What is the most popular Facebook fan page? Definitely Facebook’s, and it doesn’t have to meet all the Facebook SEO requirements. This Page has over 213 million followers. Samsung comes in the second position with 160 million fans and Cristiano Ronaldo on the third position with close to 213 million Facebook Fans.
What you need to understand is it can be a challenge to compete with major companies and celebrities, but you can give your business’ Facebook Fan Page a boost by laying some SEO strategies in place. Today, there are over 80 million small and medium business Facebook Pages, and this means you should improve your visibility if you want to beat all the competition and get noticed—and that’s where SEO comes in.
The following are some tips that will assist you in boosting your Facebook page—and from there, you’ll now become a Facebook SEO master.
Select the Right Name
Selecting the right name for your Facebook Fan Page is an essential step of the Facebook SEO process. Most businesses take this for granted, and they don’t want to put too much emphasis on it, and this leads to generic and lame Page names, which blends easily with other similar businesses. Also, doing that presents you with the risk that Facebook might not allow the name you have just selected.
There is another common mistake that many people do—inserting excessive keywords into their Facebook Fan Page name. You should understand that Facebook considers this to be a spammy practice, and it can destroy the growth of your Facebook Fan Page. Furthermore, your fans will not be motivated to like and share your Facebook posts, and other users will not be willing to be your fans.
Others can even decide to hide your Fan Page from their feed, a step that will render all your Facebook marketing efforts useless. Therefore, it is necessary to make sure that you stand out from all other Facebook Pages similar to yours. However, don’t break Facebook’s rules by doing improper capitalization—as this will make your mANcaVEBarberShop Facebook Fan Page to be penalized. Lastly, avoid using slogans or being too descriptive as this tactic doesn’t work—leave these for the Page’s About section.
Use Relevant Keywords
There is one thing you should know about keywords—they are the building blocks of an effective Facebook SEO campaign, and it a good thing to make sure that the content in your fan page is sprinkled with relevant keywords. However, you should be careful to avoid keyword stuffing since it will have negative effects on your SEO campaigns, as Google considers this to be spamming.
Also, you should note that you cannot use the same keyword for different social media platforms. For instance, LinkedIn is a platform used for networking and connecting with other people in your industry, as well as a recruiting talent. Therefore, you should make sure that you use keywords related to that. Facebook, on the other hand, is mostly used for promotions and branding, and you should use keywords that revolve around the specific services and products you offer.
Facebook has one of the most granular and precise targeting features that include hundreds of diverse parameters like demographics, behaviors, interests, connections, and preferences. However, it doesn’t have any keyword-level targeting filters. But, this targeting method should be your first consideration for your Facebook Keyword research project. You can choose to use its powerful options alongside a keyword research tool such as Google Keyword Planner when searching the best keywords suitable for your business.
Even though the tool is trying to rank for the popular and high-volume keywords, it means that you shouldn’t compete with your greatest competitors for the first position—and this is a major challenge for many businesses.
Rather, consider going for the carefully selected, long-tail keywords, as they will assist you in attracting more qualified traffic. These keywords account for close to 70% of web searches—and there is a valid reason for that. High-volume keywords will bring you less traffic, and they won’t put your business in the tp-10 Google search results. However, long-tail keywords will attract visitors and fans who are willing to convert and become paying clients.
Once you choose your keywords, you need to run a background check. Type these keywords into the search bar, and in case most of your major competitors show up in the result, consider using less prominent and more specific keywords.
Some of the most important parts of your Facebook Fan Page, where you should insert your keywords include:
- Page title
- Company’s headline
- The About Section
- The description Section
- Your updates
- Photo captions
- When tagging or liking other websites
Capitalize On the Power of Backlinks
Backlinks are another important element when it comes to developing an SEO strategy. Gaining quality and relevant backlinks from authority sources that point to your blog or site in one way or another signals Google that the content in your site is worth reading.
This also applied to Facebook Fan Pages, and it’s the reason why you should ensure that you have built links from different sources pointing to your custom tabs and content. Also, this will be effective only when trustworthy and popular sources are promoting your tables and Page. What you need to note is that this process resembles how recommendation URLs function—you are more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend with a good taste of movies, books, or food, than a stranger you’ve just met on the street.
Therefore, if you want to boost the search engine rankings of your Facebook Fan Page, you should have links of the Page appearing in several credible sites. One of the best ways to get strong backlinks is to spy on your competitors’ pages and try to find out the sources of their backlinks. You can use backlink tracker tools like Linkdoy, which can assist you in identifying your competitors’ backlinks, analyzing them, and adding them as prospect links, as well as identifying which links you are missing.
When you have valuable insight into the backlinking efforts of your competitors, you have an easier time finding guest blogging opportunities, reviews, roundups, or tools that your competitors are already using—and do the same for your business.
If you want to use your Facebook Fan Page as the source for your link building strategies, you should understand that social media backlinks don’t have a direct impact on rankings like the way other backlinks do. What you need to note is, even though Google Crawls social media sites, and displays them in SERPs, Facebook backlinks are no-follow links, and will not assist you to boost your rankings.
So, why does this happen?
Rand Fishkin, the co-founder of Moz, says that no-follow links don’t have any influence, but in certain cases, they have some level of impact.
Also, since social media doesn’t have a direct impact on rankings, the high engagement rate on your Facebook page will notify Google’s Rankbrain that there is something noteworthy happening on your Page. Generally, shares, comments, and likes, which are known as social signals, can affect your rankings and traffic, even though social media is not a ranking factor.
This happens through the power of correlation—that’s if your Facebook content is relevant and good, users will talk about it, and they will like, share, and cite it. Such a kind of popularity can assist you in building a loyal audience, establishing a strong online presence, as well as promoting your brand. Therefore, whenever you have a new blog post on your site, make sure that you announce it in your Facebook Page using a number of catchy excerpts, and invite your target audience to visit your site and read more.
Also, when you introduce new updates or features, make sure that you have informed your followers and give them a link to your site where they can find more details about the features or updates. Direct traffic, on the other hand, happens when a search enters a particular URL of the website in their browser, and a recent study by SEMRush revealed that it’s one of the top-ranking factors. Therefore, it is always a good thing to ensure that you have put your URL on your Facebook Fan Page. However, this also needs some planning. Other than adding your URL on your About section, you can also add your URL in the following areas of your Facebook Page:
- Call-to-Action (CTA button)
- Cover photo – since Facebook allows CTAs in cover photos, it is an amazing opportunity to add your URL. However, you need to be careful not to exceed more than 20% of the cover photo. Even though the URL isn’t clickable, your Facebook Fans can do a simple copy and paste procedure.
- Pinned posts – these allow you to list different resources as long as they are relevant. Therefore, you can add links directing users to your blog, pricing page, features, or examples of social proof.
Therefore, you should ensure that you promote your Facebook Business Page by creating links to your site, and other social media platforms that direct to the Page. You can also add the links in your blog posts or use the “Find Us on Facebook” button.
Claim Vanity URL
If you want to give your SEO tactics a boost, ensure that you claim your Vanity Facebook URL. This is a branded URL that’s unique to your Facebook Page. When doing so, ensure that you keep it precise and descriptive to your business, which means it should the name of your company. You must have at least 25 likes to be eligible for a custom URL.
This is a simple and minor tweak than comes with several SEO benefits, like the fact that it’s far much easier to remember. Also, it plays a major role when it comes to building audience trust since branded URL is proof that your business is credible and respectable.
Make Sure That You Optimize Your About Tab
This is the section where you should tell users more about your business, and also give the benefits and values of your services and products. However, you should be brief and precise as Facebook allows only 155 characters. The About section is one of the essential areas of a Facebook Fan Page as well as Facebook SEO since it’s the first place your new users will visit. You should note that the users want to know more about your fan page and brand before choosing whether to like it or not.
Therefore, you should make sure that your copy is compelling, concise, and to-the-point, and yet sprinkled with the relevant keywords. This is one of the things that will compel your target audience to like your Page. Lastly, select the correct category—this is vital if you want to reach potential customers who are interested in what your business offers.
Ensure That your Contact Information Is Up To Date
Today, not many businesses provide their addresses, business hours, and phone number on their Facebook Page—and this is a big, silly mistake. What you should note is that most businesses today operate online, and generate most of their traffic online—but this makes the traditional contact details appear invalid. However, this is not the truth.
When you include your business address, Google will index the business for local search—and this assists your fan page to grow and to attract tons of valuable online traffic. Other than offering accurate, consistent, and complete contact information on your social media platforms, website, and internet business directly, you can also use your NAP to promote both your local and overall search rankings.
Don’t Forget to Optimize your Facebook Notes
Generally, Facebook Notes are used to share important information, news, and updates with your audience, and you should never neglect this piece of writing SEO-wise. The main reason behind this is that Google Crawlers also crawl on social media platforms, and they can crawl into every content that you post on Facebook—this means even the Note that you use to inform your clients about your latest updates or changes will be analyzed and indexed.
Therefore, make sure that you boost your Notes with certain strategic keywords, as this will assist you in booking your Page Ranking. One of the best ways to do this is to add photos that will give you the opportunity to add keywords in the caption.
When you create an engaging Note copy, you should expect your page fans to leave comments, which you should reply to, and use the comments as a chance to add relevant keywords in the responses. We cannot forget to say that relevant and lively discussion revolving around your note will not go unnoticed by Google—and it will rank it higher in the search engine results pages.
Create and Share Compelling Content
Yes, compelling content is still important is Facebook SEO—and remains to be one of the best tactics of boosting rankings. This means you need to create your updates carefully and ensure that you make them as attractive as possible so that search engines and your fans can find it appealing. You should particularly concentrate on the initial 18 characters of the update. These characters will be used as your post’s meta description and will be shown in search results to tell users more about your content.
By now, you know that you should place relevant keywords strategically all-around your Facebook Fan Page—here is another tip. Make sure that the first word of your post is a keyword since Google puts more emphasis on this word.
Also, you shouldn’t ignore the fact that both search engines and users adore visual content—like videos, images, and infographics. For instance, research has revealed that infographics are shared and liked 3 times more than any other form of social media content. Regularly posting infographics on your Page will assist you to attract lots of engagements—and the shares and likes that you receive will inform Google that you have an active page—and this will positively affect your rankings.
Create Effective Call-To-Actions (CTAs)
One of the essential steps into becoming an expert in Facebook SEO is to capitalize on the benefits of Facebook CTAs, as they usually encourage your fans to interact with your brand, as well as take the desired actions. CTAs can invite your fans to like and share your content, download manuals or reports, watch video, sign up for your monthly newsletters, or even buy an item from your store.
For the Facebook CTAs to be effective, they should be persuasive, with a clear and concise meaning that informs your fans what you need them to do. Here are some of the best practices for creating Facebook Call-to-action:
- Use an action word that compels your users to be active and take an action that will boost their life—like signing up for your services.
- Concentrate on the benefits, not the actual product.
- Create a question that reflects on the common pain points of your audience.
- Use some negative words that evoke certain frustrations or fears of your audience. The words should be related to a particular problem, like don’t lose your quality leads anymore!
Capitalize on Facebook Messenger
Today, more and more businesses are leveraging on social media platforms for customer support, and Facebook Messenger has become amazing for businesses to show their fans that they are willing to help them in solving their problems. Facebook Messenger is a great avenue for connecting with your clients directly.
However, it is essential to make sure that you work on the rate of your responsiveness, which is mostly determined by how you quickly respond to Facebook messages. You can choose to customize your settings, so that the Messenger window automatically pops-up whenever a user visits your Facebook page, thus prompting the user to contact you.
However, you don’t need to concentrate on these generic options. The advancement of AI has made some companies create Facebook Chatbots, which are ready to engage your clients on a more meaningful and deeper level and even go past any predefined answers. Chatbots powered by AI can understand questions and are able to help your clients with more technical tasks, as well as troubleshooting.
Also, unlike the person or team that manages the Page, these bots are accessible and available 24/7, and this is a great way to improve user experience. Today, there are around 300,000 active chatbots on Facebook’s Messenger platform. According to Facebook, chatbots will handle around 85% of all customer service engagements by 2020—and this is an indication that you need to join the chatbot bandwagon as soon as possible if you have not.
Leverage on Social Proof
There is only one reason to maintain a Facebook Fan Page, as well as any other social media platform—the ability to interact and engage your fans on a more personal level. Unlike ads and blog posts, Facebook allows you to have two-way communication with your fans through reviews and comments.
92% of all online customers trust recommendations from other people—even strangers. Therefore, you need to note that reviews and branded content on your Page can have a positive impact on your SEO campaigns. Social proof will always carry the day, and the moment you learn how to capitalize on it, you will not need to struggle convincing other people why your brand is the best. Reviews and comments will take care of that.
You should also note that there are certain times when you will get a bad review—and that is OK. However, what’s not OK is to delete these reviews or be arrogant with the users who wrote the reviews. Rather, you need to appreciate them for the feedback, and then assure them that you will work on fixing things. This approach will build your reputation as a credible and trustworthy brand, which has genuine care about the happiness and satisfaction of the customer.
Pin Your Important Posts
You can amplify your important updates and posts by pinning them to the top of your Facebook Page. Doing this will attract the attention of your target audience to what you need them to read.
The following are some of the posts that you should pin:
- Time-sensitive updates—this can be about any upcoming promotions, webinars, or discounts with an approaching deadline.
- Quality pieces of content that offer impeccable value to your audience, and will solve their problems.
- Announcements – this can be about you partnering with other influencers or companies. They are very useful when a high-guest profile collaborates with you on a blog post you have posted or co-hosts a webinar with you.
Don’t Forget To Use Visuals
You can strengthen your brand, as well as the core values, and get high-level visibility by using quality cover and profile photos. When doing this, make sure that you use your brand colors and visuals, and check to see if they are aligned with your messaging, as this will go a long way in influencing the perception of your business to your audience.
For the Facebook cover photo, don’t limit yourself to a static image—you can add a slideshow or video. You can caption each photo by adding a short description with relevant keywords. This way, when a user searches for a certain keyword, your Page will appear in the search engine results page.
Here is another amazing and useful trick that will make Google love your Page. When you neglect Alt Text, you will be losing valuable ranking opportunities. Alt Text is used in an HTML code to give a description of images. Thus, including Alt Text can be beneficial to visually impaired users, as it goes a long way in improving their user experience by explaining what appears in a certain image.
Other than that, Google crawlers will have a better understanding of the images that you upload—which means they will be indexed properly. This is another amazing way to boost your rankings.
Create Milestones
Milestones are the timelines on your Page, which will assist you to observe and celebrate all the major achievements of your business. It’s important to note that creating a brand narrative that your clients can relate to is an important part of your SEO marketing strategy. Thus, milestones are a good way to include the historical context of your brand and give your audience more information about your business.
Other than that, it is an amazing way to build trust and loyalty with your fans, since giving them the information about all the achievements your business has accomplished will have an impact on the way they perceive your business.
Keep Your Tabs Organized
Facebook Fan Pages come with certain generic tabs like About, Photos, and Event, among others. As you continue adding your age with content, the Page continues to grow and expand, which means things can get a bit messy and cluttered.
Therefore, you need to create more tabs and keep them organized—if you want to make it easier for your fans to find what they are searching for. You can opt to add Reviews, Posts, Community, and Videos tabs when creating the Page—as this is an amazing step for Facebook SEO. Also, certain tabs might not be useful to your Page—depending on the nature of your company. Therefore, you can turn off these tables and prioritize the tabs that you actually use.
When you put these SEO tips into practice, you will assist your Facebook Page to attract more likes, traffic, and shares, and also gain popularity among your potential customers and target audience.