
That’s where WordPress SEO comes in
You can use the WordPress SEO plugin to establish the image size, network-specific title and description you want published.
To begin, make sure all social metadata is enabled on your WordPress user profile.
Head to the SEO “social” settings and you’ll see the settings for the WordPress SEO plugin.
Click the Facebook “Add Open Graph meta data” box.
Click the “Add Twitter card meta data” box and add your company’s Twitter handle (without the @ sign).
Finally, check the “Add Google+ specific post meta data” box.
Then, head back to your new blog post and click the “social” tab on the WordPress plugin. From here, you can input a Facebook and Google+ specific title, write a shorter description, and even upload a unique image.
Once you’ve gone through these steps, your posts should be shared perfectly every time!
So how will the WordPress plugin increase social shares?
As you know, readers and casual social media users are more likely to share blog posts that are inherently sharable themselves.
If a Facebook, Twitter or Google+ post has a great image, reader-friendly headline and intriguing description, readers scrolling through their news feed will be more likely to stop and notice.
This can, understandably, be overwhelming. There are a lot of technical details to remember, and these steps can take valuable time away from your focus on running a successful business. If you’d like help managing these processes, or your blogging and outreach strategy, contact Agency Entourage at info@agencyentourage.com. We’re happy to lend a hand!
Take control of your social media posts and increase shares on your blog!
