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Why Your Links Look Like This (and How to Fix Them)

So you’ve written a blog post and picked out a great image and posted it on Facebook.

And now it looks like this:

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 3.28.30 PM

Instead of a nice wide image grabbing potential readers and drawing them in to your carefully crafted words, there’s a vertical image standing awkwardly over to one side, with the title and text of your blog post crowded in alongside it.

It didn’t used to be this way. Once upon a time, Facebook would just crop your vertical image into a horizontal one so that all your links showed up with a wide picture. But somewhere along the way, they started just displaying a vertical picture instead.

This is not cool. You’ll notice that your vertical picture, in all its uncropped glory, is given only about a third of the space of its wider friends.

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 3.19.42 PM

This means that your links won’t look as good, people are less likely to click your stuff on Facebook, and your words will get less readers.

Your words deserve better than that.

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix:

USETHIS

 

1. Make sure you’ve uploaded a featured image that’s wider than it is tall. Boom!

2. Also, make sure your featured image is big enough.

Your image needs to be at least 470 x 246. The recommended size is 1200 x 628. Facebook will crop it to a ratio of 1.91:1, so use those dimensions for complete control over how it looks.

If those last three sentences were super confusing, just use a big, wide image and you’ll probably be set.

(If your links still aren’t cooperating, read more about how to make links look good on Facebook.)

Want to know where to find good pictures for your blog? Here are my go-to spots.

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If this post was helpful, check out the Clumsy Bloggers’ Workshop, where I’ll teach you everything I know about blogging in eight fun, easy-to-understand lessons. 

published April 20, 2015

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