Design. SEO. PPC.

I was of the opinion in the past that you should optimize most parts of your Facebook Fan Page but lately my opinion has changed. Yes, maybe this should be titled “Don’t Over Optimize Your Facebook Fan Page” but you’ll get the point. We ride a fine line in social media between giving information about your company and it’s products and services or just outright spamming everyone. I think overly optimizing your fan page can put you into the latter.

Why not optimize every part of my fan page, don’t I want to be found? Yes, you want to be found but your strategy with Facebook shouldn’t be to get found by someone searching in Google. It may happen but it’s more important that people can find you by your company name. Facebook isn’t really a place that I expect to sell and get many new clients, it’s more of an interaction with some potential clients but mostly a place where current clients can show their love for my brand. I think many people lose site of that. How many times did you go to Facebook to find a good provider of services like web design or went to Facebook to search for a new HD TV? I can tell you for me and the people that I know, that number is 0.

Name of Your Fan Page

The most important part of creating a great name for your company fan page is to make it easy for someone to find you by your company name. If your company name isn’t in the name of your fan page, you are missing out on potential fans and brand loyalists. Beyond that you may want to add in a word or two description about what you provide but don’t overdo it. The name shows up on your fan’s wall each time you post so something with 5 or more words can really look like spam. An example of adding in a tasteful amount of words would be for a new company I’m starting, Mogawk. Mogawk is short but it doesn’t really tell you anything if your searching for the page. A good Facebook fan page for the company might be Mogawk Internet Marketing.

URL of Your Fan Page

I think the URL of your fan page gives you the ability to add in a few keywords. Unlike the name of your page, it’s not really front and center for your page (i.e. showing up on someone’s wall). It also doesn’t need to be easy to remember because who really types in a Facebook Fan Pages URL? Not me. I either click on a link from someone’s website or I go into Facebook and search for their company name. While you can add in some keywords to the URL, I would be hesitant in making it too long or too overly optimized. Be tasteful and honestly, it might make sense to just have the URL be your company name. You have a lot better chance of having someone be interested in your page searching for your company name rather than your services.

Overall, I’ve taken a shift to seeing Facebook Fan Pages as much more of an interaction medium with your brand loyalists or current/past customers and less of a SEO tool. Using a Facebook Fan Page to show up in Google search results for your product/service keywords is like trying to use a spoon to hammer in a nail. Wrong tool. You should be paying more attention to the on-site and off-site SEO of your web site.

Jared Pomranky