Posted by There is no wonder Facebook is the most used social media platform globally, with over 2.9 billion monthly active users. It’s also a great way to reach your target audience for marketing as well as advertising purposes.
However, due to the continuous increase of Facebook pages, it’s becoming more and more challenging to stand out among other competitors.
Like Google and other search engines, Facebook also has its ranking algorithm. So, if your Page is well optimized for SEO, you will get more visibility both on Facebook and Google. More visibility means more engagement and, therefore, conversion.
But, how would you optimize your Facebook page for SEO?
Well, in this blog post, you will learn 9 different ways to optimize your Facebook business page so that you get more visibility and engagement.
Why Should You Optimize Your Facebook Page?
Before we jump into the Facebook SEO optimization part, let’s understand why it’s necessary to have an optimized page for your business growth.
This may seem like an extra headache, but believe me, it will be worth it, and you can see better results over time. Here are a couple of reasons below:
1. It drives better results: Once the Page is optimized, you tell Facebook what your Page is about and what result you are aiming for. So, when someone is searching for a term, Facebook will likely show your Page at the front. As a result, you will get more followers and engagement.
2. People will trust your brand: When you are buying something from an online store for the first time, most probably, you check the store’s address, about us section, privacy policy, testimonials, etc. By checking all these things, you can say if the brand is genuine or not. The same goes for the Facebook page.
If your Facebook business page is well-optimized, people will trust your brand more.
3. It’s easier to get verified: When you are applying for a blue verification badge on your Facebook page, there are several criteria to maintain in order to get verified. So, it would be easier for you if your page has enough information and is optimized enough.
How to Optimize Your Facebook Business Page
1. Add Keywords to Your Page
If you are doing SEO for a while, you know the importance of keywords. Optimizing your content with proper keywords helps your website rank higher as well as get more search traffic. The same goes for Facebook.
So, if you want to optimize your Facebook page with proper keywords, here are places you need to focus:
- About section
- Headline
- Page URL
- Description
- Photo and video captions
However, if you don’t know which keywords to target, you can use SEMrush alternatives to get basic ideas of what type of keywords to choose.
Or, go to SEMrush and enter your primary keyword. It will analyze and give you all the relevant keyword ideas that are worth mentioning.
We recommend targeting long-tail keyword phrases such as “chocolate mug cake recipe” as they are easy to rank rather than short-tail keywords such as “chocolate cake.”
2. Choose the Right Name
Choosing the right name for your Facebook page should be the top priority when optimizing your business on Facebook. It’s what people see when they search for a product or service on Facebook.
If the title of your Facebook page matches their search intent or what they are exactly searching for, they may come to your Page to see what you are offering – it’s that important.
If you think your Page’s name is inappropriate or needs to be changed, you can do that by going to the Page Settings option. However, we always recommend changing the name after creating your page.
To change your Facebook page’s name:
- Go to your page and Page Settings in the bottom left
- Click on the Page Info tab and edit the name
- And then click Request Change
However, it’s also important to add keywords throughout your pages, but not to overuse them. This may look spammy to users. Overusing keywords can hurt your SEO as well as provide bad user experiences.
Another thing you need to keep in mind when naming your Facebook page is to avoid using generic names. Using generic terms such as – sports, food, kitchen, sports, etc., you drown your NEW Page amongst millions of branded pages.
So, it would be great if you could focus on long-tail keywords rather than generic names. Although long-tail keywords have fewer searches, they are easier to rank and increase your chances of getting highlighted on Facebook searches and Google.
A great example would be something like “The Best Chicago’s Pizza and Pasta.”
Overall, your Facebook page name should be simple, short, understandable, and don’t forget to add your keywords.
3. Create a Custom URL
Your Facebook page URL is as important as the page name.
When you create a Facebook page, you get a randomly generated URL such as “Facebook.com/business-page-992166740827309“, which looks ugly and doesn’t say anything about your business.
By changing the URL to something short and brandable, you will get a significant SEO boost. You have to change the name that is easy to remember for your customers as well as show what your business is about. Therefore, it’s also essential to add your brand name to the URL.
To change your Facebook page’s URL:
- Go to your page and Page Settings in the bottom left
- Click on the Page Info tab and edit the Username
Your URL should be unique and at least five characters long. In case the username isn’t available, try adding one more word.
4. Update Your Business Information
When someone lands on your Facebook page, they first check the “about” section to understand what products or services you offer, your business’s location, opening time, reviews, contact information, etc.
Unfortunately, many businesses don’t add these types of information. As most of the traffic and sales come through organically and online advertising, they leave those fields empty or unoptimized.
However, it’s essential to know that search engines like Google fetch a business’s most important information from everywhere, including Facebook pages.
Here’s a great example of Superior Plumbing Service’s Google listing.
You can see that Google pulls reviews from Facebook. Even Google can fetch other important information such as opening hours, contact numbers in case they are not updated on the Google My Business page.
To update your business information on the Facebook page, go to the about section and click on Edit Page Info.
In the about field, write your company’s story, such as when it started, the ambition behind your business, and what makes it different from the competition.
You are allowed to write a minimum of 255 characters and don’t forget to include relevant keywords.
Additionally, complete the other fields – Page category, phone number, email address, website, business opening hours, location, pricing range, etc.
The more information you provide, the easier it would be to find your business by people and search engines.
5. Add Backlinks to Your Page
Backlinks, also known as inbound links or off-site SEO, are essential parts of SEO. In simple words, when a website links to your website, you get a backlink.
Google counts backlinks as upvotes. Therefore, the more backlinks you get from relevant and authorized websites, the higher chance your website ranks well on search engines.
The same principle applies to your Facebook page. So, whenever possible, point links to your Facebook business page from external sources such as your blog, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, etc.
Also, it’s essential to know that not all backlinks carry the same value, and some can be harmful to your business. For example, low-quality backlinks coming from irrelevant or spammy sources can damage your overall reputation.
6. Add More Custom Tabs
After creating a Facebook page, you are assigned to a few generic tabs like groups, photos, community, and videos.
Having fewer tabs makes it difficult for customers to know more about your business. For example, if your Page is about Entertainment, where you post funny or educational videos, people are likely to watch more videos from you.
However, if they don’t find any video section on your Page, they are less likely to surf throughout your Page to find video content. As a result, your Page will have less engagement (reactions, comments, and shares).
You can add more additional tabs based on your business type to make things easier for your users. On the contrary, you can also remove tabs that you don’t need.
In the recent update, Facebook lets you choose a template with default buttons and tabs designed to help your Page.
By improving the navigation, people will engage with your Page; as a result, it will enhance your Facebook page’s SEO.
7. Post Engaging Content Regularly
No matter which digital platform you choose, there is tons of content that already people love and engage with – also like their services, offers, content, etc.
But why would they come to your Page or see content?
Well, you need to develop a Facebook content strategy that is high-quality, engaging, and helpful so that users watch your content over and over again. As a result, it will bring you more followers and shares.
However, posting engaging content wouldn’t help you alone; you need to post content on your Facebook page consistently.
But how do you effectively strategize engaging content?
Start with a central concept, and create a mind map with branching subtopics that flow from that concept. Mindmapping is a great way to plan, organize, and visualize your thoughts and ideas.
Once you build a Facebook marketing strategy, pick at what times your post will be published. If it’s at 6 PM every day, maintain the schedule. It’s also important to understand at what time your viewers primarily engage.
Posting content simultaneously regularly may seem overwhelming, but it’s how you grow your Facebook page. To make the publishing process more manageable, you can use social media scheduling tools like Crowdfire.
Crowdfire is a social media scheduling tool that is used by more than 19 million users from all over the world. With this tool, you can discover and schedule your content, also, manage all your social media accounts in one place.
It’s free to use. However, if you want more advanced features like custom posting schedule, video post support, RSS feed connect, etc., you can check out their paid plans which start at $7.48 per month.
8. Add a Proper Call to Action
A Facebook page is created to provide information such as support, service, reviews, opening hours, and promoting your business.
However, adding a clear call to action (CTA) button on your content can significantly boost engagement and drive traffic to your website.
The CTA button encourages people to take any important action to your business. Let’s say, you’ve decided to create an eBook and want people to download it. Or just shopping on your website.
The call to action button should be relevant to your business goal. For example, if you promote or offer a free webinar for digital marketing, you can add a sign-up now button to allow users to register for your upcoming webinar.
9. Use Facebook Messenger Bot
There are many ways to engage with your audience; however, you can take this even further with AI-powered Facebook Messenger chatbots.
AI chatbots not only save your time and energy, but they also are capable of everything from qualifying leads to improving conversions and making sales.
The best thing about AI chatbots is that you can set many custom messages that you think your customers may ask. Once set, it will do the rest of the job by sending automated responses based on their queries.
Here’s a great example from DXRacer. If you click any of these queries, you will get an automated reply.
Implement this strategy on your Facebook page. By doing so, it will improve overall user experience and engagement; as a result, you get an SEO boost.
Wrapping Up
Facebook is a powerful tool for brands to reach their customers. As such, it’s essential to optimize your Facebook page for SEO so that it ranks higher in search results and people can find you more easily.
We hope these 9 tips help you to use Facebook as an effective marketing channel with solid SEO practices.
With Crowdfire, you can find curated content, schedule your posts, engage with your audience, deep-dive into analytics and create custom reports. Now introducing Social listening. Try it for free.