Facebook SEO

It is undeniable that Facebook is a global phenomenon and it has over 1 billion members. In terms of marketing on the Internet, this is a resource that is ignored at your peril. Facebook can be used to support SEO campaigns, but the way in which it works is different to traditional campaigns.

Facebook was originally created as a small profile sharing site for the students of Harvard University, which was then rolled out to other American Universities and eventually on a global scale. The initial concept was that ‘friends’ could share basic information and photos and this concept is what Facebook was based on for the first few years.

As Facebook has grown to become a globally recognised brand, businesses have realised that it is a good platform from which to market their products and services, as well as raise awareness of their own brand. Facebook has introduced a feature for businesses to create ‘pages’ rather than profiles. These pages do not allow businesses to have friends in the same way individual profiles do, instead they allow ‘fans’ to subscribe to them. When fans subscribe, a notification appears on their wall, which is seen by their friends and so more individuals are exposed to the brand. This is an effective marketing strategy.

How can Facebook Help with SEO?

In the traditional sense of the term, Facebook does not have a huge amount of influence on SEO. Linking your website to your Facebook page adds a quality trusted link which is positive, and the content that is then added to your Facebook page adds to your overall website content. Currently, these are the main advantages in terms of Facebook SEO.

However, as always with the Internet, things are changing and moving forward; Facebook is no exception. A new search function has been added within Facebook to allow users to locate specific pages or pages which relate to the topic they are wishing to find out more about. Essentially, it is creating a smaller version of Google as the search function only searches Facebook members. However, with a large number of businesses already having Facebook pages and other seeing this development and wanting to be a part of it, it is essential for your business to be a part of the Facebook phenomenon.

Of course, there will be a number of businesses in the same sectors who are Facebook members, meaning that there will be increased competition to be top of search results for keywords within their search function. This then will lead to a need for SEO of Facebook pages to ensure that your business page appears first and thus people click through to your website; this is the beginning of a new search engine.

Therefore, it is important that your business has a Facebook page which is relevant and linked to your website as for now this will add power through links and content, and in future it may be optimised to be top of Google and Facebook searches.