In this second exercise to prepare for your Page, you will explore what others are doing with Facebook Pages. You will investigate what your competition is doing. You will look at examples of successful Pages. You will identify key search terms being used by the search engines for your business. Learn from others. There is no value in reinventing the wheel!
1. Learning from your competition. Go to your Facebook Profile page and in the search box on the top of the page, type in your type of business. If you are a local business, type in your location. For example, I typed in “heating and cooling in the St. Paul area†in the Search Box.
Facebook show you the top four businesses who have Facebook Pages, with the number of Fans for each business. You can click on any of these Pages to learn more about their business Page. Look at their designs and layouts; what type of information do they provide on their Tabs? What do you like or dislike about the sites. You maybe disappointed with many of these sites. You can learn from their mistakes. Keeps some notes on what you learn from your competition.
2. Learning from successful Facebook Pages. Here’s the fun part of the exercise. I have provided a number of references to successful Facebook Pages. You can look for others. Check out the different Tabs on the top of their Page and see how they are using their Facebook business Page. I’ve also provided a reference to a website that shows variations of different Landing Pages. This will expand your mind on what is possible for your Page. Have some fun with this part of the exercise and takes some notes on what you like.
Successful Facebook Pages
http://www.facebook.com/marismith
http://www.facebook.com/johnassaraf
http://www.facebook.com/stevespangler
Facebook Page Options
http://www.fanpagegenerator.com/gallery/ This site will show you at least eight different models of Facebook Landing Pages. Click on them and play around with them. Enjoy.
3. Learn Your Key Words. Key words or those words people are using to search for your business on the internet are the fuel that makes the internet go. When people type in words for their searches, Google and other search engines look for matching words on websites, social media sites, and videos. When your site matches the search terms, the search engines show it. If you don’t match the words people are using, no one will every see your site.
Google has a free tool you can use to identify the most popular search words and terms people are using to find businesses like yours. You type in different terms and the tool will tell you how many people are using that term on a monthly basis either locally or globally.
Your task is to identify the top 20 search words or terms used for your business area. Type these key words into a list. You will use the key words in everything you do on your Facebook Page. You are creating matches for Google and other search engines so people can find your Page. Go here to use the free tool; https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Create and type up your list of 20 key words or terms. Do not skip this step. Remember Google is your first customer!
To be continued, your comments are welcomed…
Al Hanzal
