14 ways to improve your Facebook Page for SEO

Who set up your Facebook Page? Have they done it right? Here are 14 DIY tips you can action right now to improve your Facebook Page, that will get you more fans while also boosting your SEO for more love from search engines.

1 – Keywords in your URL (Facebook username)

Once you’ve got 25 fans you can apply for your username (also called a Facebook vanity URL). So if the URL for your Facebook page is currently something dreadful like www.facebook.com/your-page-name-12789645$%^ then you need to register your username quick smart.

Quite often what’s best for SEO isn’t what’s best for people (ie: your customers). The people-first approach is to have a short, memorable username using just your company name.

This makes it easier for Facebook users to remember and find you when typing in your URL directly, and also looks better when you promote your Facebook URL, such as on your business card or in your email signature.

So if your company is a restaurant called ‘Joes’ your page might be called Joes and you’d want to register www.facebook.com/joes taking the people-first approach.

However, the SEO-first approach would be to add 1 or 2 targeted keywords to your username as well. For example, my company’s Facebook URL is www.facebook.com/orchidwebdesign and Joes could be www.facebook.com/joesrestaurant

I think there’s a middle ground that can keep everyone happy. If you don’t go crazy stuffing your username with keywords (eg: www.facebook.com/joes-restaurant-café-dinner-breakfast), and if adding your primary keyword/s still results in a short and memorable username, then go for it :)

2 – TIP: How to register your Facebook username

Once you have 25 fans (or ‘likes’) go to www.facebook.com/username and select your page from the drop down (circled below) under ‘Each Page can have a username’.

Once you’ve selected your page, if you have enough fans a box will appear on the right for you to type your preferred username in to. You can then check availability and, if available, confirm your page name. Ta daa! You’re done.

Remember you must be admin of the page to do this. Also, make sure you want that username forever, as once it’s set you can’t change it.

3 – Pick a page name – and stick to it!

Unlike your username, you can change your Page name providing you have less than 100 fans.

Most companies are best to pick a name that matches the name your customers know you by to make it as easy as possible for people to find you using Facebook search. Your page name does not have to match your username. You could have the page name ‘Joes’ and the username www.facebook.com/joesrestaurant for example.

Don’t be tempted by a generic keyword username like ‘travel’ or ‘real estate’ however, as Facebook’s goal is for Pages to genuinely represent a business, brand, person etc and Facebook have disabled generically named Facebook Pages in the past.

Keep in mind if you do have good reason to change your page name (such as a change in your trading name) this will cause actions you’ve taken under your previous Page name to go to waste, so changing your Page name should be avoided so you don’t harm your SEO.

4 – TIP: How to change your Facebook Page name

Provided you’re set to admin for the Page, click the grey ‘Edit Page’ button (top right when viewing your page) then under the ‘Basic Information’ settings, you can change your page name by typing the new name into the ‘Name’ field (shown below, click the image to see a larger view).

5 – Pay attention to your ‘about’ box

When you complete the information on your Info page, pay special attention to what you put in the ‘about’ field.

Although you can write more, fewer than 75 characters of what you type into the ‘about’ field will show on your Wall view. It’s those characters that you need to make count both for SEO and for your fans, who see your Wall more often than any other page.

For most companies the smart approach is to include your primary keyword/s and a link to your website (if room allows). Others may prefer a phone number or email address.

This example below is from Beds R Us, who have used the keyword ‘bed’ and their company name, as well as a link to their website in their about field. This is how their about copy shows on their Wall view below their profile image:

6 – Optimise your Info page

The info page is another opportunity to include your keywords and important links. Depending on the type of page you registered, exactly what the fields you can complete on your Info page will vary.

TIP: If you have a field that just doesn’t match your company, just leave it blank. Info page fields with no content won’t show at all for your fans, so don’t worry about leaving irrelevant fields empty.

Of course the more complete your Info page the better. So for all fields that are relevant, go ahead fill them out with your keywords in mind.

Also include links to your key websites and profiles outside of Facebook as well as any particularly important page on those sites, such as:

• your website
• your blog
• the direct link to view your products or services page on your website
• a link to your contact page
• your twitter profile
• your linkedin profile and so on.

Don’t forget to put your fans first. A page packed full of keywords and links may put fans off so use natural language and helpful links. Find the right balance so your Info page adds value for both SEO and your fans alike.

7 – Use your keywords in your status updates

Every status update you add should include at least 1 of your keywords that also relates to the content you’re sharing.

For example, a lot of the content I share on Orchid’s Facebook Page links to our blog articles. Instead of just putting the link in a status update however, I add a short sentence or two to serve as a description for why I think our fans would get value from following the link.

Here’s one example of a recent update where I shared a link to a blog article and the snippet text about the link uses our keywords, in this case ‘website design’ was my primary keyword and the update read “Website design & usability tips: Is top navigation or left navigation better?”

8 – Avoid the Facebook content trap

You want to use your Facebook Page to drive traffic to your website or blog, so don’t fall into the trap of putting your full content solely on Facebook.

You’re better to link from Facebook to the content source, bringing your fans one step closer to your website (our blog links to our website for example), and therefore one step closer to becoming a customer / repeat purchaser / joining your email database etc. This also helps build links to your website and blog for double the SEO value.

9 – Optimise your photos

When you add photos to your Facebook Page, always add a caption describing the photo that also includes your relevant keywords.

Whenever possible, include a link in the caption to the most relevant page on your blog or website. This builds links and also moves more fans that important step closer to your website to become a customer.

Here’s another example taken from Beds R Us. Under one of their photos they’ve included a caption that uses the keywords ‘bed’ and ‘mattress’ plus includes a link to view the beds range page on the Beds R Us website:

10 – Add a Facebook like box

We’ve covered multiple ways to get more links from your Facebook page, however links to your Facebook page are also a factor of SEO to help your Facebook Page rank improve.

By adding a ‘like’ box (also called a ‘fan box’ ) to your website and blog, you’ll not only get more likes – because people don’t have to leave your site to like you on Facebook – you’ll also create more inbound links to your Facebook page.

Scroll up a little and have a look right now on the right hand side on this page and you‘ll see Orchid’s Facebook like box in the sidebar. Click ‘like’ to see how it works and how it changes once you’ve liked us. You can like us without being taken away from this article. You’ll also see our most recent status updates included in our like box.

I’ve included a screenshot below of a simpler version of a like box, which is from Sleepyhead’s blog www.sleepbetter.co.nz

Get in touch if you’d like help installing a fan box on your website or blog, or if you’re feeling the DIY spirit and have some basic geek skills on tap, here’s how to do it yourself:

11 – TIP: How to add a Facebook like box to your site

Go to http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/ and you’ll get a page that looks something like this (click the image to see a larger view):

Here’s what you need to do to get the right code…

a – Change the Facebook Page URL to your page’s URL. The page shown on the right will change if you’ve put your page URL in correctly.

b – Set the width to match the area you want your like box to go on your website / blog (typical placement will be in your sidebar).

c – Pick a colour scheme. I’d recommend ‘light’ unless ‘dark’ matches your site’s existing colour scheme, as the dark theme is light text on a dark background which is more difficult to read.

d – Decide if you want the thumbnail images of your fans to show or not (tick ‘show faces’ if you do want them to show). I’d recommend you do have these showing as these will  typically be smiling faces, which draw the eye, and also add social proof. If the person viewing your site has Facebook set to auto-log-in, then they’ll see their friends photos in your like box if any of their Facebook friends are fans of your page. This blows your social proof value sky high for convincing them to become fans as well.

e – If you want a particular border colour, enter it in the next box.

f – Tick the ‘show stream’ box if you do want your latest Page updates to show in your like box. For a simpler and shorter like box don’t tick ‘show stream’.

g – Tick ‘show header’ to include the top bar that says ‘find us on Facebook’. It’s always worth including a ‘call to action’ to help convince people to take action so I’d suggest ticking this.

h – Now click the ‘get code’ button and you can copy and paste the code in the correct place on your blog or website.

12 – Optimise your text links

Don’t forget the trusty ‘Find us on Facebook’ text link as another way to get more fans and links, which you can include anywhere you wish – such as:

• your email signature
• in your email marketing newsletters
• as a text link anywhere on your website
• in blog articles etc.

For extra SEO juice, remember to include your company name and primary keyword/s in the link text, for example: Like Orchid Web Design on Facebook for the latest social media tips

13 – Encourage interaction

When fans comment and like the content you add to your Page, Facebook links their name to their profile page. That means Google sees more reciprocal links between your Page and your Page’s fans, improving the SEO value of those links.

14 – Get more fans!

Every time someone likes your Page, that’s another link gained. More fans means more links and that means more SEO love.