Do you want to add Twitter Cards to your WordPress site? Twitter Cards makes it possible for you to attach rich media to tweets that link to your content. This is very similar to sharing a link on Facebook which automatically displays a preview with title, summary, and thumbnail of your page content. In this article, we will show you how to add twitter cards in WordPress.
How Does Twitter Cards Work?
When your tweet has a link to a site that has twitter cards enabled, there is an option to view summary. Whenever another user clicks on the tweet, they will see this summary like the screenshot below. You can see the live example by going to our Twitter page.
The biggest advantage of having twitter cards is that it increases the number of people following your twitter accounts through content attribution. Often people tweet your links without giving you proper attribution.
We have noticed this specifically from some popular content curators. They will tweet our articles without any via @wpbeginner or RT @wpbeginner. This is their right, but we/you as publishers miss out specially when other people retweet your content with someone else’s attributes.
For example, @syedbalkhi retweets a post from @wpbeginner without attribution, and other people retweet @syedbalkhi. Then users viewing those retweets are more likely to follow @syedbalkhi than @wpbeginner.
Often content curators do this to keep the tweet lengths short and ensure retweets of their own tweets. With twitter cards, this problem is solved because you get credit to your site from every tweet that mentions your article. Note: we are not picking on content curators. This is a flaw of 140 character limit, and twitter is helping fix it with Twitter cards.
For example when Annie tweeted out our article, she didn’t mention @wpbeginner. But because of our twitter cards integration, we got full credit and exposure. Notice how it has a one click follow button as well.
Now that you know the benefits of twitter cards, lets take a look at how to implement in WordPress.
How to Add Twitter Cards in WordPress
There are two ways of adding twitter cards in WordPress. Let’s take a look at both of them.
Method 1: Yoast SEO plugin
If you are using WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, then you are in luck. Yoast has built-in integration for twitter cards, so turning it on is a matter of few clicks.
Simply go to the “Social” page of Yoast SEO settings page. Enter your Twitter username and save changes.
After that click on the Twitter tab. Under the Twitter tab you need to check the box for Add Twitter card meta data. Select a default card type to choose. You can choose to show summary or summary with large image.
Next thing you need to do is go to Users » My Profile page. You will see a new field under Contact Info for your twitter username. Enter your twitter username there.
If you are running a multi-author site, then advise your authors to complete this part in their profile. This way each specific author gets credit for their work as well. See the example below:
That’s all you have successfully added Twitter Cards meta tags to your WordPress site.
This method is by far the easiest method. Since we use WordPress SEO by Yoast on all of our websites, we are using this method.
Method 2: Hard Code it yourself
This method requires adding code to your theme or child theme files. Simply open the header.php file and add this code just before the </head>
tag.
<?php #twitter cards hack if(is_single() || is_page()) { $twitter_url = get_permalink(); $twitter_title = get_the_title(); $twitter_desc = get_the_excerpt(); $twitter_thumbs = wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID), full ); $twitter_thumb = $twitter_thumbs[0]; if(!$twitter_thumb) { $twitter_thumb = 'http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/8eb9ee80d39f13cbbad56da88ef3a6ee?rating=PG&size=75'; } $twitter_name = str_replace('@', '', get_the_author_meta('twitter')); ?> <meta name="twitter:card" value="summary" /> <meta name="twitter:url" value="<?php echo $twitter_url; ?>" /> <meta name="twitter:title" value="<?php echo $twitter_title; ?>" /> <meta name="twitter:description" value="<?php echo $twitter_desc; ?>" /> <meta name="twitter:image" value="<?php echo $twitter_thumb; ?>" /> <meta name="twitter:site" value="@libdemvoice" /> <? if($twitter_name) { ?> <meta name="twitter:creator" value="@<?php echo $twitter_name; ?>" /> <? } } ?>
Source: Ryan Cullen @artesea
If you don’t know how to work with PHP or running into issues with Method 2, then please use Method 1.
Final Step: Test and Validate
Before links from your WordPress site start showing Twitter Cards, you need to first check it in Twitter card validator.
Simply head over to the Card Validator page on Twitter developers website. Enter URL of any post from your WordPress site and click on preview card button.
Twitter will show you a preview of your Twitter card.
Update: Previously you had to apply for participation in the Twitter Cards. However, Twitter has implemented a system that automatically whitelists domains when you test them with the validator or just share a URL on Twitter.
We hope this article helped you add Twitter cards in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the 10 most wanted Twitter hacks and plugins for WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Hey there, very late to this article but am wondering how to amend the php code to produce the large image with summary card.
I’ve given it a shot but not managed it yet. Ideas and advice appreciated.
cheers
I’m getting this error:
“Notice: Use of undefined constant full – assumed ‘full’ in”
Not sure how to get rid of it.
Thanks for this post. When I need to know how to do something on WordPress I come here first. Your easy to understand instructions are priceless!
I’ve done all the steps using Yoast and validated my url – but there is still no image coming up when I post my URL on Twitter? It said this:
Sarah Bridge
The card for your website will look a little something like this!
and underneath on the right hand side it has the correct words but on the left hand side where an image should be there’s nothing but a grey box with what looks like a grey scroll in it. You can click on it to get to my website but I’d like a image there rather than a grey box. Any thoughts?
Have successfully done this in the past. However, it was always when using summary card with large image (which is set as the default in my Yoast settings). Now trying to post summary card (regular, not large image), but Yoast is overriding it to summary card large image. How do I prevent this?
As a note, I’m doing both methods: adding info to Yoast plug in and writing metadata tags in a plug in.
This was very helpful! Thanks. Did it and the twitter cards automatically came up even for previous tweets.
ERROR: Required meta tag missing (twitter:text:description)
Getting this error
You can also just throw your meta tags right into the body of your post. Not the ideal way, since this creates empty white space where your tags are, but it’s a good workaround for those having trouble.
If the php code above seems to break your site, it could be that your server doesn’t use php short tags (using “<?" as an opening tag instead of "<?php"). Try this version instead:
Hi thanks for the informative post. However I did all this and when testing my site through the card validator, was told it was unable to generate image because my site isn’t whitelisted! Any idea what I can do?
Hi,
I realise this is an old post,
IF you HARDCODE into your header.php; make sure you change the values line 10 and 19 as these point to the contributors account so be sure to change them to yours.
just sayin …
Hi,
I have done all the steps when I try to validate with twitter it tells me my text description meta tag is missing. I don’t know anything about code so I used the first method. Any help?
is it free ?
Finally a helpful tutorial! You would think that Twitter would make it a little simpler to do this. Thank you so much for your help on this!
Is there a way to automatically notify the twitter validator when a post/page is updated?
I have a site that gets content published automatically from a source without a featured image so once I manually add the image I also have to manually validate the post/page again to get the cards to show on twitter.
Was hoping there could be some way to automatically ping the twitter validator when a page/post is updated.
I don’t know why the code above cut off.
Here is the code am using:
ID), full );
$twitter_thumb = $twitter_thumbs[0];
if(!$twitter_thumb) {
$twitter_thumb = ‘url of imag’;
}
$twitter_name = str_replace(‘@’, ”, get_the_author_meta(‘twitter’));
?>
<meta name="twitter:title" content="” />
<meta name="twitter:description" contente="” />
<meta name="twitter:image" content="” />
Thank you so much. I figured out. No worries. Please disregard this comment.
Thank yu again.
Another awesome post … great stuff!
For anyone having issues with the image being display (I have Summary selected as my Twitter Card option) just make sure you are using a featured image, as this is where it pulls from.
Without this specified, what I saw was my site logo (which was way too big for the Summary image)
Can’t thank you enough !
Hi, i’ve made all steps and got the twitter card ok, but the preview image is not loading! what should i do?
If you are using code method, then please try using the plugin method. If you are already using the plugin method, then try repeating all the steps carefully.
i have a question that when where to upload it on all pages and post or on home page only.
bcoz when i share any link of my blog on twitter after adding this in header every time same image appears.
Is it your site logo that appears?
Just check that you have a feature image set against your post, and it should pull from there
Found this article and followed the steps to set up Twitter Cards since we already had Yoast. We want to use the video Player Card but that doesn’t appear to be an option. Do we need to use a different plug in, or is that option available?
I”m using twitter cards through my Yoast SEO, however when I post I have a link and a view summary button that people have to click to see my pictures. I want the pictures to be auto populated without the need for a click. How do I make that happen?
Here is my twitter account so you can see my tweets for an example
All going well with the inclusion of twitter cards. I would like to make the image that displays on twitter link able or to a link underneath to take it to a third part site any ideas?
Oh and by the way I would like to thank you guys for realizing that not everyone degree is in computer science and won at MIT !!
The image can only be linked to the link you are sharing.
Thank you very much! My blog is white-listed now, with Twitter Cards
Whoot, whoot!
Hi,
Thanks for your tutorial. I have tried with above code. But can you please explain how to make Twitter card working for multiple accounts.
I have ten different twitter pages where same post will go out as Twitter card.
So do I need to repeat this below line 10 times with different names:
…..
…
….
….
Please suggest?
Thanks!
code doesn’t shows in my previous comment I mean to say meta tag with Twitter site name need to get repeated with different names?
<meta name="twitter:creator" value="@” />
This was super helpful, thanks!
One quick thing, I noticed the validation link is no longer working. I think this is the Card Validator link now (got it from the twitter blog, seemed to work fine for me):
Thanks, we have updated the article.
How to request to twitter for approvel my site ..please help me i tried twitter card ,the preview tool say your card is whitelisted ..
hi i love your site very nice i want to asking you how to change the language of wordpress from franch to english or arabic
You can change the language from Settings > General page in WordPress admin area.
The Yoast solution did not work for me. I followed the instructions (3 times to make sure), and the Card Validator sees my metadata but tells me I have no card.
Also, neither the Preview Tool nor the “FIll out This Form” links worked:
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/preview
Maybe this solution is already history?
I had done this and Twitter cards were working perfectly for months. Suddenly the past few days they’ve stopped working. What can I do?
So I have installed WP SEO by Yoast, and I have followed all of the instructions up to the point where I insert the Card URL on the Preview page for the Card Validator on Twitter. What URL am I supposed to Insert? I have used my URL for my blog, but it comes up with an error, saying No Card Found (Card Error). Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
It will not do it for a main blog page. You have to enter a post page url. So something like http://www.blogname.com/title-of-blog-post not http://www.blogname.com Hope that helps!
My twitter card has been approved, but I don’t know how to make it work. Am I supposed to fill out a form? I am a WordPress user.
This is really useful thank you.
One thing, we have enabled this using the WordPress Yoast SEO Plug-in and set up a Twitter card manually entering all of the information on the card validator for one blog post.
This worked, however when I tweet a link to my other blog posts it doesn’t pull through the Twitter card. Do you have to set up the Twitter cards for each blog post or should it do it automatically for each blog post?
graciass!!! thank you! finally I managed to submit my request to twitter, hopefully i will get my card approved
Oh, and ps
Do we have to approve each post, or will that be automatic after our first post was approved… Again, thank you
Thanks, it works great, except for one thing: I can’t get an image to be included. How would I do that,
when i install this plugin then it is asking for “You’ve just installed WordPress SEO by Yoast. Please helps us improve it by allowing us to gather anonymous usage stats so we know which configurations, plugins and themes to test with” Allow Tracking or not, what should i do,
Allow tracking or not.
The codings are not working for animhut blog. Showing error ! Invalid card type
Hello there. Great guide, thanks!
I’m currently stuck trying to validate twitter:creator. When I look at the source for one of my posts, I don’t see the twitter:creator meta tag at all. Would you mind, pointing me in the right direction? I’m hard-coding it.
Great post – i was struggling to set up twitter cards using a wordpress plug in without realising that Yoast had it in-built!
All set up and awaiting approval – thanks guys
Useful post! Been planning to add Twitter cards on my blog for ages now, and just had the time to tweak it earlier, found this guide very helpful, so thanks.
Hello,
I having a simple problem. I going to add my twitter username to my profile settings. I just add Reap3R_GHS and turn it into http://reap3r_ghs. What can I do?
That’s weird. Did you post it in the support forum for Yoast to see?
Isn’t in Yoast settings but in profile settings…
Hi,
It’s great but because we call the excerpt outside the loop (header), people could get bad surprises for their description.
So here is a good snippet from uplifted.net that fixes the problem :
function get_excerpt_by_id($post_id){
$the_post = get_post($post_id); //Gets post ID
$the_excerpt = $the_post->post_content; //Gets post_content to be used as a basis for the excerpt
$excerpt_length = 35; //Sets excerpt length by word count
$the_excerpt = strip_tags(strip_shortcodes($the_excerpt)); //Strips tags and images
$words = explode(‘ ‘, $the_excerpt, $excerpt_length + 1);
if(count($words) > $excerpt_length) :
array_pop($words);
array_push($words, ‘…’);
$the_excerpt = implode(‘ ‘, $words);
endif;
$the_excerpt = ” . $the_excerpt . ”;
return $the_excerpt;
}
Then you might replace get_the_excerpt() with this :
get_excerpt_by_id($post_id)
Thanks.
Sorry that wasn’t exactly that :
Call the function this way : get_excerpt_by_id($post->ID) otherwise you’ll get notice !
$post_id is undefined.
Plus get_the_excerpt() is deprecated.
You can also add an esc_attr() on $the_excerpt to avoid broken meta if the excerpt has quotes
Thanks !
Finally made a plugin to solve this issue : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jm-twitter-cards/
There is no needs to use any code , simply use WordPress SEO by Yoast as Syed Balkhi has said which is the best for Twitter card
Hi,
There’s no need to use any code. But still my plugin allows you to choose which type of card you want to use on each post. Moreover you can change meta creator (guest blogging) per each post too. I think it’s worthy
Totally Worthy!
When I preview my twitter card, the error says:
“Internal Error. Most likely an fetcher error.”
What to do?
Thank you for the article! I went with method #1. In the twitter preview, I’m only seeing the summary of the post and not the image. I’ve updated the robot.txt file to allow twitterbot. However, it’s still not showing any image in the preview. Any thoughts on this? Thank you in advance.
Look in your view:source to see if you have the image tags. The image is usually pulled from your featured image.
Good article. I activated the summary card…
Anyway: how do you change the anchor text name of the website in the attribution below?
For instance yours is “WordPress Beginner”, other sites use “example.com”. In my case it uses my name. How do you manage it? I’d like to show a piede of my URL like “example.com”
Just wanted to let you know that this post saved me HEAPS of time trying to get this to work. Clear, clean and to the point walkthrough. It’s very much appreciated.
A followup question. I added all the steps to my blog, TheSocialChic.com, but I’m curious as to how much time it usually takes for them to turnaround an approval process. Will I get an email or anything when I (or if) I am approved for Twitter cards? No worries if you don’t know, but I greatly appreciate any guidance on this topic.
Thanks again for such a helpful post. Keep up the good work and I will be definitely staying tuned to all future posts.
Approval time varies. In our experience, twitter cards were enabled on our account before we received an email from twitter. But yes, we did receive an email from twitter.
Thanks for letting me know. Very much appreciated. Keep up the great work with this site. I will be staying tuned.
I now have this on my site, and very exciting as the first blog post I tried worked – fantastic!
But I’ve tried it with a few others and it’s not showing the summary… any ideas?
Did twitter approve your site yet? Remember, they have to approve the site first.
These are great! Just applied to Twitter for mine and will be sharing this. Thanks.
Awesome article, thank you for all these infos.