I have decided that every Tuesday I will look into more of the technical side of blogging. Showing other bloggers how to get the most out of their blog, as it is always highly requested in emails sent to me. This week I’ll be looking at twitter cards and looking at the answer to the question “Should I use NoFollow?”
What are Twitter Cards, and how to implement them.
Strikeapose only started using twitter cards last week. I thought that I would show it off, as it’s a very simple change to the blog that can amount in lots more traffic. I noticed that after implementing it our views from twitter did go up!
What are twitter cards? Well you will have seen them if you’re a regular on twitter but you might just not have known what they were or how to turn it on.
Without twitter cards, when you link to your blog posts it will look like this –
But in 5 minutes and with very little knowledge of HTML you can get it to look like this –
Your probably thinking, Wow….. I missed that post!. After getting over that shock of missing such a fab post, your probably thinking how on earth do I get my blog to have this!
Luckily for you its super simple!
Blogger, WordPress & WordPress.com all have different steps depending on the type of blog you have.
I’m going to assume that most of you know a little bit about editing a theme but if you don’t Google is your friend.
Blogger.com users
Go to settings > Template > Edit HTML.
Once on the edit page, do a search for.
<b:includable id=’post’ var=’post’>
Directly BELOW it add
<meta name='twitter:site' content='@yourname'/>
<b:if cond='data:post.firstImageUrl'>
<meta name='twitter:card' content='photo'/>
<meta name='twitter:image' expr:content='data:post.firstImageUrl'/>
<b:else/>
<meta name='twitter:card' content='summary'/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.postImageThumbnailUrl'>
<meta name='twitter:image' expr:content='data:blog.postImageThumbnailUrl'/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
<meta name='twitter:title' expr:content='data:blog.pageName'/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<meta name='twitter:description' expr:content='data:post.snippet'/>
<b:else/>
<meta name='twitter:description' content='Description about my Blogger site.'/>
</b:if>
Change all the parts labelled @yourname to your Twitter name include the @ so for me it was me it would be @letsstrikeapose
Save these changes.
Finally turn metaDescriptions on, to do this go to Settings> Search description and enable search descriptions. Make sure you fill all the details on this page!
Then Submit your blog via https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator
WordPress.com
All the required code is already on your blog, all you have to do is submit it to twitter to help them know you have it enabled!
Submit your blog via https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator
Self Hosted – WordPress Blogs
Super easy for people that have your own WordPress blog, get either Yoast SEO plugin or the one linked below –
1) Install http://wordpress.org/plugins/twitter-cards/
2) Read the FAQ – http://wordpress.org/plugins/twitter-cards/faq/
3) Submit your blog via https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator
Once submitted it will take around 24 hours for Twitter to approve you, and a few days for twitter to start showing the cards correctly.
Use No Follow or not?
Also as tonight is #bloghour. I felt the need to answer a question they asked in more than 140 characters.
This is a question that I personally think shouldn’t even be asked. It will only encourage the brands currently doing it wrong to continue. At the end of the day, the worlds biggest search companies have outlined the rules on paid promotion. If you don’t know what no follow is or want to read up prior to tonight when the questions are asked please view this post here – https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en
Doing no follow wrong does affect sites of all sizes from small bloggers to multinational companies. Back in January Expedia lost 25% of the visibility in Google for doing just this. They hired some SEO companies to boost posts and items. They used guest posts on blogs and lots of dodgy backlinks. All sites involved with the pay for links suffered. The end result was that Expedia lost 4% of their share price, and had a dramatic reduction in showing up on search engines. They are still repairing the damage now; this could be a long process for them to recover.
So should you follow what Google suggests? Yes!, is it worth getting £££ and reducing the chance to show up on Google or potentially damage your blog and brand? They will be plenty of opportunities when blogging to work with bigger and more trustworthy PR companies. The better ones would never ask you to put your blog at risk, always remember that!
Most of the time the brands that hire these PR firms, are not aware of these penalties or the chance to harm their brand and that SEO company is trying to cash out quick, before Google does anything about the site or brand. Once they have been paid it isn’t their issue.
If you found this post useful or you are thinking about implementing twitter cards, remember to share it on Twitter/Share on Facebook! And point people this way during #bloghour, if they want to find out a bit more about no-follow and the effects it can have on your site negatively.
If you have any suggestions for next week let me know in the comments below.
Great post!
I will start using them from today onwards! I really love these kinds of posts, with my hectic schedule, I don’t really have a lot of time to endlessly google stuff so, this REALLY helps me a lot.
Thank you so much for helping all of us and sharing your knowledge :)
Have a great day!
Bookmarking this post!
Relationships.College.Love
Thanks for the tip!
I’m going to go try the twitter card right now! Thank you for the easy instructions!
Food for thought! Thank you for sharing!
http://fashionmusingsdiary.blogspot.fr
I tried searching for but it isn’t in my html? any idea what else to look for?
Rachael
Author
post a link to your site, ill have a look. ^.^
I’ve done it according to the twitter dev site :
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/twitter-cards-for-cms-wordpress-blogger-tumblr#Configuration-7
somehow when I copied and searched for the includable there it could be found? They still aren’t showing in my tweets though? Did you have to do anything with robots.txt? Or did image just show straight away etc on your twitter card?
http://www.rachaellucy.blogspot.co.uk/
*UPDATE: Summary is showing for some tweets now…but only the text and no images?*
Rachael
Author
takes a few days for it to be fully turned on. If still not fully working report back if not working in 72 hours. Basicly it rolls out over your whole site over a period of time.
change ‘post’ to ‘posts’, that’s how I found them on mine.
I had the same thing. Any ideas anybody?
I’m going to try the twitter card, thanks :]
NK | http://www.esttrill.co.uk
This is helpful but I’m still confused, hahah! I tried to comment on here about 20 mins ago and put a ‘nofollow’ link to my blog (for practice) and it broke the link. I copied the HTML to the letter. I tried to edit it but then I think it got flagged for spam and maybe deleted. I have no clue what I did wrong… Am I not supposed to do nofollow links on Disqus? Sorry for all the confusion. Any input you have is greatly appreciated! I’m going to attempt a Twitter card now, wish me luck! xx
Author
Every link in disqus (my commenting system) is automatically no follow so it wont work. Not that I don’t mind people promoting blogs on here, if they have something to say.
But I wouldn’t use no follows for everything, as its good to reward some sites if they didn’t give you anything. It’s supposed to be used if you get a product/giftcard/money for posting about that item on your blog. If you then link to their website you use a no follow.
If you purchased it yourself out of your own money you don’t have to use a no follow. To add a no follow look at the code and just add a rel=nofollow in to the link.
See the image below. Hope that clears it up
Thank you so much for responding! That helps a lot. xx
Thanks for the tip re the twitter cards, looking forward to trying them :)
I tried the twitter cards and it just refuses to validate. Keeps giving me an error about the title and description. So I just gave up for now (it’s too late to be thinking html lol). But thank you for the tip! It’s really nice of you to share that <3
Author
let me know how it goes for you if you have any further issues poke me.
I had that problem too, it looked good but just wouldn’t validate. x
Author
Just updated the code, noticed that it might have been a touch theme reliant before. Let me know if the updated code works better
Everything on the standard card tag is completed and highlighted green and then on the validate and apply section I pop the link for the blog post in but it fails x
Author
odd, is that even with the amended code from above ? (Shift + refresh button on this page if it doesn’t update). x
Yep, ill have another go and check the code. I always struggle with techy things, thanks for the post its really helpful x
Author
More than welcome, As i said in one of the other posts. I’ll make a video on how to do this. Just been reading the twitter help forums, the validator can also be a bit odd. So sometimes you might have to submit a few times before you get it to read it.
Thank you for sharing this post. I think that it is really important to showcase both the technical and behind the scenes work that goes into managing a blog so I really appreciate you spotlighting this!
♥
Krystal | http://www.moorekrystal.wordpress.com
Great tips! I wouldn’t know a thing about html etc without these kinds of posts so it’s so good that people share their knowledge!
salted-roses.blogspot.co.uk
I loved the idea but just could not get it to work on my blog at all! First it was talking about open quotes and then different ID’s. Clearly me and HTML aren’t ever going to get on!
Author
I’ll put a video up in a few days showing it step by step for people. Just so that they isn’t anybody that gets lost. I’ll Updates this post and reply to this also.
I love that you are making technical topics a regular feature! Thank you!
This is a brilliant idea and it is helpful for me. :)
Thank you for the codes! For some reason when I press validate and apply, input my blog information …the message reads invalid card type.
Author
Made sure you turned on MetaDescriptions? And submit a blogpost not the front page. x
I turned on MetaDescriptions…submitted a blogpost..:) my only one, which I hadn’t submitted the first time. You’ve already given me a nugget …. i’ll figure out the rest! xxxxx
This is a great idea to have a blogging tips post each week. I love it!
How did I never know this? Great info!
For someone who has only been blogging since last summer you have done so well. Hats off to you :)
Sarah
http://www.daisychainsanddreamers.wordpress.com
Ooooh I’ve never heard of twitter cards! Thank you, I am going to give it a go!! You are one helpful lady.
kirstenlearns.com
Twitter cards are one of the few thing’s I never got around to sorting for my blog, but I’m going to do this tonight, thank you! x
http://techbunny.net/
If you are running self hosted WordPress would I recommend you to use Yoast SEO, and then go to “social” and make sure both “Facebook Open Graph” and “Twitter Open Card” is checked.
Update , yesterday my blogspot went a little wonky. Today is a new day and I tried again. Determined! Followed Marys’ instructions and voila’ . Now awaiting approval from company, which according to them may take weeks.No problem :) :) Thanks again
Very very useful post! Thank you for your information about twitter!
XXX
http://muerdelaespina.blogspot.com.es/
Very informative and unique post dear :)
http://naturelbellefemme.blogspot.com
Thank you, very useful post! ^__^
http://nagareboshi9.blogspot.ch/
Thanks for the post I think I’ve done it right, guess I’ll find out in a few days! Just wondered do we have to register each blog post or will it work for all?
http://www.justjessicaxo.blogspot.com
Thanks for following my blog :) I’m so thrilled you chose to, because it allowed me to find this brilliantly informative post. You’ve given me quite a bit to think about with twitter cards, and the AD/PR side of things. Thanks :)
http://www.lostandfoundtraveller.com