Have you ever shared your website on Facebook, only to be faced with a less than suitable thumbnail? Wouldn’t it be great if you could display a custom thumbnail that is perfectly branded and sized to fit? Luckily you can!
Here’s how to change your site’s thumbnail on Facebook:
Install WordPress SEO by Yoast
If you aren’t already using WordPress SEO by Yoast, you’ll want to install and activate it.
Create a New Thumbnail
Now it’s time to create the thumbnail that will be displayed every time your website is shared. For best results, create an image that is 1200px wide by 627px tall. However, you can go as small as 484px by 252px. Keep in mind that your image will be scaled down to that size, so if you’re creating a large image, you’ll want to make sure everything is still legible at the smaller size.
Upload Thumbnail and Edit Description
Once your image is created, it’s time to upload it. From your WordPress dashboard, go to SEO > Social and then click the Facebook tab. Under the section titled Frontpage Settings, there is a field where you can upload your new thumbnail.
If you want to edit the title and description of your site that is shared with the thumbnail, you can do so by filling in the title and description fields.
Make sure to save your changes!
Refresh
Now that your new thumbnail is uploaded, it may take awhile for the changes to take place. To speed up the process, we’re going to use Facebook’s debugger tool. Enter your website into the box and click debug.
You’ll be presented with a bunch of information that probably makes no sense. That’s okay. There are two things you’re looking for: the time scraped and the image included with shares. At this point, the time scraped is most likely a few days ago. If you scroll down, you’ll probably see the old thumbnail associated with your site. That’s because the last time your site was scraped, that was the image associated with Facebook.
To get Facebook to refresh your image, scroll back to the top and click fetch new scrape information. When the page refreshes, you’ll notice that the time scraped has changed to display the current date. Scroll down and it should now be displaying your new thumbnail.
That’s it! Now every time you share your link on Facebook, your new custom thumbnail will be displayed as well!
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