A great OG image can double your click-through rate on social media. But most people throw one together in five minutes and wonder why it looks terrible on Facebook — cropped edges, blurry text, or no image at all. These 10 best practices cover the mistakes we see most often, and each one is something you can check in under a minute.
1. Stick to 1200 × 630 Pixels
This is the universal OG image size. It gives you the correct 1.91:1 aspect ratio that every major platform — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Discord, Slack — expects. Going smaller risks having your image ignored entirely (platforms drop images under 200×200). Going larger wastes bandwidth and may be downscaled unpredictably. If you're designing in Figma or Canva, set the frame to exactly 1200×630 and export at 1x — no retina tricks needed since social scrapers don't use display density.
2. Keep Text in the Safe Zone
Different platforms crop OG images differently. On mobile, Facebook clips about 20% off each side. WhatsApp and Telegram render square-ish thumbnails on phones, cutting the left and right edges further. Keep all important text and logos within the center 80% of the image — a 960 × 504 area centered in your 1200 × 630 canvas. As a rule of thumb: if content sits closer than 120px to either side edge, it's at risk.
3. Use High-Contrast Text
Your headline needs to be readable at small sizes — especially on mobile where the preview card may only be 300 pixels wide. Use bold fonts (700 weight or higher), dark text on light backgrounds, or white text on dark backgrounds. Avoid thin fonts and low-contrast color combinations like yellow on white. If you're using a photo background, add a subtle overlay or gradient behind the text — a 20-30% dark scrim is usually enough to keep white text legible.
4. Include Your Branding
Every shared link is a branding opportunity. Add your logo or site name to the OG image so people instantly recognize the source — especially in group chats where a dozen links compete for attention. Keep it small and consistent — a logo bar at the bottom or top-left corner works well. Use the same position across all your images for visual consistency; the logo becomes a signature readers learn to spot.
5. Use PNG for Text, JPEG for Photos
OG images with text look sharper as PNG because the compression is lossless. For photo-heavy images, JPEG at 80-90% quality gives a much smaller file without visible quality loss. Keep file size under 1 MB for fast loading — platforms may time out if the image takes too long to download, and Discord in particular drops images that fetch slowly. A text-based 1200×630 PNG should be 300KB or less; if it's bigger, you likely have unnecessary gradients or noise.
6. Always Set og:image:width and og:image:height
Without these two tags, Facebook delays rendering your OG image by up to 3 seconds while it tries to determine the dimensions. This often results in shares that show no image at all — readers see a bare link while the scraper figures out the file. Always include them:
<meta property="og:image:width" content="1200">
<meta property="og:image:height" content="630">If you use a CMS or framework that generates these automatically (Next.js metadata API does when you pass width/height), just make sure the values match the actual file.
7. Create Unique Images Per Page
Using the same OG image for every page is a missed opportunity. Each page should have a unique image that reflects its content — the page title as the headline, with a relevant visual. It also helps in feeds: ten identical cards from the same site blur together, while varied images invite a second look. Our OG image generator makes this fast: pick a template, type the title, download. Repeat per page in under 30 seconds — fast enough that there's no excuse for a generic default.
8. Test Before You Share
Always preview your OG tags before sharing a link publicly. Use our free OG checker — paste your URL and see exactly which og tags are detected, how the image preview looks, and whether anything is missing. Then also run it through Facebook Sharing Debugger and Twitter Card Validator, because each platform's scraper behaves slightly differently. Two minutes of testing beats a broken link in front of ten thousand followers.
9. Force Social Platforms to Re-Scrape
If you update an OG image after sharing, platforms won't pick up the change automatically — their scrapers cache aggressively, and Facebook in particular can hold an old preview for days. Use each platform's debugger to force a fresh scrape:
- Facebook: Sharing Debugger — paste URL, click "Scrape Again"
- Twitter: Card Validator — paste URL, wait for fresh scrape
- LinkedIn: Post Inspector — paste URL and inspect
- Slack/Discord: no debugger exists — paste the link in a scratch channel and wait a minute; Discord re-fetches every time, so fixes show up fast.
10. Keep File Size Under 1 MB
Large images slow down your page and risk being ignored by social platforms. For reference, a 1200 × 630 PNG with text should be under 300 KB. A JPEG at 80% quality should be under 200 KB. Compress aggressively — your OG image doesn't need to be print-ready; it's displayed at most 600px wide in feeds. If a PNG is bloated, try saving as PNG-8 (indexed color) or switching to JPEG with a quality of 85 — the visual difference at card size is negligible.
Quick Checklist
- ✅ 1200 × 630 pixels
- ✅ Text in center 80% safe zone
- ✅ High-contrast, bold fonts
- ✅ Branding included
- ✅ og:image:width and og:image:height set
- ✅ Unique image per page
- ✅ File size under 1 MB
- ✅ Verified with OG checker
Ready to put these tips into action? Create your first OG image now — it takes 30 seconds.