Here's what a website without the proper metatags looks like when shared on Twitter:
And here's what that same website looks like when social metatags area added:
Big difference eh? So, how do you do this?
Step 1: Collect / write the content
Title
This will be what shows up in bold. Typically, this is just your podcast's name.
Description
The description is the 1-2 sentence brief way you describe your podcast to new listeners. Use the same description you use in your podcast feed, or at least the first few sentences of it.
Image
Your podcast artwork works great as your metatag image.
Step 2: Adding metatags to your homepage
You might need to get your hands dirty in code to make this happen, but it's relatively easy. You want to add the following to the <head> tag of your website, replacing the placeholders ("TITLE") with the content you wrote above.
<meta name="description" content="DESCRIPTION"> <meta property="og:type" content="website"> <meta property="og:title" content="TITLE"> <meta property="og:url" content="WEBSITE_URL"> <meta property="og:image" content="IMAGE"> <meta name="twitter:image:src" content="IMAGE">
<meta property="og:site_name" content="TITLE"> <meta property="og:description" content="DESCRIPTION"> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"> <meta name="twitter:title" content="TITLE"> <meta name="twitter:description" content="DESCRIPTION">
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="WEBSITE_URL">
Don't forget your episode pages!
It's likely you'll regularly be sharing your episodes on social media, and your fans will too. That's why it's important to make sure your website's meta tags are set up to highlight episode-specific information. It's especially powerful when you have an episode image with your website guest.
For this, I recommend using:
- Title: NAME_OF_EPISODE - PODCAST_NAME
- Description: Brief description of the episode. Maybe the first line in your show notes.
- Image: If you have an image for the episode, use it here. If not, use your podcast artwork.
Testing
Once you've got this all setup, the place I like to test the most is Metatags.io. It's simple and shows you what your website will look like when shared on all the major social websites.
