How Do You Optimize Facebook for Search?
With over 500 million active users, Facebook has established itself as the social media giant of today. Friends and family use it to stay in touch, while businesses use it to reach out to their customers and target demographic. Allegedly accounting for 44% of social sharing and receiving more unique page views than the online giant, Yahoo, Facebook clearly presents potential for online marketing and brand outreach. The question becomes not whether to connect to Facebook as a business, but how best to go about it to achieve the greatest ROI (return on investment).
While there are numerous articles explaining best practices for social engagement, an equally important consideration is how to ensure all your hard work is noticed. After all, social media is worthless unless you socialize, and it’s hard to socialize if no one can find you. In other words, you need SEO for Facebook.
Facebook Pages, Better Than Profiles
The first step in optimizing Facebook for business (after signing up, of course) is to leave behind your user profile and make a business Page. While profiles are designed for individuals, Pages are designed specifically for entities, whether those be businesses, non-profits, or causes. As such, Pages have many advantages over user profiles:
1. Pages Are Indexed by Search Engines
Unlike user profiles, Facebook Pages can be viewed by anyone, even if they do not have a Facebook account. Therefore, search engines crawl and index them, allowing them to appear on SERPs (search engine results pages) just like any other website. Make sure you fill out everything on the Info tab with targeted, well-written content that the search engines (and users) will appreciate.
2. Pages Allow for a Targeted URL
Where user profiles are assigned a URL related to a user ID number, Facebook Pages take on a URL based on the name of the Page. Once you have 25 fans, you can also choose a vanity URL. Not only does this look more appealing to users than a random number string, but it also allows for stronger keyword targeting. Name your page something brand or keyword oriented for best results.
3. Pages Are Good Platforms for Discussion
While it’s possible to have discussions on profile walls, it’s far more professional to hold discussions on a business Page in the Discussions tab.
4. Pages Allow FBML
Facebook Markup Language is a subset of HTML for use on Facebook. Static FBML is an app which can only be used on Pages, not profiles. With FBML, you can create custom tabs for stunning branding effect.
VW Uses FBML to Brand Their Facebook Page
Understanding How Your Facebook Page interacts With Search
Because Facebook Pages are able to be indexed by search engines, you’re already off to a good start in your Facebook SEO by creating a Page. In addition, your page will get a little extra boost over external Web pages due to the extremely high Domain Authority possessed by Facebook itself. There are a few more things you should know about SEO for Facebook, however.
1. More Connections Boost Your Page’s Perceived Importance
SEO Side: Throughout Facebook, nearly all Internal links are “followed” and therefore influence how important your site appears to search engines. The more connections you have, the more user profiles and Pages will point to your page. Internal linking is an important practice in all forms of SEO, and connections are how you do it on Facebook.
Social Side: Of course, getting more connections also means you’re reaching more people, and you’re also more likely to reach further people through them. This is truly the crux of social and viral marketing.
Best Practice: Be careful not to be spammy in your attempts to build a fan base. Rather than blanketing users with requests, market your page, incentivise it, and build your fans naturally. Consider purchasing Facebook Ads to gain exposure, and place links to your Page on your other online assets such as your blog and homepage.
Connections Help Your Page Rank
2. Google Loves Regular, Fresh Updates
SEO Side: Google’s QDF (quality deserves freshness) algorithm eats up regular updates, whether on a blog, a Twitter feed, or a Facebook Page. For this reason, it’s important to keep your page updated with relevant information, thoughts, links, and replies to your fans.
Social Side: Regular updates are important from a social perspective, as well, since they keep you interacting with your followers. Never forget that every social media campaign should always be focused on interaction first!
Best Practice: It is becoming more popular to use Static FBML to set a custom landing tab instead of using the traditional Wall or Information tabs. Since a static landing tab doesn’t update with each post, it won’t be feeding QDF. Although we haven’t tested the full implications, I recommend carefully balancing the potential conversion improvements with the SEO implications. Either choice involves a tradeoff, so do what is best for your particular campaign.
Google Loves Fresh Updates
3. External Links Are No-Follow
SEO Side: While internal links are followed, external links are not. Therefore, although you could post links on your wall to your blog and homepage all day long, you won’t get any direct link value.
Social Side: Facebook is still a great place to share links about your company or industry. Post things which are of interest to your fan base and you’ll establish yourself as an industry leader and increase exposure for your own assets.
Best Practice: You may tick people off and possibly get banned for spamming if you overdo link posting. Fortunately, by making all external links no-follow, Facebook has reduced the temptation to spam your followers. Post things of interest to your followers such as industry news, relevant contests, or tips and tricks, even if those don’t point directly to your business.
External Links Won't Be Followed
What About Facebook’s Internal Search?
Facebook has its own internal search engine, as well. Unfortunately, when compared to the search engine giants, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, Facebook’s search algorithm looks simplistic and unenlightened. Community Pages tend to trump any other pages, and SERPs for any given individual are heavily influenced by that user’s historic activities, preferences, and connections. At this stage in Facebook’s internal search development, I would not recommend relying on it as a traffic-driving factor but would focus on traditional search, instead.
Summing It All Up
Getting your business found on Facebook is key to maximizing your presence on the biggest social networking site on the Web. Fortunately, most activities which are best practice in the social space are also helpful for SEO. If you start up a Page for your business with a relevant and targeted name, keep it updated with interesting content, and build up your followers, you’ll be well on your way to high visibility in search.
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