Optimize Your Facebook Fan Page for the Search Engines

We spend a lot of time working hard on the keyword strategies and optimizing our websites for the search engines but as Facebook continues to take on a larger roll with businesses as the #1 social media platform where they can get their brand and message out to the public it is vital to get your Facebook Fan Page to rank well in the search engines as well. Sometimes it could be more important with the ease of getting someone on your "List" as a fan. The great thing is this is not that difficult but many businesses overlook this part of the process and miss the opportunities that can come from a well designed and a well ranked Facebook Fan Page.
Get To 25 Fans - FAST - For Your Vanity URL

The first thing to accomplish is gaining the vanity URL. To do this you will need to get 25 fans. Once you reach this milestone you will be able to choose your http://facebook.com/yourbusinessname
URL, or whatever you want to call it. Make sure you choose this name wisely though, you will not be able to change it once you make the choice.

That's just the first step though - the SEO Rich Sections are behind the scenes.

When you go to the Edit mode of your fan page you will be given the choice to enter into the Basic Information section of your Fan Page. Here is where you will fill out the information about your business. If you do not have the Vanity URL in place yet but you do have 25 fans you can enter into the Username section here and it will guide you through the steps to claiming your Vanity Name.

Fill out the other information about your business - provide as much information here as you can.

The next step is the most important for entering your keywords and terms. This section will provide you with a space where you can write a brief description about your business. Keep it brief but keyword rich and as descriptive as you can make it.
Provide A Great Keyword Rich Description

The next section allows you to elaborate a bit more and add a description about your business. Here you need to work in as many keywords and phrases as possible but still maintain a good read to your description. I personally try to keep a minds eye to this and keep tweaking it from time to time as you come across better ways of describing what you do. It is an opportunity to do some testing, especially early on in your Fan Pages life.

There use to be a General Information section here that allowed you to enter even more about your company but at this point I guess Facebook has taken it out of the format. Perhaps it is in some other forms of Fan Pages as there are a wide variety of choices you can make when creating a Fan Page and each one seems to have its own set of options. The Fan Pages I build are typically business oriented as was this one in the example and at the time of this post there was no General Information section. If there happens to be one in your page then certainly fill it out with more relevant information and work in as many keywords and phrases as you can. I would change a little from the words and phrases you were using in the Description section to try and broaden your search terms.

I hope this helps with your page search and ranking - please leave any comments, ideas or updates below.