By Paul Cunningham

Quick Guide to utilising Facebook designed for Local Companies

I bet you, or a friend, spends more hours on Facebook than you could consider healthy. It appears you (or they) are not alone. Recent data indicates that nearly half , 47%, of the population in the U . K . visit Facebook 68 times every thirty days. Just what exactly does that mean for local SME’s? Well, to put it briefly this means, that Facebook represents an enormous oppurtunity for your local small and medium sized companies to raise the amount of visitors they’re getting to their internet sites whilst also benefiting from Facebooks profile to obtain some SEO-boosting backlinks into the site.

Facebook gives us the opportunity to establish a Facebook ‘Business Page’. It’s pretty straightforward plus the standard default page will likely be sufficient, with space for your logo in lieu of a profile picture, although you can if you want, ask someone to create something a little bit more ‘stand out’. It obviously depends just what you are promoting, however you really need to be careful not to look like you are trying way too hard like some pages i’ve come across. I do believe simple here is best – let your product or service speak for itself. Here is where the Facebook business page comes into its own – you’re able to directly connect with customers with the status update box consequently you will definately get feedback immediately – hopefully very good feedback- and announce any offers, known service problems etc. The really good thing is there is no charge plus the whole thing should be live within minutes.

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

Local Search Engine Optimisation With Facebook

Think Of your Facebook business page as if its an extension of, or perhaps even, another website. One of the nicest things regarding them is yahoo and google love them, these are typically extremely low maintenance and they are constantly being updated. The last bit is one thing search engines like google look upon very favourably – fresh information demonstrates your ‘site’ is alive and well. Altogether there’re pretty powerful factors to take into consideration when the search engines are ranking pages.

Heres a couple of things to do when you’ve set the page up: Simple to accomplish and often will make a difference

Announce your company Page – The minute your business page is live it will be announced to all your friends automatically – that is something to be aware of seeing as you really want the page to be looking like its completely finished before it starts being seen. When it’s finished, however, you can easily request your friends either by message or by status request to ‘Like’ the page and it’ll then appear on their friends pages. In this way you can rapidly promote your Facebook business page to hundreds of consumers.

Facebook URL – This certainly will then mean you quickly get enough ‘likes’ to get 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 need to definitely make the most of this as it may be another place to use a link to your website which contains keywords. Select with care though because it is not changeable once set up and it’s going to be the url displayed on google search.

Logo – As we’ve already stated you ought to upload your business logo in place of a personal profile picture – obvious really but just thought i’d be clear that its available.

Keywords – You will need to add your keyword information under the About, Overview and General Information sections. There’s a good deal of space here but make sure you use it wisely – add your keywords however you also need to make certain the text is captivating and, if it is possible, different from the text in your website. The major search engines usually ignore replication so improve your possibilities of good ranking by amending it. Also you need to name the geographical areas you serve if you are looking at local search engine optimization together with any offers you currently have.

Back Links – As early as you can, once the page is live, you should think about creating links between it and your actual website. The greater number of ‘Likes’ so much the better as far as search engines like google are concerned, so its definitely useful to have a concerted effort getting your Facebook friends to ‘Like’ your brand-new page. Who knows they could even genuinely like it but the main thing is that they click on the button. A different way to engage visitors with the page is to provide a ‘Like’ button on your site – the greater number of likes and links you end up with the better your Search engine optimization becomes.

Fresh Content – If theres just one thing search engines have consistentlyliked its new content appearing on webpages. Its taken as confirmation the website is active, alive and relevant to people. On a local basis the pages status update section ought to be used as regularly as you can to get as much important info out as feasible to all your local customers – open days, time sensitive offers, holidays, changes in opening hours etc.

Photo uploading – Sometimes it is an element that is ignored on Facebook. The photos element of the page is very useful to show previous work if you are, for instance, an automobile repair technician or an interior designer. However these pictures also provide a bit of SEO value as they can have key phrases integrated as ‘ALT tags’. In other words as you’re uploading your photos ensure that you add relevant key phrase and location information to each of them.

In final summary is a Facebook Business Page worthy of building? – Its absolutely free and half the UK public interact with Facebook, an average of, 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.