This is a guest blog post from a friend of mine, Jed Singer, formerly an SEO Analyst at TrueAction. Jed is currently an Engagement Associate at Stuzo and a graduate of Drexel University, where he will be speaking on various panels in early 2011 on subjects including Mobile, PR, and Careers in Digital.
-Jeff Gibbard
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Because much of the content on a Facebook Page is dynamic and being pulled in using frames, and therefore not necessarily being read or indexed by search engines, it‟s essential to maximize the effectiveness of the areas of your page that search engine spiders can read. There are two ways to make your Facebook content more effective: focus on the areas that are readable by engine spiders, and make those areas more findable for those spiders. By keeping both of those objectives in mind, you‟ll be making every piece of content on your Facebook page work harder to bring qualified traffic to your page. Let’s analyze the popular Levi’s Facebook Page.
Tab: Wall
Anything that you post to your own wall will be included in the page‟s source code and available for indexing by search engines. This is important because you have full control over the copy that you post on your wall; everything from the actual status update, to the title of the photo album or video, to the snippet that auto-populates in your post when you attach a link, should all be written primarily for your audience, and secondarily for search engines. Whenever possible, maximize the effectiveness of your content by using relevant keywords in your copy to help search engines understand what the content is about and increase the likelihood of mapping your content to the desired keyword. For example, in this post, it may have made sense to include “Levi‟s jeans” instead of simply “Levi‟s” so that we‟re clearly telling the search engines what this post is about:
Tip: Whenever possible, maximize the effectiveness of your content by using relevant keywords in your copy to help search engines understand what the content is about and increase the likelihood of mapping your content to the desired keyword.
As we can see from the post feedback, Levi‟s is doing a good job speaking to its fans, and this brings us to the second way to increase the effectiveness of your Facebook content: findability. By creating engaging posts, and having fans “like” or comment on those posts which creates a link on that person‟s profile page to the Levi‟s page, you‟re actually creating an internal linking structure that search engines can‟t ignore. Let‟s take a look at what happens when someone “likes” or comments on a Levi‟s post:
So now, by Bery and Kyle engaging with Levi‟s Wall post and creating a link on their profile pointing to the Levi‟s page, they are providing the post and the Levi‟s Facebook page with a “vote,” which search engines consider added relevancy (versus a similar page that didn‟t receive a “vote”). This post has generated 321 votes, so to speak, for Levi‟s, and the more votes increases the likelihood that a search engine spider will find the post and, in turn, the page.
Tip: By encouraging fans to “like” and comment on posts and increasing engagement, you‟re actually creating an internal linking structure for your Facebook page which will help search engines find your pages and posts more quickly.
Quick Note on Facebook’s linking structure: while it may seem obvious that your brand should want to increase its fan base for a number of reasons (influence, reach, perception of authority, etc.), there is also an SEO benefit to a large fan base. Yes, we know that if someone „likes‟ your page, a link is now placed in their profile under Interests; therefore, the more fans you have, the better your linking structure within Facebook, and the more weight engines will most likely attribute to your Brand page. What‟s interesting is that even if a person‟s privacy settings are such that a search engine spider cannot index their profile page, everyone is given a sort of nameplate profile to display to a searcher who hasn‟t logged in (unless this person has completely removed themselves from search engines). Depending on privacy settings, it‟s common for this nameplate profile to display the person‟s favorite movies, music, and other interests, which are the same internal Facebook links to Community or Brand pages. The more fans that your brand has, the more likely that it will show up on this nameplate profile (the Interests are sorted with the pages having the most fans at the top), and these links may be counting as additional internal links for your Brand Page, further juicing up your page‟s link authority:
Tab: Info
This static page is your best opportunity to tell the search engines (and fans) what your Facebook page and products are about. While the Detailed Info does not appear in the page‟s source code, it is indexed by search engines, and needs to be highly keyword-impactful. If there was a page to toe the line between writing for search engines and writing for fans, this would be that page. Your fans will be interacting with your page on the Wall and other interactive tabs; if they do come to the Info tab, it will only be a cursory glance. Keyword research and semantically intelligent copy is essential for search engines to rank the Facebook page for search terms that you want it to appear for in the engine results. Additionally, keep in mind that no links that take the user off of Facebook will be “followed” links. This means that they will not pass any PageRank or link “juice” from one page to the next, so while the Facebook page benefits from being on the Facebook domain, and has a PR of 6, a link from the Wall or Info tab to the Levi‟s website will not be passing any link value.
General: Images
An important thing to remember is that no text within an image is being read by search engines. So while having styled image boxes is good for users, the search engine spider is seeing a blank page. The easiest way to describe an image to a search engine is by using metadata, such as the image file name and the alt attribute. Ideally, you‟d want to use keywords that reproduce the image as closely as possible in the metadata, but search engines won‟t penalize you (to a certain extent) for including 4-8 keywords, and it will help your relevancy. On the Theater Tab, this is what a search engine spider would see:
Tip: Because search engine spiders can‟t read images, try to always name files with descriptive, keyword-rich titles, and include similar keyword-rich language in the image‟s metadata.
General: Video
Video is very similar to images in that a search engine spider will not be able to read what‟s going on in the frame unless you describe it using the metadata. Whenever an item is posted to the wall, an engine will pick it up and read what it‟s about. Here, we can see that a Google spider has already read about Meghan Smith winning the Levi‟s Girl contest and has indexed both the video (.com/video/) and the Wall post (.com/Levis?v=wall&) because of the video description.
Last Word
In short, be aware that all status updates, shared links, and video & image posts by Levi‟s on the Facebook page will be indexed by search engines, and therefore, use keywords that Levi‟s would be interested in having the Facebook page rank for. If people across the Web are searching for “Levi‟s Fader Fort” much more than they‟re searching for “Fader Fort concert,” then include “Levi‟s Fader Fort” rather than “Fader Fort concert” in your status update, video upload, or image share.
Additionally, while user-generated content uploaded to the Levi‟s Facebook page (e.g. Likes, Comments, Photo Uploads, Video Uploads, etc) does not appear in the source code and is not indexed by search engines, actions that users take on the page create links between the Levi‟s page and the user‟s profile. Building this web of internal links within Facebook gives the Levi‟s page authority in the eyes of the Google algorithm, and can increase the likelihood that Levi‟s Facebook page will rank for relevant terms on a search results page, and in turn, pushing competitors down the page. Therefore, continuing to create engaging content and encouraging sharing on the Wall and other tabs is extremely valuable.
For additional information about what data is being read by search engines and what isn’t, see the Levi’s Facebook Page Tab SEO Appendix.
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Jed Singer is an Engagement Associate at Stuzo, a Preferred Facebook Application Developer, and blogger at Socialight Media.