15 Facebook SEO Tips for Your Fan Page

What’s the most popular fan page on Facebook? Well, naturally, Facebook’s. And it doesn’t have to be by all Facebook SEO requirements.

It boasts 213 million followers.

Samsung holds the second spot with 160 million fans, while Cristiano Ronaldo comes third with an impressive following of 123 million.

It’s hard to compete with these multi-billion dollar companies and celebrities, but you can give your company’s Fan Page on this social media network a boost by having an SEO strategy in place.

Given that there are 80 million small and medium business Pages on Facebook, you need to amp up your visibility if you want to cut through the noise and be noticed, and that’s exactly what search engine optimization can help you with.

Here are some tips which will point you in the right direction and after that you will be a Facebook SEO expert!

1. Pick the Right Name

Picking the best name for your Facebook Fan Page is a crucial step in the process of Facebook SEO.

Many businesses take it for granted and don’t pay too much attention, which results in a lame, generic Page name which easily blends into the crowd of similar businesses, not to mention that there’s a risk that, say, The Bakery won’t be allowed by the platform.

Another common mistake in Facebook SEO is cramming too many keywords into your Fan Page name.

This is considered a spammy practice and it can kill your Facebook Page’s growth, not to mention that your fans won’t be enthusiastic about liking and sharing your posts or even being your fans at all.

The worst case scenario is that they will even hide your Page from their feed, and this will be a nail in the coffin of your Facebook marketing efforts.

Standing out from the other similar pages is crucial, but it’s against Facebook’s rules to do it by means of improper capitalization. So, your cUteLiTTlefLoweRshoP doesn’t stand a chance.

Finally, being too descriptive and using slogans also won’t make the cut – leave this for your About section.

2. Use Relevant Keywords

Keywords are building blocks of an effective Facebook SEO strategy, and it’s only logical that the content throughout your Fan Page should be spiked with them.

But, make sure that you don’t resort to keyword stuffing because that will only sink your rankings as Google perceive this shady tactic as spamming.

Another thing to bear in mind is that you shouldn’t use the same keywords for different social media networks.

For example, LinkedIn is primarily used for networking, connecting with other professionals from your niche, and recruiting talent, so make sure that your keywords reflect that.

Facebook is mainly used for branding and promotions, and the keywords you use should revolve around specific products and services you offer.

While this social media network boasts one of the most precise and granular targeting features, as it includes hundreds of different parameters such as demographics, preferences, interests, behaviors,  connections, it doesn’t offer any keyword-level targeting filters.

However, this targeting functionality should be the first stop of your Facebook keyword research project.

Combine its powerful options with a keyword research tool like the Google Keyword Planner to identify the best keywords for your business.

If you’re not sure how this tool works, check out this useful and detailed guide. Although it’s tempting to try to rank for popular, high-volume keywords, it would mean that you’d have to compete with your biggest competitors for the spotlight, and that can be challenging.

Instead of that, go for well-chosen, long-tail keywords as they can help you drive highly-qualified traffic. These represent 70% of all web searches, and there’s a good reason for that.

Despite the fact that they will bring you less traffic and won’t put you among the top 10 Google search results, long-tailed keywords will attract fans and visitors who are ready to convert and turn into your paying customers.

After you picked your keywords, it’s time to run another background check. Type them into the search bar, and if a lot of your big-shot competitors show up among the results, maybe it’s better to opt for some less prominent but more specific keywords.

We’ve already mentioned some of the most important spots on your Fan Page where you should place your keywords and these are:

– the Page title,

– your company’s headline,

– the About tab, and the Description section,

– photo captions,

– your updates,

– when linking and tagging websites

3. Leverage Backlinks

Backlinks are another crucial element of SEO, and if you’re not familiar with the concept, here’s a helpful blog post that gets down to the nitty-gritty details of this strategy.

Obtaining relevant backlinks from authority sources which point to your website or blog in a way vouches for its quality and signals to Google that the content there is worth reading.

The same applies to your Facebook Fan Page, which is why you should make sure to build links from multiple sources pointing to your content and custom tabs.

Again, this makes sense only if popular and trustworthy sources are promoting your Page and tabs.

Basically, this process is pretty similar to how recommendations IRL function – you’re more likely to trust a recommendation from a good friend with an impeccable taste in movies, food, or books, than a random stranger on a bus.

So, in order to boost your Facebook Fan Page search engine rankings, you need to have links to it featured on a number of credible websites.

The best way to ensure strong backlinks is by spying on your competitors and finding out where they get their backlinks.

Linkody is a backlink tracker which can help you identify your competitors’ backlinks, analyze them, add them as prospect links, and spot which of their backlinks you’re missing.

By gaining a valuable insight into your competitors’ backlinking efforts, it will be much easier for you to find guest blogging opportunities, roundups, reviews, or tool lists that your competitors already took advantage of and do the same.

When it comes to using your Facebook Fan Page as a source for link building, it’s worth noting that social media backlinks don’t exactly impact rankings in the way other backlinks do.

The thing is that although Google crawls social media websites and shows them among its search results, Facebook backlinks, as they’re nofollow, won’t help you increase your rankings.

So, is it safe to conclude that in terms of link building and link juice passing, Facebook backlinks won’t get you very far?

The answer to this question is pretty ambiguous, and according to Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz, nofollow links generally don’t pass influence, but in some cases, they can have at least some impact.

Similarly, although social media doesn’t directly affect rankings, high engagement on your Facebook page will certainly alert Google’s RankBrain that there’s something good going on there.

Generally speaking, likes, shares, and comments, which are called social signals, can affect your traffic and rankings, although social media isn’t a ranking factor.

They do this by the power of correlation – if your content on Facebook is good and relevant, people will talk about it, as well as like, cite, and share it. This popularity can help you build a loyal audience, promote your brand, and establish a strong online presence.

So, when you post a new blog post on your website, announce it on your Facebook Page with a couple of catchy excerpts, and invite your audience to visit your website to read more.

Similarly, when you introduce some new features or updates, inform your followers about that and provide them with a link to your website on which they can find more details.

As for the direct traffic, it occurs when a searcher enters a specific URL of the site in the browser, and a recent SEMRush study has shown that it’s the top ranking factor.

So, it’s only logical that you’ll put your website URLs on your Facebook Page. But, this also requires some planning.

Apart from adding it to your About tab, you can also include URLs the following elements of your Page:

• CTA  button,
• Cover photo – as Facebook allows calls-to-action in its cover photos, it’s a great opportunity to add your URL one more time. Just be careful that it doesn’t take up more than 20% of the photo. Although it’s not a clickable link, your fans can simply perform a copy-paste procedure.
• Pinned posts allow you to list different relevant resources, so you can include links leading to your pricing page, blog, features, or social proof examples.

Make sure to promote your Facebook Business Page by creating links on your website as well as other social media channels which point to it.

You can add these links in your blog posts or you can use the “Find us on Facebook” badge.

4. Claim Your Vanity URL

To give your SEO efforts a tremendous boost, make sure to claim a custom, “vanity” Facebook URL.

In other words, it’s a branded URL, unique to your Facebook Business Page.

It’s best to keep it simple and descriptive of your business, which means that it should ideally be your company’s name.

To be eligible for choosing a custom URL, a Page has to have at least 25 likes.

This simple, minor tweak offers you numerous SEO benefits. Some of them are self-explanatory such as the fact that it’s much easier to remember www.facebook.com/pages/OurSweetBakery than www.facebook.com/pages/OurSweetBakery/5478569871236.

Another bonus is that it builds more trust with your audience because a branded URL is proof that your business is respectable and credible.

5. Optimize Your About Tab

The About tab is the place where you should tell the world more about your company and mention the values and benefits of your products and services. But, don’t get carried away because you have only 155 characters to do so.

This is one of the most important sections of your entire fan Page and Facebok seo because the first place your new visitors go. Remember that people want to find out more about your brand and fan Page before they decide to like it.

The compelling, to-the-point, and yet concise copy, sprinkled with relevant keywords will encourage your target audience to click that thumbs-up icon.

Finally, choose the right category, as that’s essential for reaching potential customers, interested in your products and services.

6. Update Your Contact Information

It’s unbelievable how many businesses fail to provide their address, phone number, and business hours on their Fan Page, and that’s a pretty silly mistake.

Nowadays, when a lot of businesses operate and generate traffic almost exclusively online, it seems like these traditional contact details are no longer needed, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Namely, by including the address of your headquarters, your brand will be indexed for local search by Google, and this can help your fan Page grow and bring you tons of qualified online traffic.

Besides, by offering complete, accurate, and consistent contact information on every social media channel, internet business directory, and website, you practically use your NAP to boost your local, as well as overall search rankings.

7. Optimize Your Facebook Notes

Facebook Notes are primarily used for sharing important information, updates, and news with your audience, but this piece of writing shouldn’t be neglected SEO-wise.

The reason for that lies in the fact that Google’s crawlers spin their webs throughout the internet and social media, and they crawl deep into every piece of content you post, which means that even your Note in which you inform your customers about the latest product upgrade is also being analyzed in terms of relevancy and indexed.

Enrich your Notes with strategic keywords and increase your Page’s ranking. It’s a good idea to add photos as that will give you a chance to put keywords in the captions, which is also a good hack, but more on that later.

By creating the engaging Note copy, you can expect your fans to leave comments to which you should respond and use them as an opportunity to include keywords in your responses.

Needless to say, a lively and relevant discussion about your Note won’t go unnoticed by Google, which will rank it higher in the SERPs.

8. Create and Share Superb Content

Yes, even in Facebook SEO , good ol’ content is still a no. 1 tactic for boosting rankings, and not only by sharing your blog posts.

You have to craft your updates carefully and make them as captivating as possible so that both your fans and search engines find it appealing.

It’s particularly important to pay attention to the first 18 characters of your update because they will be used as the meta description of your post which will be shown in the search results to tell people more about what a particular piece of content is about.

We’ve established so far that relevant keywords should be strategically placed all around your Fan Page, so here’s another useful tip  – the very first word of your post update should be a keyword because Google puts a strong emphasis on it.

Don’t forget that both people and search engines simply adore visual content – infographics, images, and videos.

For example, infographics are liked and shared 3 times more than any other type of content on social media.

By regularly posting these, you’ll garner tons of engagement, and all the likes and shares will be a signal to Google that something good is happening on your Fan Page, which will, no doubt, impact your rankings.

Easier said than done, right?

If you need any kind of guidance on how to create effective content, check out some examples of how digital marketing companies specializing in content creation do it and take a cue from them.

9. Craft Effective CTAs

Very important step into being Facebook SEO expert is taking advantage of Facebook CTAs as they will encourage your fans to take the desired action and interact with your brand.

Invite them to like and share your content, sign up for your mailing list, download a report or manual, watch a video, or even shop items from your e-store.

Effective CTA buttons have the persuasive copy with a clear meaning which tells your fans what exactly you want them to do.

Some of the best practices for creating Facebook CTAs include:

– Using an action word, which compels your audience to be proactive and do something that will improve their life – such as sign up for your service.

– Focus on the benefit, not the product itself.

– Formulate as a question which reflects your audience’s common pain points – Need more B2B leads?

– Use negative words which evoke your audience’s fears and frustrations related to a certain problem – Stop losing quality leads!

10. Use Facebook Messenger

As more and more businesses leverage social media channels for their customer support, Facebook Messenger is an excellent way of showing your fans that you’re willing to assist them in solving any issues they might have.

Facebook Messenger is also great for connecting with your customers directly.

One of the most important things to work on is your responsiveness which is automatically determined based on how quickly you respond to messages.

You can also tweak your settings so that a Messenger window pops-up automatically when someone visits your Page, thus prompting them to contact you.

But, you don’t have to stick to these generic options. With the advancement of AI, there are companies which develop Facebook chatbots, ready to interact with your customers on a deeper and more meaningful level, and go well beyond predefined answers.

AI-powered chatbots understand questions and are capable of helping your customers with some more advanced tasks and troubleshooting.

Besides, unlike you and your team, they are available and accessible 24/7 which will skyrocket your customer experience.

Facebook estimates that there are approximately 300,000 active bots on the Messenger Platform, while it’s expected that by 2020 chatbots will handle 85% of all customer service interactions, so it’s high time you jumped on the chatbot bandwagon.

11. Use Social Proof

The whole point of maintaining a Fan Page on Facebook, or on any other social media network for that matter, is the ability to engage and interact with your audience on a more personal level.

Unlike blog posts or ads, Facebook enables two-way communication with your fans through comments and reviews.

Given that 92% of customers trust recommendations from others (even if they’re strangers) over branded content, reviews on your Facebook Fan Page can do wonders for your reputation.

Social proof rules big time, and if you learn how to leverage it, you won’t have to blow your own horn and try to convince your audience why your brand is so cool. Reviews will take care of that.

One of the most important things to bear in mind is that sometimes you’ll receive a bad review, and that’s OK. But what’s not OK is deleting negative reviews or being unpleasant to people who wrote them.

Instead of that, thank them for their feedback, and promise that you’ll try to fix things. Such an approach will cement your reputation as a trustworthy and credible brand that genuinely cares about its customers and their happiness.

12. Pin the Most Important Posts

Amplify the reach of your important posts and updates by pinning them to the top of your page.

This will draw the attention of your audience to what you want them to read.

There are several types of posts that should be pinned:

• time-sensitive updates about upcoming webinars, promotions, or discounts with a deadline.
• top-quality pieces of content which provide value to your audience and effectively tackle their pain points,
• announcements of your partnerships with other companies or influencers; they can be particularly useful if a high-profile guest will collaborate with you on your blog post or co-host a webinar with you.

13. Use High-Quality Visuals

Reinforce your branding as well as core values, and achieve a high level of visibility with quality profile and cover photos.

Use your brand colors and visuals, and align them with your messaging to influence your audience’s perception of your business.

As for the cover photo, make the most of it by not limiting yourself only to a static image – add a video or a slideshow.

Caption every photo by composing a short description and adding a relevant keyword. This way, whenever someone uses that particular keyword in their search, your page will show up in the SERPs.

Here’s another useful trick that can put your page in Google’s good books. Namely, by neglecting Alt Text, you’re practically wasting numerous ranking opportunities.

Alternative Text is used within an HTML code to provide a description of the image.

This practice can be of great help to visually impaired people as it will improve their user experience by explaining what’s shown in a particular image.

Besides that, Google spiders will gain a better understanding of your images, which means that they’ll be able to index them more properly – and that’s another way to give your rankings a little boost.

14. Set Milestones

A milestone timeline on your Page will help you mark and celebrate all the significant achievements of your company.

As you know, creating a brand narrative to which your customers can relate is an essential part of your marketing strategy. Milestones are a perfect way to add a historical context to your brand story and tell your audience more about your company.

Besides, it’s a great way to build loyalty and trust with your followers, because by providing them with the information about all the accomplishments that your company has under its belt, you influence the way they perceive you.

15. Organize Your Tabs

Your Facebook Fan Page comes with some generic tabs such as About, Events, or Photos.

But as you fill your Fan Page with content, it grows and expands, which means that things can become a bit cluttered and messy.

If you want to make it easier for your audience to find what they’re looking for, you should create more tabs and organize them. It’s a good idea to add Reviews, Videos, Community, and Posts tabs first, this is very important step for Facebook seo.

Similarly, depending on the nature of your business, certain tabs might not be of any significance to you, so that you can turn them off and prioritize only those which you actually use.

These SEO tips can help your Facebook Page attract more traffic, likes, and shares, as well as gain traction among your target audience and potential customers.

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Author:

Nina is a technical researcher & writer at DesignRush, a B2B marketplace connecting brands with agencies. She loves to share her experiences and meaningful content that educates and inspires people. Her main interests are web design and marketing. In her free time, when she’s away from the computer, she likes to do yoga and ride a bike. You can find her on twitter