How previews are built
Platforms read special tags in the head of your page. The Open Graph set, created for Facebook, is used widely by LinkedIn, messaging apps and many others. X has its own card tags but falls back to Open Graph when its own are missing. The main tags are og:title, og:description, og:image, og:url and og:type.
Write the title and description
The social title can differ from your search title. Make it clear and compelling at around 60 characters. The description should be a sentence or two, up to about 150 characters, that tells a reader why to click. Write for people scanning a feed, not search crawlers.
Each page that might be shared should have its own, rather than the same text sitewide.
Choose the right image
A common size is 1200 by 630 pixels, with a ratio near 1.91 to 1. Keep important content in the middle, as platforms crop differently. Avoid tiny text. Use JPEG or PNG under about a megabyte. Include the logo subtly. Provide an absolute address that is publicly reachable, with https.
For services pages, a custom card with the service name and your logo beats a random stock photo.
Set it up on your platform
SEO plugins for WordPress include a social tab for each page. Builders offer a social image setting in page options. For hand-coded sites, add meta property tags in the head. Make sure the og:url matches the canonical address.
If a page has no image set, define a default one for the whole site so shared links always look intentional.
Test and refresh
Facebook's Sharing Debugger and LinkedIn's Post Inspector show how a link will look and let you refresh the platform's cache. Messaging apps cache previews too, so a change may not appear instantly for links shared earlier. Add a version parameter to the image address if you must force an update.
Check the preview whenever you launch a new page or update a major one. A good card costs little and improves clicks from every share.
Mistakes that ruin previews
A relative image address, which many platforms cannot fetch. A tiny logo that gets blown up and looks blurry. The same description copied from the search snippet. An image that is blocked by a password, a security plugin or robots.txt. Text baked into the image that gets cut off on a narrow card.
When a preview looks wrong, run the page through the debugger tools first. Their messages usually name the problem, such as a missing image or an unreachable address.
Whenever you publish a post or service page you plan to share, paste the link into one of the debugger tools before you post. It takes less than a minute and avoids an embarrassing cropped logo in front of your audience.
Common questions
Do Open Graph tags affect Google rankings?
Not directly. They control social previews, though better clicks can bring more visitors.
Why does my link show an old image?
The platform cached the earlier version. Use its debugger tool to refresh.
Can I use the same image on every page?
You can as a fallback, but custom images for key pages perform better.
This guide is general information. Search engines change how they work and their guidelines; check Google's current documentation for your situation. Nobody can guarantee a ranking.