Facebook SEO strategy: how to optimize for search on Meta

When you think about search engine optimization, your thoughts probably revolve mainly around Google. However, the truth is that SEO refers to your Facebook page as well. There are two vital questions here: How to optimize your Facebook page so that it’s more SEO-friendly and how to take care of your social media presence so that you are more visible in the feed. Today, we’ll discuss both of these questions.

When you run a Facebook page, you obviously want potential customers and users to find you with ease. That’s why it’s so important to think about your Facebook page’s SEO and to adjust your content to the news feed (now just feed) and search results your potential users see on the biggest social media platform ever.

It all starts with adjusting your Facebook page to the needs of your target audience. How can you do that?

Facebook SEO: adjust your page to generate higher-quality traffic

So you decided to run a Facebook page. Perhaps you run a business or want to become an influencer or a digital creator. Whatever the reason, a Facebook page can be very useful (after all, there are almost 3 billion users, and some of them are your future customers!). However, to succeed with that, you need to master Facebook SEO, which refers to both your Facebook posts and the page itself. Let’s start with the latter element.

How to make your Facebook page SEO-friendly

Facebook SEO ranking uses many factors to index your fanpage. You need to start with the basics.

Use proper business name and URL

When you start a brand-new Facebook page, you need to come up with a name. It has to be accurate but also SEO-friendly, which means that it should comprise at least one important keyword. You can’t go overboard, though. A custom username cannot be overfilled with keywords because it will sound unnatural and won’t be attractive to your users. Here’s a good example of a Facebook page with a good name that clearly indicates what a given Facebook page is all about without making it sound weird.

It’s the same story with a custom URL. In the beginning, your Facebook page has a randomly-generated URL, which is not SEO/user-friendly at all. You need to come up with a custom URL, sometimes referred to as a vanity URL. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Just like your name, it should be short and descriptive.

Add keywords

Facebook pages also need keywords relevant to their target audiences. There are many sections and places where you can add keywords related to your business. Some of them comprise:

• The about section (category, description, etc.);
• Your posts and updates;
• Your cover photo and photo descriptions.

When you write your page’s description, try to use long-tail keywords. This way, you can target people who are specifically interested in your services (the same refers to local search results, see our tips on local SEO). For instance, if you run a cellphone repair point, you could go with something like „Chicago-based phone repair service”, „screen replacement for iOS and Android devices”, or „fix your smartphone instead of throwing it away”. These descriptions are specific and descriptive. The reader immediately knows what you can help them with and where you are located (that’s crucial to improve the local SEO of your company!).

Add all the relevant information

Facebook gives you many boxes and sections where you can add information about your business. We encourage you to add them all, even if they don’t strictly refer to your business. For instance, even if you are an influencer working on their own, it’s still vital to add business hours to your Facebook page. The same refers to accurate contact information, including your address, phone number, and business name (so-called NAP data). This way, you can be shown in more search queries, and you can get more new followers.

Include expanding backlink profile in your Facebook SEO strategy

Backlinks play a huge role in search engine optimization. Without them, you will never get to the first page on Google or Facebook. The more backlinks you have, the more credible you are in the eyes of search algorithms, especially when you have high-quality sources linking to you. You can obtain more backlinks by working with other online creators, publishing regular guest blogs, and sharing valuable customer information (we’ll get to that in a minute). All of that will help you get to more Facebook users. And when you write regular guest blogs, you also benefit SEO-wise because such a strategy can give your website a significant boost on Google!

Benefit from relevant custom tabs

The bigger your Facebook page is, the more cluttered it can become. Thankfully, you don’t have to stick to just the basic tabs that Facebook provides. In fact, there is a whole list of custom tabs that you can use to customize your profile and make it more organized. Take a look at this list of potential custom tabs:

As you can see, the list is quite long! You can use these tabs to make your Facebook page more legible, and that will surely improve your Facebook SEO as well.

CTA button

Running a business profile on Facebook is not art for art’s sake. You want your followers to take some specific actions, right? That’s why you need a call to action every time you post something online. Use action words that are short and clear. Good examples of CTAs comprise:

• download ebook,
• check-in today,
• read more,
• join our VIP club,
• buy now.

Think about adding a chatbot

Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular, primarily because they are more and more effective. On Facebook, you can use AI Facebook Messenger chatbots that can be equipped with a machine learning feature to make them more responsive and useful. There are many platforms enabling you to add an AI-powered chatbot to your website, e.g., Tidio, Chatfuel, ManyChat, SentiOne, and many more.

Now you know how to adjust your Facebook page to Facebook SEO. It’s time to think about creating social media posts that can rank high on Facebook.

Use proper photo sizes

Your business Facebook page should reflect your actual website – use the same tone and the same visual identification. Cover photo, profile picture, thumbnail, or any featured images should be cropped according to Meta guidelines.

How does Facebook rank content?

In short, they use three technologies to rank content:

1. Machine learning: Facebook’s ML algorithms rank feeds, ads, and search results.
2. Computer vision: CV algorithms „read” images and videos that users publish on this social media platform.
3. Speech recognition systems: they are used to automatically caption the videos that are displayed in the feed.

That said, there are three main factors impacting your posts and other content’s performance:

1. Who posts content: users are likely to see posts published by websites they already know and interact with. That’s why you should take care of growing the number of followers (you can use ad campaigns for that).
2. The type of content: here, it all depends on the given user’s preferences. If your followers like to interact with video content, that’s what they will usually see.
3. Post engagement: Facebook algorithms prioritize posts that have a lot of engagement (likes, shares, comments).

Additionally, each user can influence what they see on their feed. Each post comes with a button that gives you access to additional actions related to it. It looks like that:

When you click the „save post” option, you will likely see more such posts. On the other hand, when you click the „hide post” option, you will see less of such content. Additionally, each user can go to the Settings & privacy section and then go to News Feed Preferences, where they can change their feed-related preferences.

How can you use this knowledge to rank high on Facebook feed?

How to improve the visibility of your Facebook page in the feed

Understand your audience

It all starts with research. You can use Facebook Insights and other analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics) to understand the characteristic of your target group. This way, you’ll know what to write about (and how) to satisfy their needs and interests. As a result, you can create and capture valuable customer information. Your own website will benefit from such an approach as well.

Create attractive content

People view their news feed daily. They are looking for posts that will interest them or provide them with valuable knowledge. Make sure every post you publish is useful and well-thought-out. Don’t just publish for the sake of publishing. Social media is mostly about engagement and entertainment. Of course, business websites aren’t about funny cat videos but think about what you should publish to get your audience’s attention.

When it comes to attractive content, you should, above all, concentrate on your ads and headlines because that’s what users see first.

Employ Facebook ads

We have to be upfront here; building organic visibility on Facebook is difficult. Mark Zuckerberg’s platform wants its users to spend as much money as possible on ads and marketing campaigns. If you want to grow the reach of your Facebook page, you need to add ads to the mix.

You can also think about partnering with other influencers/platforms in the same or similar niche to broaden your reach. It’s always a good idea to look for someone who provides complementary services. For instance, if you do Google Ads, you can partner with someone who’s an expert on Facebook Ads. This way, you can both benefit, as well as your audiences.

Engage with your audience

Keep constant communication with your target audience. Reply to comments that you get and encourage people to engage by asking them questions and sharing useful, practical information and knowledge. Remember that people are more likely to interact with content that offers them some REAL BENEFITS. Concentrate on that.

Use new content types

Facebook is continually developing its offer. They’ve recently introduced some new content forms that you can use in your social media strategy. Here, we especially mean Facebook Stories and Reels. These forms are displayed at the top of your feed for a reason:

Maybe you can think of something interesting that could be presented in the form of a reel (short video) or story (one or more photos). Keep also in mind that there are different available forms of ads on Meta, such as Facebook Lead Ads.

The way to boost your visibility on Facebook

It’s time to summarize. The success on Facebook is a result of four elements:

1. A well-thought-out content strategy.
2. A well-crafted Facebook page with all the boxes and sections filled in.
3. Using Facebook Ads and promoting your content.
4. Active communication with your target audience, i.a., through different content forms.

Take care of all these elements, and surely your Facebook page will be more and more visible, not just on this social media platform but also on Google (yes, an active fanpage can give you a better position in search engines).

Facebook SEO: Frequently asked questions

What SEO tools are best for keyword research?

The list is quite long; but if you’re looking for free keyword research tools, try these:

• Google Keyword Planner,
• Ubersuggest,
• AnswerThePublic,
• Keyword Surfer (it’s a free plugin you can install on Chrome).

For more thorough keyword research, consider using subscripction-based tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Surfer (paid version has much more features than free one).

Does Facebook contribute to website SEO?

Indirectly, but yes. More often than not, Facebook pages are not indexed in Google, and all links in posts are nofollowed links, but Google webmasters say they use social signals as a ranking factor. Primarily through the potential for more backlinks and accurate NAP (Name, Address, Phone) data that is always helpful for optimizing for Google My Business (it also helps you to improve local SEO for other search engines).

How do I check my Facebook page ranking?

You can do that on your own using the Meta Business suite. This platform for Facebook page owners comes with the „Insights” section, where you can find all the relevant data about your Facebook Business page. Find out more in the Meta Business help center.