5 Tips to Enhance Your Facebook Graph Search Ranking

The first three steps outlined below are for entry-level Facebook Page admins. If you’re certain that you’re already implementing the most basic best practices, skip ahead to step four.

#1: Choose the Right Name

This sounds really obvious, but many businesses can’t help but cram lots of keywords in their name in the hopes of boosting searchability. This can backfire.

If you were, say, “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.: Baked Shrimp, Shrimp Creole, Shrimp Scampi, Fried Shrimp and More Shrimp,” your name would look like spam. Just “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.” says all anyone needs to know.

For their main Facebook Page, Bubba Gump uses their name and the word Inc., to clarify that you've reached the official Bubba Gump Restaurants Page.

At the same time, you don’t want to be so generic (e.g., “Seafood Restaurant”) that you’ll get lost in the shuffle. Remember that the first word you include in your Page title is the one that Google will consider the most important.

By the way, if there are other Pages out there that use your name, such as Pages that have been created by fans, make sure to add “Official” to your Page. You can alsoadd the location of your business to the name.

For example, if you own a franchise, you would call your Page “McDonald’s Reno.”

Bubba Gump has locations throughout the world so when franchises have their own Facebook Page, they separate themselves by adding their location to their name, like "Philippines."

#2: Add Important Information in Key Sections

You should also include important details about your business in the About, Mission and Company Description sections.

Does your About section include your web address and a description of what you do? Have you included important keywords that search engines will like? The Mission and Description sections offer more places to use keywords—appropriately, of course.

If you’re “the world’s largest online social media magazine,” say so in the About section. If your mission is “to empower users to succeed with social media,” say so in the Mission section. [NOTE: These quotes are from Social Media Examiner's page.]

And in the Description section, elaborate on what your business does; for instance, “Our story began in 1971. Back then we were a roaster and retailer of whole-bean and ground coffee…” as Starbucks does.

Starbucks gets a lot of information across in their short description, mentioning their history and current success.

Finally, if your business depends on local traffic, include your physical address and phone number in the Basic Info section. You can see this in the example below for the Campo Restaurant Facebook Page.

Campo is a local restaurant in Reno, Nevada, so it's essential that they have their contact information easily available.

#3: Customize your Facebook URL

Facebook used to require that a Page have 25 likes before it could have a vanity URL, but that is no longer the case. If you haven’t created a personalized URL yet, do it now.

By default, Facebook will give you a URL that includes a number. It will look something like this:

facebook.com/pages/yourbizname/123123123.

But you can—and definitely should—customize this URL to include the name of your business so that it looks like this: facebook.com/yourbizname.

Having a custom URL makes it easy for people to search for your Facebook Page directly via a URL and helps with Facebook SEO.

To create your Facebook vanity URL, go to Facebook Username. If another business is already using the name you want, you have to come up with a variation (Facebook will suggest options).

And if someone has claimed the name of a business you own, you can file a copyright infringement claim with Facebook.

#4: Encourage Sharing

Even when Graph Search is available to everyone, Facebook will still be a social experience more than it will be a traditional search experience.

For Page admins, this means that your content—posts, photos, video, apps, etc.—must be content that people want to share with their friends.

Imagine Graph Search as a sort of net. The net will capture likes, shares, check-ins, tags, etc., and so it makes sense that the more incoming relationships a Page has, the more easily it will be discovered.

In the image below, Mari Smith’s post was of great interest to her fans.

Mari's post got shared 156 times, proving it was valuable content.

The bottom line is the most popular and shared posts on Facebook tend to be the ones that are interactive, engaging and contain useful information.

Finally, don’t forget that Facebook is about connecting with people. Don’t sacrifice the social aspect of your Page for the sake of making it more searchable with Graph Search or any other search engine.

#5: Get the Most Out of Timeline and Custom App Content

More of your Facebook Page is visible to search engines (and presumably will be visible to Graph Search) than you may realize.

Status updates have a limited shelf life because as you make more, they naturally get pushed down the Timeline. On the other hand, apps that are pinned as a favorite next to your photos are there every time a user comes back.

Consider adding content strategically for more visibility inside Facebook.

Add apps that contain valuable content such as surveys, forms, menus, newsletters and ebooks that live for more than a few days. People will want to share them over an extended period and that will help your content live longer.

In the image below, Palmasola uses a Facebook app to provide welcome information.

Using a Facebook app eliminates the hassle of continually having to post information as a status update.

One final note, don’t focus on SEO at the expense of developing a vibrant and engaged community on Facebook.

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How to Optimize Your Facebook Page for Facebook Graph Search

You want to prepare your Page so that it comes up more often in these searches.

Currently, Facebook Graph Search’s initial search categories are a bit limited.

Facebook gives you some initial search categories or you can search by keywords.

You can drill farther down within these categories and you can also search on more general keywords.

Here are four things that you can do to set your Page up for Facebook Graph Search success.

#1: Watch Your Category and About Section

So far it looks like mostly Place, Music, Books and Movie Pages are the biggest beneficiaries of the category classification. You can search Places by Place Type, but the interesting thing is that the Place Types don’t correspond to the Place types you can choose in the subcategories.

Make sure you have your Page listed as one of these major categories if it fits. If your Place doesn’t fit these categories, don’t worry. Just review your category to make sure you are properly classified.

Review the Places Types.

For restaurants, make sure you mark down as many types of foods you serve as possible in your Edit Info area.

Add all of the types of food you serve.

But also notice the Place subcategories. Only Places have subcategories and they affect how Places come up in the Graph Search.

You’ll notice in this search of “Restaurants nearby that my friends like,” JuJu’s comes up first. But when I selected Brunch, JuJu’s was not listed, even though they list Brunch as one of their Food Styles. It appears that the subcategories in this case are weighted higher in this search.

Places can choose up to 3 Place subcategories, so make sure you are using those choices wisely.

Places should add 3 subcategories to come up in the searches.

Add subcategories on the Basic Information area of your Place Page.

Currently, Pages are not as easily searchable by category in Graph Search. You cannot search Pages by a company or brand type. But it’s still worth checking your category to make sure it aligns as closely as possible with your business.

Facebook Pages are indexed in Google and so you’ll want to have your perfect keywords in your About section to improve your chances of being found.

If you are just getting started with your Page, you may want to make sure you have some of your keywords in your Page name.

You may want to have your keywords in your Page name.

#2: Encourage Check-ins

If you do have a Place Page, you want to encourage check-ins. If you don’t have a physical location that people come to, then I don’t recommend switching your business to a Local Business, especially if you work out of your home (you don’t want some stranger at your door trying to check in).

But one of the benefits of Graph Search is that people can easily search by their friends who have been to your location (and you take advantage of the social proof).

The number of check-ins are not always a factor in the ranking of search results, but the more people you have check into your place, the more likely you will come up in searches when people filter by their friends.

People can easily filter places where their friends have checked in.

#3: Claim Your Place

Did you know that anyone can create a Facebook Place using his or her phone? And anyone can create a Place for your business with a phone. Unless you “claim” that Place as your own, it may just be hanging out there in Facebook space without you getting the benefit of those check-ins.

Searching “bookstores in Denver” turns up a lot of unclaimed Places.

If you have your Page set up as a Place Page (this happens automatically now when you set your category as Local Business), Facebook attempts to display your Page when someone tries to check into your business.

But sometimes it isn’t displayed, and someone may unknowingly create a Place for you by checking in with his or her phone. Or they may use a slightly different spelling or business name when trying to find you, and then Facebook creates a new Place for that check-in.

You want to make sure you claim your Place so you get credit for the check-insto take advantage of the social proof and to come up higher in the searches as mentioned in point #2.

Do a search on Facebook for your business and filter the results by Place. Also search for your business on your mobile phone when you are at your location to see what comes up. Then claim any Facebook Place that is yours.

Search for unclaimed Places with your business name.

#4: Encourage Tagging and Liking of Photos

Photos also come up very prominently in Facebook Graph Search. If people are searching around on photos of their friends, they may see a photo of their friend at your location or tagged by your Page.

People can also easily filter to find photos of friends by Pages they like. All of this activity helps your Page and your business to pop up in people’s minds more often.

People will see friends tagged on Pages’ pictures when they browse.

Remember that you can’t tag personal profiles as your Page. You can only tag your personal friends on a picture or you can encourage people to tag themselvesif you have a picture from an event.

Encouraging people to like pictures also helps your Page because people can easily browse by the pictures they have liked. Now you get another chance to remind them of your presence when they are looking through the pictures they have liked.

People can see your Page picture again when they browse through their pictures they have liked.

Facebook Graph Search is definitely an interesting tool. It will continue to evolve as it goes through beta, but you can start encouraging interactions such as check-ins and tagging to help your Page show up more prominently as people search.

Remember that it’s still important to post regularly and connect with people through the news feed, since not everyone will use Graph Search.

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