It’s no secret that social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn are playing a bigger role in shopping and our every day lives. Luckily, these social networks have seemed to agree on one thing: the Open Graph protocol.
The open graph protocol allows meta data to be set on a webpage, making the page become a rich object allowed to be set within a social graph. In other words, when someone likes or shares a page on your website, the open graph data is collected by social networks to automatically determine an accurate post title, image, and description.
SEO-Cart supports the Open Graph protocol for product object types. Here is an example of what this open graph product meta data looks like:
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Your Site Name">
<meta property="og:type" content="product.item">
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.yoursite.com/category/product.html">
<meta property="og:title" content="Pre Owned Men's Rolex DateJust Thunderbird Watch 116261">
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.yoursite.com/images/product-image.jpg">
<meta property="og:description" content="Item Number: 104168 Manufacturer: Rolex Model">
<meta property="product:price:amount" content="10700">
<meta property="product:price:currency" content="USD">
<meta property="product:shipping_weight:value" content="1">
<meta property="product:shipping_weight:units" content="lb">
<meta property="product:sale_price:amount" content="6995">
<meta property="product:sale_price:currency" content="USD">
<meta property="product:brand" content="Rolex">
<meta property="product:mfr_part_no" content="116261">
<meta property="product:target_gender" content="male">
<meta property="product:age_group" content="adult">
<meta property="product:condition" content="new">
<meta property="product:availability" content="in stock">
<meta property="og:updated_time" content="2013-12-16T14:18:00-05:00">
Now when we “like” a category or product page with this Open Graph data set, the social network will scrape the page and auto-determine the correct image, title, and description if we choose to share our post:
Facebook Share with Open Graph data
It is important to have the correct product image, title, and description set when someone shares a product on your website. Having this correct information set by default makes it easier for your customers to share your products and increases the likelihood of them sharing your products on their social profile. Sharing accurate data will also help increase attention and click through rates for your product pages.
SEO-Cart automatically sets the other Open Graph product data properties such as price, sale price, gender, age group, MPN, UPC, etc. Even though these additional properties are not fully utilized much at the time of writing this post, having them there may help in the future when Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and other social networks update and enhance the way we share data.