Sacrilicious Marketing

Most people forget that social media is more than socializing and lead generation – it can be a great source of SEO. Your Facebook Fan Page and Profile can be optimized for search engines so you get the best possible value out of your profile and updates.

1.     Pick a page name with keywords

Select a name for your page that includes keywords people would likely be searching when looking for your service, product or business.

Example:

Colorado Springs Real Estate

Celebration Florida Town Tavern

Capital Grill Boston

*NOTE: once you pick a name for your fan page, you CANNOT change it so select wisely.

Nobody is searching for “you” unless you are a celebrity so don’t create a fan page in your name unless your name has existing brand value. Use keywords that describe your product or service or if you have a physical location like a store-front include your location. For popular bars, restaurants and clubs, you should use your business name and location (town/city). Also, be aware you cannot give your page a generic name like “Boston” or “Real Estate” – Facebook has recently been disabling updates for generically named Pages – effectively neutering their ability to reach their Facebook fans.

2.     Select the proper category for your page

When you create a page, Facebook allows you select a specific category for your page – always select the MOST relevant category to index your page within. READ THROUGH ALL THE SELECTIONS BEFORE MAKING YOUR CHOICE. This is how Facebook will index your company, brand, celebrity personality so be very thoughtful when making your selection.

3.     Use the Vanity URL Feature

Facebook allows you to choose a vanity URL or as Facebook calls it, a “username” for your fan page once you have 100 fans. This is hands down the most valuable SEO tool you within Facebook, so select your vanity URL wisely.

Example:

www.facebook.com/coloradospringsrealestate

www.facebook.com/papajohnspizza

www.facebook.com/capitalgrillboston

This is where you have a better opportunity to include generic keywords than the page name, so be sure to include your most valuable keyword but still be sure to keep the vanity url short. The best solution is to combine your business name with a relevant keyword.

Usernames can be selected at www.facebook.com/username

4.     Include keywords in your “about” box

On page content is important to search engines and on a Facebook Fan Page you can provide a keyword rich indexable and static summary of your business, service and product in the About Box. Interestingly, the About Box actually represents the highest place in the CSS structure of the page to add custom text which means the text closest to the top of of the page in the code. When you consider that Google places more relevance on text towards the top of the page, you can recognize the importance of providing keyword rich text in the About Box. This are only has a 250 character limit so be concise and choose words wisely.

To add text, simply click the “edit” icon in the upper right hand corner of the box or click inside the text that reads “Write something about <your page>” for new pages.

5.     Fully Fill Out Your Info Tab

I cannot stress this enough… the “Info Tab” is critical to both SEO and lead generation. Do you know how many pages I have visited that fail to provide so much as a phone number, address or website in the info tab? Too many. It is critical to fill out all information on these tabs to the fullest of your ability. Be sure to include all relevant keywords and descriptions of your product and services. This is the

• Address, City, State, and Zip code are important fields for local searches
• Company Overview, Mission, and Products are important fields for product searches
• Websites is a valuable opportunity to add direct links to your own websites or other relevant sites in your space.

READ PART II NOW.

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