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Quick Guide To Making Use Of Facebook For A Local Company

By Paul Cunningham

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 13Mar2012
Word count: 3096
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Quick Guide to utilising Facebook for Local Companies

I'm sure you, or someone you know, spends more time on Facebook than you would consider healthy. It turns out you (or they) are not alone. Recent data shows that nearly half , 47%, of the population of the United Kingdom log onto Facebook 68 times a month. So what does that mean for local SME's? Well, in short it means, that Facebook represents a big oppurtunity for the local small and medium sized companies to increase the amount of visitors they're getting to their online businesses whilst also taking advantage of Facebooks profile to get some SEO-boosting backlinks to the site.

Facebook gives us the option to create a Facebook 'Business Page'. It's pretty straightforward and the standard default page is usually sufficient, with space for your logo instead of a profile picture, although you can if you want, get someone to create something a little more 'stand out'. It obviously depends what you're promoting, but you have to be careful not to appear to be trying too hard like some pages i've seen. I think simple here is best - let your product or service speak for itself. This is where the Facebook business page comes into its own - you can directly interact with customers via the status update box which means you'll get feedback immediately - hopefully all good feedback- and announce any offers, new product launches etc. The great thing is theres no charge and the whole thing live within minutes.

How will a Facebook Business Page improve my Local SEO and where should I start?

Local Search Engine Optimisation With Facebook

You should think of your Facebook business page as an extension of, or even, an extra website. The great thing about them is search engines love them, they are really low maintenance and are constantly being updated. The last bit is something the search engines look upon very favourably - fresh information shows that your 'site' is alive and well. Altogether these are pretty powerful factors to take into account when the search engines are ranking pages.

Heres some things to do when you've set the page up: Easy enough to do but will make a big difference

Announce your Business Page - As soon as your page is live it will be announced to your friends automatically - this is something to bear in mind because you really want it to be looking like its finished before it starts getting networked. When it is finished, however, you can just ask your friends either by message or by status request to 'Like' the page and it will then appear on their friends pages. In this way you can quickly your Facebook business page to hundreds of people.

Facebook URL - This should then mean you quickly get enough 'likes' to qualify for a 'Custom' or 'Vanity' url. You need 25 to qualify and means you can use a Facebook domain - such as www.facebook.com/businesspagename. You should definitely take advantage of this as it could be another place to have a link to your site containing keywords. Choose carefully though because its not changeable once set up and it will be the url displayed on search engine results.

Logo - As we've mentioned previously you should use your business logo instead of a personal profile picture - obvious really but just wanted to be clear that its an option.

Keywords - You need to add in your keyword information under the About, Overview and General Information sections. There's plenty of space here but make sure you use it wisely - add your keywords but you also need to make sure the text is interesting and, if possible, different to the content of your website. The search engines tend to ignore duplication so maximise your chances of good ranking by changing it. You also need to mention the geographical areas you serve if you are looking at local SEO and also any offers you currently have.

Back Links - As soon as you can, once the page is live, you should think about creating links between it and your actual website. The more 'Likes' the better as far as the search engines are concerned, so its definitely worthwhile to make a concerted effort to get your Facebook friends to 'Like' your new page. Who knows they might even genuinely like it but the main thing is they click the button. Another way to engage visitors with your Facebook business page is to add a 'Like' button on your site - the more likes and links you get the better your SEO becomes.

Fresh Content - If theres one thing search engines have alwaysliked its new content appearing on websites. Its taken as confirmation that this site is active, alive and relevant to people. On a local basis the pages status update section should be used as regularly as possible to get as much information out as you can to your local customers - open days, time sensitive offers, holidays, changes in opening hours etc.

Photo uploading - This is often something which is ignored on Facebook. The photos section of the page is really useful to show previous work if you're, for example, a car body repair specialist or an interior designer. But these photographs also have some SEO value as they can have your keywords added as 'ALT tags'. In other words as you're adding your photos make sure you add relevant keyword and location information to each of them.

So is a Facebook Business Page worth setting up? - Its free and half the UK population use Facebook, on average, twice a day so just do it, its a no brainer.

Paul Cunningham has 11 years experience in website design & for the past five years has specialised in search engine optimisation,in Stockport, UK. The team at Web Site Design Lab have helped hundreds of small & medium sized local business maximise their revenues via cost effective SEO in Manchester and all over the UK.

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