Metadata is the behind-the-scenes information that helps machines and people find, understand, access, and share a blog post. Treat it as part of publishing, not as a last-minute extra: relevant terms improve discoverability, meaningful links and image descriptions improve accessibility, and sharing metadata supplies a useful preview. section 7.4
Use this practical pre-publishing check:
- Choose three to five relevant keywords, combining a broad term with specialized qualifiers, and use them naturally in the title tag, URL, meta description, and related metadata. section 7.6
- Write a compelling meta description for human readers rather than stuffing it with search terms. section 7.6
- Give images descriptive filenames and concise ALT text; omit ALT text for purely decorative images. section 7.4.6
- Use meaningful hyperlink text, check every link, and set a default social thumbnail with og:image or the platform’s equivalent. section 7.4.8 section 7.6
- Preview the published page on mobile and desktop, then inspect how social platforms render it. section 7.6 section 7.4.8
Describe an image for machines and readers
Rename IMG123.png to zig-star-history.png. A useful ALT description is: “The ziglang/zig GitHub star history from 2016 to 2024. Between 2022 & 2024, the stars surged from 10K to 30K.” section 7.4.6
Listing 7.1 Adding meta tags for social media
<meta property="og:site_name" content="http://www.mysite.com"> <meta property="og:locale" content="en-us"> <meta property="og:type" content="article"> <meta property="og:url" content="https://www.mysite.com/my/great-article"> <meta property="og:title" content="My great title"> <meta property="og:image" content="http://www.mysite.com/img/great-article-thumbnail.png"> <meta property="twitter:site" content="@my_handle"> <meta property="twitter:title" content="My great title"> <meta property="twitter:card" content="This is the best article ever."> <meta property="twitter:image" content="http://www.mysite.com/img/great-article-x-thumbnail.png">
Inspect a compact set of Open Graph and Twitter card meta tags, including page title, URL, image, and sharing-card fields. section 7.4.8
