If you are a user of the Genesis Framework and have been wanting to create a featured image for sharing the home page of your website (just, yourdomain.com), this tutorial is for you.
I’ve done this many times for clients and the question was recently asked of me again and also was brought up in a developers group a few days ago. So I decided to write this post.
Create an optimized image for sharing
If you are unsure about the size you wish to display as your featured image, you should review Facebook’s “Sharing Best Practices for Websites & Mobile Apps.” Click here to jump directly to the section entitled “Optimize images to generate great previews.”
In that section you will learn how to properly size your images for best sharing results. Create your image and have that ready.
There are two options here – One for use with the Yoast SEO Plugin and one without.
Steps When Using the Yoast SEO Plugin
- If you are using the Yoast SEO plugin, browse over to SEO > Social.
- Click the Facebook tab.
- “Enable” the button under “Add Open Graph meta data.”
- Under Frontpage settings, upload your image in the Image URL box. Then Save it.
- If you have any caching plugins installed, you will need to clear your cache.
Fetch a New Facebook Scrape
After you have applied your new image, you may notice when you share your home page, the new image may not appear. In this case you will need to “ask Facebook to crawl my website again” to see that you have a new image for the home page. You will do this using the Facebook Debugger Tool.
Log in to Facebook. Then go to the Tool here. You may need to sign up with just your current Facebook email address and password. Once logged in you will enter your domain name and then select “Fetch new scrape information.”
If the caching cleared, then all should be well and you should now see your new featured image with your domain name. Scroll all the way down the page and you should see the new image.
I Don’t Use the Yoast SEO Plugin, Now What?
You can still add a featured image!
If you haven’t already installed and activated the Open Graph Protocol Framework plugin that helps you get Pinterest Rich Pin approved, install and activate that now. You can get it here. All you need to do is install and activate, then follow these instructions.
Step 1
- Go to Pages and create a page called “Home”.
- Add your new image as the Featured Image for the home page.
- Save it.
- That’s it. Nothing else to do on the home page.
Step 2
- Go to Settings > Reading
- Select “A static page”
- In “Front Page” – select your newly created Home Page
- In “Posts Page” – select your Blog page.
- Save it.
Clear your cache if you are using a caching plugin.
Repeat the steps above for Fetching new scrape information.
You should now see your new image.
If you still don’t see your image, you may need to clear your cache again, or you may not have selected a properly sized image. Click Fetch new scrape information again as it could just be an issue with Facebook.
