How to Tag a Website on Facebook

Tagging a website on Facebook is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic and share valuable content with your audience. Done correctly, it creates a clean, clickable visual preview that encourages people to click through to your site. This guide breaks down exactly how to tag a website, how to make sure your links look perfect every time, and what to do when they don't.

Understanding What "Tagging a Website" on Facebook Means

First, let's clear up a common point of confusion. The phrase "tagging a website" can mean two slightly different things on Facebook, and both are useful for different reasons.

• Sharing a Website Link (URL): This is the most common interpretation. It involves pasting a link from a website directly into a Facebook post. When you do this, Facebook automatically generates a clickable preview box that includes an image, a headline, and a short description. The main goal here is to drive traffic directly to that specific webpage.
• Tagging a Facebook Page (@-Mention): This is when you use the "@" symbol to mention a brand's or company's official Facebook Page in your post. While this doesn't directly link to their website, it links to their Facebook Page and sends them a notification. The primary goal here is collaboration, networking, giving credit, or increasing the visibility of your post by leveraging another Page's audience.

Throughout this article, we’ll cover how to do both - and how to combine them for maximum impact.

How to Share a Website Link on Facebook (The Easy Way)

Let’s start with the basics: sharing a link to generate that familiar preview box. The process is straightforward and works whether you’re posting from a personal profile, a business Page, or in a Facebook Group.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Copy the full URL: Go to the website or specific blog post you want to share. Highlight the entire web address in your browser's address bar (make sure it includes the https:// part) and copy it.
2. Create a new Facebook post: Go to the Facebook Page, Group, or profile where you want to post. Click inside the "What's on your mind?" or "Create post" box.
3. Paste the URL: Right-click and paste (or use Ctrl+V / Cmd+V) the link you copied into the post editor.
4. Wait for the link preview to generate: Give Facebook a few seconds. You will see a gray box appear momentarily, and then it will populate with an image, a title, and a short description pulled directly from the website. This is your link preview.
5. Clean up your post (optional but recommended): A great pro tip is that once the preview box has successfully appeared, you can actually delete the long, messy URL from your post text. The preview box will remain and stay clickable. This makes your post look much cleaner and more professional.
6. Add Your Own Copy: Write your own introductory text in the space above the link preview. Ask a question, provide a compelling quote from the article, or explain why your audience should click the link. This is your chance to add context and personality.
7. Post It: Click the "Post" button to publish your post. Anyone who sees it can now click anywhere in the preview box to be taken directly to your website.

That’s it! In a perfect world, this is all you’d ever need to do. However, sometimes the preview doesn't look quite right. The image might be small, cropped awkwardly, or the description might be missing. That’s where optimization comes in.

How to Optimize Your Website for Perfect Facebook Link Previews

If you've ever pasted a link on Facebook and wondered why it pulled a tiny logo instead of a beautiful hero image, the answer almost always lies with something called "Open Graph" tags.

Open Graph (OG) tags are small snippets of code that live on your website. They're invisible to the average user, but they act like instructions for social media platforms like Facebook. They tell Facebook exactly what title, description, and image to use when someone shares a link from your site.

Getting your OG tags right is the secret to a professional social media presence. Every time your content is shared, it will look exactly how you want it to, which significantly improves your click-through rate. Optimizing your Facebook page ensures all elements work in harmony.

The Most Important Open Graph Tags:

• og:title: Defines the title or headline of your content that appears in bold.
• og:description: A one-to-two-sentence description summarizing the content. This appears under the title.
• og:image: This is the most crucial one for visual appeal. It tells Facebook which specific image to use in the link preview.
• og:url: The "canonical" URL of the page. This helps ensure all shares point back to the same source.

How to Edit Your OG Tags (Even If You Don't Code)

You don't need to be a web developer to manage your OG tags. Most modern website platforms have built-in tools or easy-to-use plugins to handle this for you.

• For WordPress users: Plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math are a lifesaver. When you're editing a page or post, they provide a "Social" tab where you can manually set the Facebook title, description, and upload a specific image you want to be used for shares. This gives you complete control.
• For Shopify users: Shopify automatically generates OG tags from your product titles, descriptions, and featured product images. You can customize the "Search engine listing preview" to refine the title and description, which often influences the OG tags.
• For Squarespace and Wix users: These platforms also have built-in SEO and social sharing settings. In the settings for individual pages, you should find a "Social Image" or "SEO" section where you can upload a specific image to be used when that page is shared on social media.

Best Practices for Your OG Image:

The image is what grabs attention, so pay special attention to it.

• Sizing is important: Facebook recommends an image that is at least 1200 x 630 pixels for the best display on high-resolution devices.
• Mind the aspect ratio: An aspect ratio of 1.91:1 is ideal. If your image is too tall or too square, Facebook may crop it awkwardly from the top and bottom.
• Keep it simple: Use a clear, high-quality image with minimal text. Remember, it will display on mobile devices, so complex visuals can look cluttered.

Troubleshooting Common Facebook Link Issues

What happens when you’ve done everything right - or think you have - and the link preview is still wrong? Maybe it’s showing an old title or an outdated image. This is a common problem caused by caching. Facebook saves a version of your link preview data to help pages load faster, but that means it doesn't always see the changes you just made to your OG tags.

Luckily, Facebook provides a free tool to fix this: the Sharing Debugger.

How to Use the Facebook Sharing Debugger:

1. Go to the Sharing Debugger tool.
2. Paste the URL of the webpage you want to fix into the input box and click the "Debug" button.
3. The tool will show you all the information Facebook can "see" from your link, including errors, warnings, and a preview of how the link will look.
4. If you recently updated your page’s OG tags, you will likely see the old, incorrect information here. To fix it, simply click the "Scrape Again" button.

Clicking "Scrape Again" forces Facebook to clear its cache for that specific URL and pull the newest information from your website. Do this, and you should see the updated title, description, and image appear in the debugger. Now, when you share the link on Facebook, it will pull the correct preview.

How and When to Tag a Business's Facebook Page

Now let's move on to the other type of "tagging": mentioning another Page in your post. This is a powerful networking tool that helps build relationships and can amplify your reach in a big way. Learning how to tag a page on Facebook effectively is crucial for this strategy.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Start typing your post: In the post editor, begin writing your caption or message.
2. Use the "@" symbol: At the point where you want to mention the business, type the "@" symbol immediately followed by the name of their Facebook Page, with no space in between (e.g., "@MyFavoriteCafe").
3. Select from the dropdown menu: As you type, a dropdown list of matching Pages will appear. It is very important to click and select the correct Page from this list. If you just type the name, it will only register as plain text. When you select it properly, the name will turn into a blue, clickable link.
4. Finish your post and publish: Once the Page is tagged, you can complete your post as usual.

Why should you tag other Pages?

• It sends a notification: The Page you tag gets a notification that they’ve been mentioned. This brings your post to their attention, increasing the chance they'll engage with it or even share it with their own audience.
• It builds goodwill and relationships: Tagging a partner, supplier, or a team in your community is a fantastic way to show support and foster stronger professional relationships.
• Adds credibility: When you share information or news about another company, tagging them makes your post look more credible and directly connects your audience with the source.

Combining Both Methods for Maximum Impact

The best social media managers often combine both techniques in a single post to maximize traffic and engagement simultaneously. This approach can significantly increase organic reach on Facebook.

Imagine you just wrote a blog post featuring an interview with an industry leader. Here’s how you could structure a Facebook post promoting it:

“We were thrilled to sit down and chat with @[Industry Leader's Page] about the future of digital marketing! They shared some incredible insights on what to expect in 2024.

Check out the full interview for all their fantastic tips 👇”

Below that text, you would paste the URL to your blog post and let the link preview generate. In this one post, you’ve accomplished two things:

1. The @-tag notifies the industry leader, who might share your post with their large following.
2. The link preview provides a clean, clickable entry point for your audience to read the interview and drive traffic to your website.

It’s a simple strategy, but it’s incredibly effective at getting more value out of every single post.

Final Thoughts

Properly tagging a website - whether it's sharing a link that generates a perfect preview or @-mentioning a collaborator's Page - is a fundamental skill for anyone serious about marketing on Facebook. By taking a few extra seconds to optimize your links and strategically tag other Pages, you can greatly increase your click-through rate, grow your organic reach, and build a stronger online community.

Getting these details right across multiple scheduled posts is exactly where social media management can become a major time-sink. That’s why from our own experience managing brands, we designed Postbase to make the content planning process as efficient as possible. Having a clean, visual calendar helps you see at a glance exactly what's going live and when, so you can schedule all of your link posts weeks in advance and trust that they’ll publish, just as you planned.