With over 160 million business pages on Facebook, it has become a continuous challenge to stand out and attract new followers, likes, and shares.
If you want to know how to do SEO for Facebook pages, it’s essential that you know what the latest Facebook updates are so you can leverage them. For example, you must understand how Facebook’s News Feed uses AI to predict what users want to see.
As SocialMediaToday.com explains, there are two main steps to this process:
Knowing your audience and their interests.
Delivering on these values with a continuous stream of related content.
If you feel like you don’t know your audience well enough, social listening is one way to make these insights available and actionable for planning content.
Plus, to increase your organic reach and visibility, you need to make sure that your Facebook page can be discovered not only on the platform itself, but also on search engines.
If you don’t know how to optimize your page for increased exposure, or if you haven’t had any luck with finding accurate resources on the topic, we’ve got you covered!
Read on to discover 10 powerful tips that will allow you to successfully improve your Facebook SEO.
1. Nomen Est Omen
Your name says it all.
That’s why you need to be careful and selective when it comes to choosing the name of your Facebook page.
Unlike in the past, you can now change the name of your Facebook page. However, it’s better to get it right from the beginning.
One of the basic SEO rules says that you should use keywords throughout your content, and this means that they should be featured in your page name too.
But, don’t get carried away and overstuff it because you’ll come off as spammy. This practice is bad both in terms of internal Facebook algorithms, and the engagement of your followers.
Nobody likes blatant self-promoting attention seekers. So, names like “Mark’s Sportswear – Cheap Comfy Running Shoes and Apparel” isn’t a good idea. Let’s be honest and admit that nobody would share a post containing such a verbal monstrosity on their feed.
Go for a single, carefully selected, long-tail keyword. Also, since Google puts great emphasis on the first word in your page title, place it accordingly.
The Berg’s Ski and Snowboard Shop name is spot-on – it’s short, includes the “ski and snowboard shop” keyword, and clearly communicates the purpose of the store.
Being too generic won’t help you either as your page will be buried under an avalanche of similar Facebook business pages.
Using special characters, improper capitalization, and weird spelling in order to distinguish yourself won’t do the trick either, not to mention that Facebook doesn’t allow all of these corny tactics. Facebook SEO tips and best practices are often updated, but you should always use straightforward and good quality copy standards on your pages.
So, if your idea of a catchy Facebook Page title is “b.O.b’sL!tTleSpoRtSweaRsHOP”, it’s time to think again.
2. Claim Your Vanity URL
When you create your Facebook business page, you’ll be assigned an automatically generated dynamic URL.
By claiming your “vanity” URL and customizing it to match your company’s name, you’ll receive a significant SEO boost. This branded URL should be descriptive and concise, as its purpose is to be memorable and give your audience a hunch as to what your business is all about.
Needless to say, the vanity URL will increase your brand recognition and visibility.
Obviously, www.facebook.com/pages/CustomMadeShoes is much more searchable than www.facebook.com/pages/CustomMadeShoes/5478569871236, and your target audience will be able to find you more easily both on Facebook and search engines.
A branded URL sounds more professional and it will present your company in a better light.
3. Sprinkle your page with keywords
Keywords are essential elements of your Facebook page SEO optimization, and strategy is key. This means avoiding the shady practice of keyword stuffing, and including keywords in these areas:
About section
Description section
Headline
Photo captions
Notes
Updates
Use a keyword search tool like SEMRush to find the most effective keywords for your business.
It’s a good idea to opt for long-tail keywords that won’t necessarily bring you too much traffic and top-10 Google rankings, but they will make sure that people who visit your Facebook Page are more likely to find it relevant.
In practice, this means using a highly specific keyword like “paleo recipes for beginners” as opposed to the broader “paleo recipes.”
Double-check the keywords of your choice by running a search on Facebook.
If some of your more popular competitors show up in the results, it’s better to pick and use some more specific and low-volume keywords.
4. Leverage the power of backlinks
Backlinks are another crucial element of your Facebook Page SEO optimization.
The fact that authority sources link back to your content is a strong indicator that your content is relevant and valuable. Google likes it when multiple trustworthy sources vouch for the reputation and value of your website.
Don’t forget that backlinks from random sources can hurt your reputation and rankings as well. When it comes to Facebook, it’s important to state that although it’s hard to build links that can point to your page, it’s not impossible.
Use an influencer marketing platform to research and connect with influencers who would be willing to offer you guest posting opportunities and include the links to your Facebook content and custom tabs in their blog posts.
This method will help you boost the popularity and credibility of your Facebook page, as well as generate higher-quality traffic.
You can also incorporate links to your Facebook page within your blog posts, so that your page will be subtly promoted every time a relevant source shares your blog.
5. Polish your About tab
Every new visitor who lands on your Facebook page will first check out your About tab and try to find all the relevant information about your company. Don’t simply whip something up off the top of your head! The About tab is the place that helps visitors to decide whether they’ll become your fans or just passers-by.
It’s true that you don’t have too many characters to explain how amazing your business is – the limit is set at 155 – but it’s enough to summarize your company’s “why” and tell your prospects how they can benefit from it.
Enrich this copy by adding a couple of relevant keywords and you’re good to go.
New York Bakery Co. Bagels crafted a compelling and simple description of their business using the keyword “bagels”.
6. Update your business information
Many businesses fail to provide their accurate contact information, including their address, phone number, or business hours on their Facebook page. The truth is that even if you’re running an online business, you can benefit from having a complete and consistent name, address, and phone number. The address of your headquarters means that your business will be indexed for local search by Google.
As consistency is crucial for your overall rankings, be SEO-savvy and update your name, address, and phone number (NAP) across all of your channels and various directories.
Remember that your prospects use these citations, directories, and other sources for business information, including Facebook pages too.
This means that if your prospects come across conflicting addresses, business hours, or phone numbers, they will be frustrated, which may lead to poor user experience, and ultimately churn.
Here’s another cool perk – if you listed your address on your Facebook page, your users can check-in and share this information in their status, thus additionally improving the visibility of your business.
So, make sure to provide the same contact details throughout different sources and update them in a timely manner to improve your Facebook page SEO optimization.
7. Add custom tabs
You don’t have to restrict yourself to the generic Facebook tabs like About, Videos, or Events. As you start customizing your page with content, the number of tab options grows.
On the other hand, a large Facebook page can make it difficult for your followers to find your posts, images, videos, or reviews.
To make users' lives easier, create new custom tabs such as Videos, Posts, Photos, Reviews, Community, and Podcasts, and organize your page based on these categories. You can also remove the tabs that you don’t use to declutter your page.
As a result, your Facebook Page will be easier to navigate. Your audience will be able to quickly find relevant information through both Facebook and search engines.
8. Create and share the right content at the right time
It can’t be emphasized enough how relevant and effective content is in terms of promoting your business and generating leads. But we’re not talking about just any content, written for the sake of hitting your weekly posting quota.
We are only talking about high-quality, helpful content that generates engagement and prompts your followers to like, share, and comment. Always make sure that your Facebook content strategy uses the best optimization techniques.
Publish the type of content that educates, entertains, and helps your audience, and makes them bookmark it and forward it to their friends and colleagues. It’s also essential to know the best times to post on Facebook.
Basic Facebook SEO tactics focus on the first 18 characters because Google will use them as meta descriptions, while the first word should be a keyword as that’s what this search engine favors.
It might seem tricky to keep in mind SEO when creating your Facebook posts – but believe us, it’s well worth it!
Including keywords in the description of your posts will make your content go much further and help you increase your reach and engagement.
9. Get your followers to take action
Naturally, encouraging your followers to take action is why you created your business page in the first place.
But it’s important to include a clear and visible call to action (CTA) in your content, so your audience knows exactly what you want them to do. Plus, you need to drive valuable traffic from Facebook to your web pages to improve your search rankings.
CTA copy should match the purpose of your business, while the button itself should be aligned with the destination page. This means that if your CTA says “Download eBook”, your prospects should be redirected to the page containing the file.
It’s important to use action words, such as subscribe, download, sign up, book now, play video, or learn more. These can be paired with mentioning the outcome of the action – for example, “Sign up and generate more traffic.”
As for the wording, apart from being actionable, effective CTA copy should also:
Revolve around the benefits of your offer instead of product features
Mention your audience’s biggest pain points and hint that by clicking on the CTA these issues will be solved – for example, “Need more traffic?”
10. Engage your audience with AI Facebook Messenger chatbots
Go the extra mile and start communicating with your audience on a more personal level by using AI Facebook Messenger chatbots.
Chatbots can help your business to improve customer experiences by scaling up engagement rates, lowering agent workload, and automating the CX journey.
Apart from providing users with first-hand information about your business and products, you can also provide customer support, which improves their experience with your brand.
Remember – the better the experience customers have with your brand on social media, the higher the chance they will use search engines to visit your website later.
And the more people search for and clicks on your web in the search results, the better your ranking!
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has a smart Messenger bot that sends passengers flight updates such as booking confirmation, flight status, or scheduling changes.
You can tweak the Facebook Messenger Bot in a couple of ways to encourage communication.
For example, you can set it to pop up whenever someone visits your page, or even better, integrate an AI-powered chatbot which will be available 24/7 with your Facebook Messenger.
However you decide to use your AI chatbot, it will definitely help you to improve customer service and capture valuable customer information that you can later use to personalize your outreach and messages.
Personalized messages, in turn, are more likely to be discovered by your audience searching for information tailored to their interests on Facebook and search engines.
The result?
You’ve guessed it – increased organic visibility and traffic to your Facebook and web pages.
The takeaway
If you were wondering how to rank your Facebook page on Google and increase organic visibility of your Facebook content, we hope this article helped you with the answer.
We encourage you to give Facebook page SEO optimization a try. Try the tactics outlined above, see which ones work best for your business, and make sure to let us know how much your traffic has increased!
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on socialbakers.com. Any statistics or statements included in this article were current at the time of original publication.
