How to add Open Graph and Twitter Card metadata and optimize images for social media
Using Open Graph and Twitter Card metadata enhances links when they're shared on social networks, and optimizing Open Graph and Twitter Card images can increase engagement and referral traffic.
Open Graph (OG) and Twitter Card (TC) metadata provides content marketers the ability to control how links appear when they’re shared on social networks. A key component to the metadata is the image. Without it, link previews are small and indistinct.

There are several benefits to having OG and TC images. Those benefits include:
- bringing attention to the post
- having full control over what people see
- taking people to the site when the image is clicked (attached images don’t)
- looking great when other people share links
- taking up more vertical space on the feed
- adding additional text beyond Twitter’s post character limit
This guide walks you through adding OG and TC metadata to your site, OG and TC image best practices, and how to optimize those images for increased engagement.
Table of contents
- How to add OG and TC metadata to a site
- Recommended OG and TC metadata
- OG and TC metadata properties and descriptions
- Example code for OG and TC metadata
- Download OG and TC metadata reference PDF
- Adding OG and TC metadata to WordPress
- Recommended OG and TC metadata
- How to optimize OG and TC images
- OG and TC best practices
- Tactics for optimizing OG and TC images
- Open Graph Image as a Service
- OG and TC best practices
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