3 Ways to Tailor Your Blog Posts to Facebook
Though views and attitudes about blogs have changed over the years, one thing remains consistent: A blog is a great way to drive traffic to your site, by offering SEO-strong, regularly-updated material for Google to grab and serve up to searchers. But as Facebook and Twitter begin to refer more and more traffic to sites, it’s important that marketers also focus on creating blog content that’s scalable to the particular needs of social media.
That means investing in strong visual, and keeping up with the various display changes that Facebook regularly rolls out.
1.) Upgrade Your Images
Photos on blog posts have traditionally been sort of a secondary element; they’re good for SEO (Google likes it when your readers have something to look at), but for years, most marketers agreed that any old stock photo would do the trick.
Facebook has changed all of that, though, with their emphasis on previews.
Now that photos are front-and-center in the Newsfeed, it’s the images that determine what your potential readers pause to read, and what they scroll right by. That means no more isolated items on white backgrounds, and no more women laughing alone with salads.
Instead of finding the most obvious stock photo, try to find one that captures a lifestyle or a feeling, rather than an exact object. This will stand out more on the white Facebook background, and will give readers something to identify with.
You don’t need to spend a lot on images, either. Websites like Pexels and Pixabay offer free, high-resolution stock images that are modern and attractive.
2.) Use More Than One Photo
Facebook now allows brands to several photos to appear with each post, which can create a more dynamic look and reduce image fatigue if, say, a lot of people are sharing your article and it’s appearing over and over again.
To optimize your blog posts for Facebook, use two to three photos in each post. This not only ensures that the images will look good when they show up in a user’s feed, but also, that you have multiple options for photos when sharing the link.
3.) Don’t Forget The Copy
Facebook will automatically pull a headline and a few lines of copy from your blog, but you, as the user, have the opportunity to edit it. Which is fine if you don’t think anyone else will be sharing it, but if your hope is that other people will be linking out, you want to make sure that the native headline and copy that are exactly what you want people to see.
Ideally, your blog’s CMS should allow for both a headline and meta text, which gives Facebook the right copy to pull. If it doesn’t, though, you can always create a single line of copy at the beginning of your blog post, followed by enough space that Facebook will just pull that line.
Whatever you do, make sure your blog is designed to give Facebook all of the information that it needs—posts with no images or copy that doesn’t make sense or explain what the article is about won’t get clicks and shares, and might even confuse readers.
At efelle, the blog module in our CMS is easy to use and highly customizable, as well as SEO-focused to drive maximum traffic. Our experts can also help with content coaching and creation, to ensure your blog is full of the right kind of material. Since 2005, efelle has worked with hundreds of businesses to help them with their web development needs. Call us at 206.384.4909 or fill out our online contact form to get in touch with a custom web design specialist.