Why Open Graph Social Sharing Boosts Search Rankings

February 20, 2015

No matter what industry you’re in, your company is only successful if you drive business through your advertising efforts. Content marketing is essential, but search rankings are also critical. Your content is a waste of time if interested, qualified prospects can’t find it. There are various methods you can implement to improve your ranking on the search engine results page, but you can be sure that your competition is utilising the same strategy. A new approach may be necessary if you want to separate your company from the pack.

The answer may be found in taking advantage of social media tools; in particular, there are many reasons why open graph social sharing is essential to boosting your search rankings. If you spend any time on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve been exposed to it; you just may not recognise it. Now is the time to become familiar with open graph sharing and figure out ways to implement it as part of your social strategy.

Why You Need to Know About Open Graph Sharing

Think about what you see when you share an image on social media. Ideally, you want the image itself to appear next to the post, along with the origin site and a title tag. There are other times when your post doesn’t include the image; only the website address and title appear, so a friend or follower must click through to see the graphic.

What has happened in the background is that Facebook or Twitter has attempted to draw in the image, but was unable to capture it for sharing. The reason is failure to use open graph tags. If you don’t implement them on your own site, your images will fail to appear next to a post or status update. You’re no doubt aware of the impact images can make when you share material on your Facebook or Twitter profile, so the error in graphics not transferring over is significant. It can cost you traffic and, ultimately, customers.

This is the most compelling reason why open graph social sharing is essential to boosting your search rankings. While implementing open graph tags directly on your website won’t affect your position on the search engine results page, it does affect the performance of the links you share with your followers.

What You Need to Know About Open Graph Sharing

So now you know why you need open graph social sharing, but it’s another thing to actually reap the benefits. There are a few components that you’ll need to include with your site content to make sure it translates over seamlessly when you or another visitor shares it.

Title: The title is how you’re identifying the content itself and it will appear bolded when shared, so consider your language wisely. This element is akin to the meta tags in your code which, incidentally, Facebook will use if it can’t find your open graph tags – and which is why your share doesn’t include an image.

URL: This is the landing page on your site that visitors will be directed to when they click on the post. Fortunately, this is the open graph sharing component that doesn’t require a lot of thought. However, you should make sure you direct users to different pages on your site, as this is why open graph social sharing is essential to boosting your search rankings.

Type: Here, you’re letting Facebook and Twitter know what kind of content you’re sharing. Typically, it will fall into a category, such as web material like a blog or site. You might also designate it under the entertainment category, which would qualify it as a movie, book, game or video. Other categories include people, places, activities or businesses.

The designation of a description or type is critical for the “Like” feature on Facebook. If the open graph tag refers to something that actually exists and a follower clicks on the “Like” button, he or she will see it in the interests section of their social media profile. However, as it relates to your own marketing efforts, it’s likely that you’ll be using the web material category most often.

When you know why open graph social sharing is essential to boosting your search rankings, you open the door to leveraging your social media presence in a way that will ensure your prospects find you. With a little practice, you can soon develop skills that will make you a master at open graph sharing. However, you might also consider hiring experts to take on the task and free up the time to do what you do best: run your company.