The post-publishing process of an article is just as important as crafting the perfect, SEO-conscious article for the web. Sharing articles in the right communities is vital to ensure they reach target audiences and amplify content. It is believed that articles that perform well on social media are more likely to appear in the Google Discover feed, so SEOs need to ensure content is well-optimized for social channels.
Aside from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, there are new social channels that are worthy of attention for SEOs, including Slack and X. When sharing content on social media, it is important to ensure the content is optimized by paying close attention to OpenGraph (OG) tags in the head of the page. These tags allow for customizing the article title, featured image, description, and reading length.
The image used across social channels should be a minimum of 1,200 pixels in width and have the max-image-preview robots tag specified on the page for inclusion by Google Discover. For sharing on Facebook, the main tags to include are og:title, og:image, and og:description. It is important to use Facebook’s Sharing Debugger to check specified OG tags and see how a link looks when shared on Facebook.
Slack communities are often overlooked, but their impact is significant. When posting a URL on Slack, it is important that the Slack system “unfurls” the URL to discover what is contained within it to show a link preview. Unfurling priority is based on the order in which oEmbed server code, Twitter card tags, and Facebook Open Graph tags are found. Ensuring valid Facebook Open Graph tags/Twitter cards are provided will result in a well-optimized Slack URL preview.
Recent changes to X have masked links, presenting images pulled from the shared page and a small mention of the brand embedded in the image. This change has led to varied ways of presenting links and issues or opportunities for users. It is important to be wary of these changes and adjust sharing accordingly, as traffic to sites from X may have dropped since mid-October.
Overall, it is crucial to optimize content for social platforms in addition to search engine algorithms. Positive interaction within social channels, such as customers sharing produced content, is vital and should not be overlooked. SEOs must ensure content is well-optimized for social channels and shared in the right communities to reach target audiences and amplify content.
Read Full Article