Nowadays every company wants to get the highest user interaction in every possible ways. That’s why they run several social profiles or pages though they already have their website.
People always hang out on social networking sites. Facebook currently has over 3 billion monthly active users. Obviously, it’s a major marketing channel no business can ignore.
The reality is that many businesses don’t even know how to properly utilize the power of Facebook. They don’t optimize their page properly. Without optimizing a Facebook page you will not be able to rank well in search engines as well as attract customers.
Now facebook is getting more emphasized in local searches. If you search for a local business in google, you will see several business pages are coming out. So as a business, you must have an optimized Facebok page.
Steps to optimize your Facebook page
Optimize your Facebook page now with this comprehensive guide and start seeing real results for your business.
Choose a right brand-able name
This is the most important part. The page name will be the title of the page. Search engines like Google will show this name on their search result page.
So try to select a brand-able, relevant to your business and highly searchable name.
Here are the most important SEO elements that Google will collect from your Facebook page,
Page title = your Facebook page name
Meta description = your Facebook page name + some text from the about section
H1 tag = your page name
Upload Profile picture and Cover photo
Upload a profile picture that looks professional. It can be your personal photo or business logo of your business. Upload a square shape photo so it will fit properly.
Many businesses use a normal or unprofessional cover photo for their business page. Remember, people see the page name, Profile photo and Cover photo first when they browse your page. So, these 3 can create a good impression or bad impression on users’ mind.
Use SEO friendly custom URL
Use a custom url that is easy to remember. Try to match the page name and url. It will increase the strength of your brand recognition. Your username will be the custom url of the page. It will show up after the title of the page in the Google search result page.
Fully complete your profile
Fill up all the fields with the necessary information. Remember, it’s a business page. So, all the business info should be there.
Keep the business operating hours accurate
You must enter your business opening/operating hours. But, don’t forget to update them whenever they change.
Unlike the Google Business page, facebook doesn’t offer the feature to customize opening hours for holidays or special events. So, if you have custom hours for a specific day, you have to manually change the hours for that specific day. Or, the best option is to publish a post by announcing the special opening hours for that specific holiday or event. And you can pin the post, so it will be seen at the top of the page.
Give Special attention to the about us page
This is the most important section of the page. Search engines like Google observe it carefully. Search engines check this section to determine who you are, and what you do.
Write about us content briefly. Before writing the about us content list some keywords related to your business. Then write targeting those keywords.
Include your phone number and address
To optimize a Facebook page for local searches, it is very important to include the full address with street address, city, state and zip code.
Add your phone number with a call now button. Also, include it in the about section.
Google always emphasizes pages with specific information. So users can get the right information more easily.
Increase the number of likes
I observed that pages with more likes get priority in Facebook searches as well as in search engines. Pages with more likes get special importance in Bing search results. While well-earned likes is a significant ranking factor in their search algorithm. Increasing the number of likes will give you more authority.
You can use Facebook page plugin for your website. So that, people can like your page directly and easily from your website. It is very convenient and useful too as they don’t need to leave your website. It’s a great way to collect likes.
You can share your page links to other social networking sites too.
Increase user engagement
Though you have lots of likes, but, if they are not interacting with you, then that huge number of likes is useless. And it’s not showing much authority and will send a bad signal to Google. Post something useful that they can share on their timeline.
Be consistent and post useful content regularly
Post engaging content regularly. Post highly informative and useful content that provides some value. This is not only helpful for your fans but also Search engines will think your page is active.
Collect high-quality backlinks
Build backlinks for your Facebook page. Collect backlinks from various sources. Try to get backlinks from authority sites.
You can collect backlinks from several sources like blog commenting, other websites, bookmarking sites, and also from your website if you have any.
Collect backlinks from relevant blog comments. You can also collect backlinks from directory sites like Yelp, Angieslist, Yellowpages etc. Those directory sites are very powerful for local SEO.
Optimizing a Facebook page doesn’t take too much time. Within an hour you can complete your page with relevant and helpful information. Remember you have to take it seriously and provide as much information as possible. After that, you will just need to be active and post regularly.