When building a new Facebook page for your business, there are several things it is important that you know about. Things that you take for granted normally are useless on the social media site. Naming photos with your keywords does not really help on Facebook; Facebook tags them with a long numerical name instead. Linking your Facebook page to your website is great to get more visitors to your actual blog or site, but SEO-wise, Facebook masks the link.
There are things you can do to enhance SEO on your fan page, so it does pay to think of Facebook as an alternate website. Especially now that we know that fan page updates are being indexed as well.
Like regular blogs and websites, a few things you do will gain more attention from the search engines. Be active on the site, and make regular updates. Engage with your readers regularly. Not only is this good for referrals, but it keeps your fan page updated frequently. Be helpful to others and your fans and readers will increase drastically.
Here are some things you can do to optimize your page:
- Title: Be sure the title of your page includes your keywords. You can only change this until your page has 100 fans, so it is something you should do right away.
- About: You can add your keywords here, as well as a link to your actual website or blog.
- Fan page updates: When you post, the SEO name will be taken from the first couple of words of your update. Make sure that the first part of your status update is your keywords and not just filler or fluff.
- Links: When you post a link to your own fan page, Facebook gives you an option to comment on your link. If you do not say anything here, your SEO title will only benefit Facebook! Be sure that you add your keyword-optimized comments whenever you post a link.
- Notes: While not widely used, the notes section allows you to create an SEO title, and lets you give your fans lots of information without jumping to a different site.
You should consider each of these things—updates, links, and notes, as separate “pages” on your Facebook fan page. Effectively, that is what you are building, is an additional cyber page every time you post, so if you keep your keywords consistent, it should have a great SEO effect.
Additionally, with Facebook you can sell online for free, so take advantage of the huge audience provided by this platform.
26 Comments
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kristeen
October 20, 2011 at 9:23 am
Lovely seo article, thanks for sharing this with us.
Denise Gabbard
October 22, 2011 at 4:20 am
Thanks for reading and commenting on my post:)
Trine
October 20, 2011 at 10:54 am
Wow, now Facebook can be SEOptimized, too! 🙂
Denise Gabbard
October 22, 2011 at 4:23 am
Thanks for the comment, Trine. Your website is interesting….and I love the new Google Translate.
Addy Miller
October 20, 2011 at 11:41 am
Very useful, whilst more and more companies are making Facebook pages. One thing for me to learn was that the Fan page updates were being indexed. Thanks a lot !!!!!!
Denise Gabbard
October 22, 2011 at 4:26 am
With 800 million people on Facebook, it is now too big to be ignored by marketers– or by Google.
Javi
October 20, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Your blog seems very interesting. This article is amazing. I will visit your blog often
Denise Gabbard
October 22, 2011 at 4:26 am
Thanks Javi for your comment…
Melony
October 21, 2011 at 5:45 am
Hey Denise,
You’re right, a lot of people don’t look at Facebook as an altenate site which is why they don’t consider the positive effect it can have on their overall SEO campaign.
I already knew a few things about optimizing my Facebook for SEO but some of the things you’ve listed here are new to me. Like I didn’t know adding keywords in my comments when I post a link would be beneficial. Thanks for sharing.
Denise Gabbard
October 22, 2011 at 4:28 am
Hi Melony– Glad that I was able to give you a tip that is valuable for you. If you know of any other optimization tips that I missed… please do share!
jorge
October 21, 2011 at 2:22 pm
hmm.. i think your articles was nice..
reeha
October 22, 2011 at 6:38 am
great points to remember about Facebook fan page. keep on sharing more like that.
Danny
October 22, 2011 at 6:48 am
Good tips on optimizing facebook fan pages.
It is such a waste when people don’t put in the little work to make sure that people can actually find them.
terry
October 22, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Nice tips! this is just a little bit of work for us and will certainly optimize our facebook fan pages.. very helpful.
Spilleautomater
October 25, 2011 at 1:51 pm
I like your post!great points to remember about Facebook fan page.
Roger Jignesh Parekh
November 1, 2011 at 10:20 am
That’s really great news that face book updated pages will be indexed by Google, I would more concentrate on facebook page than previous, no doubt facebook growing community can’t be ignored by marketers or Google, as there are many companies pages doing very well.
Grant Brookes
November 7, 2011 at 5:52 am
Great post Denise! I am a designer but trying my hands at social media optimization also. Since most of my clients now tell me to design the landing pages and twitter backgrounds, this post will certainly help.
I thiink regular update is an absolute must. You have said in the post that having keywords in the About Us page of you profile will help, i think Facebook masks the keywords too.. isnt that correct?
DeniseGabbard
November 8, 2011 at 4:39 am
@Roger— With the latest Google Fresh updates, Facebook page comments should become even more important in ranking.
@Grant— Congrats on your win in Richmond Business Awards– sounds like your new startup is well on its way! As far as masking keywords in the about us portion of the Page, I have never heard that until your post….and have searched around for confirmation that might be true..no luck. Am I missing something? Please let me know…the constant changes are mind-boggling, but definitely want to know if something has changed yet again.
Grant Brookes
November 8, 2011 at 8:49 am
Denise, Thank you for your reply 🙂
Well, i am not an expert, i guess i had heard or read this thing somewhere, but sincerely i am not able to recall where exactly. Some one even said that facebook masks its results from all the Search Engines too..
I guess you will have to do a little research and guide me too, since you are from this field, i guess you will have better resources to explore.
Anish
November 14, 2011 at 10:38 am
Excellent tips. When it comes to increasing Facebook following, most forget how powerful Google can be, in attracting “likes”. Facebook is a PR10 site, after all. And it’s so easy to get a PR of even up to 5 for Facebook fan pages.
On the sidenote, I also think links going from your Facebook pages to your own sites can help your sites rank better as well. Yeah, they’re nofollow, but they still carry some considerable weight in terms of SEO.
Denise Gabbard
January 24, 2012 at 4:25 am
I think you have a point– lots of links going from Facebook to your sites have to make an impact, in addition to the traffic that it brings.
Dan
November 30, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Facebook recently came out with updated Insights which can tell you a ton of information on how your posts are reaching audiences. Keeping your Facebook followers engaged does wonders for SEO. Most people think that having a million followers is the most important thing but search engines may think that engagement is a bit more important.
Robert
January 9, 2012 at 11:18 am
I have a few tips regarding Fan Page too, but they’re not SEO: use Facebook apps to make it more attractive. Also, you can choose which tab can open at first: Information, Events, or whatever you want; the point is Wall shouldn’t necessarily be the first tab that users can see. Personalize your Fan Page as much as you can.
Roger Carr
January 19, 2012 at 10:51 am
Thanks for the information regarding Facebook changing the file name of photos. Although my photo file names are usually keyword optimized for the purpose of other sites, it is good to know where it has an impact and where it doesn’t.
Peter
February 14, 2012 at 8:30 am
No doubt Social media is the most beneficial platform for a business. I am a bit confused, the SEO of the Facebook page makes it rank in Search Engine (Google, Bing) ranks or does it influences the searchability in Facebook searches also.
reeha
May 24, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Nice useful post. I agree with you Facebook is now acting as a SEO option for us because there fan pages are great source to produce high quality links. great post.