When I first think of Facebook, I don’t think of SEO. Since I spend a lot of time on my personal profile page, updating friends and family, I don’t always think about the power behind the platform.

Without a doubt, Facebook is an SEO powerhouse. Digital marketing influencers have long been talking about the marketing power of Facebook, but this goes beyond Facebook ads (which are powerful enough in their own right).

Here are some quick tips to help you get started:

1. Claim your personal/vanity URLs – These URLs rank highly with search engines, so take your time and really think about what you want it to be. Be careful though…it’s hard to change once you set it up.
2. Keep your Facebook page name simple, specific enough but not too specific to be limiting (i.e. if you’re a marriage counselor, focus your name on love or relationships, so if you’re into other types of relationships/personal coaching later, your page name is still relevant.
3. Use keywords strategically, in your company description, mission, and company description sections (note that these sections can be reordered, so play around with this while you’re there!).
4. Link everything together. Link your Facebook page to other existing channels (Twitter/ Instagram/ your website and blog).
5. Optimize your Facebook business page status updates (your first 18 characters serve as your meta description, choose carefully because they will serve as the SEO title for that update).

But how do I know which keywords to use?

Research is essential to help you determine the keywords you want to use. Keywords are used in your social media bios, post titles and content, URLs – to use in your description, don’t just load up your available text space with keywords, create a description that makes sense, while incorporating keywords. You have more than one opportunity to use keywords, you also use them in blog posts and page updates.

How do I search for keywords?

You know your business best. To start thinking about keywords:

• What do you sell? Do a search, what other keywords do you see?
• Check industry publications, Amazon/eBay, other niche sites, online ads, niche forums – what words do you see popping up all the time?
• And here’s an awesome tip: Look at what shows up in autocomplete when you Google; you can see what is being searched for after looking at what is suggested, amazon has similar functionality so look there too!

Stay tuned: we’ll be spending the whole month on Facebook! What are your top Facebook questions or digital marketing challenges? We want to hear from you!