Optimising your Facebook page
Lesson 3 of 7 of our small business guide to Facebook
Getting the most out of your Facebook page
Now that you have created your Facebook page, you need to optimise it for two reasons:
Firstly, so you can offer your fans/customers as much information about your business as possible.
Secondly, optimising your page with the relevant information can help users find your page when searching Facebook search.
Vanity web address
Your web address (URL) is a way for people to find your page directly.
Just pop the address into any web browser, and people will land on your timeline (your timeline is the default Facebook page where your status updates are shown in date order).
When you first create a Facebook page, your web address might look something like this: www.facebook.com/pages/yourpagename/121234324. This isn’t too pretty or memorable. Thankfully it’s simple to pick a simple @username for your page. Just visit https://www.facebook.com/username to check availability for your page.
It’s important to make your address memorable, relevant, and, where possible, short. It’s also a good idea to use the same handle across all your social media platforms.
For instance, at LCN, we use the handle lcndotcom for our Google+, Twitter and Facebook pages.
This gives continuity across your social media profiles, and helps protect your brand by stopping other people claiming your preferred handle.
Once you have your vanity web address you can change it – but only once. So be sure.
Cover photo
Your cover photo is important, as it will probably be the first thing potential fans notice when they land on your page. It takes up a lot of real estate at the top of the page, and also displays similarly on mobile devices.
Cover photos need to be 828 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. Any less than that and your image will be stretched to fit, and the quality will be compromised and distorted. When designing or choosing an image, bear in mind that your profile picture/logo will take up some space towards the bottom left of your cover photo.
Logo
On a personal profile, this would be your profile picture. Most brands and business tend to use their company logo here. Select an image that people will associate with your company.
Logos will display at 160x160 pixels. Make sure you use a perfectly square image larger than 160x160 to avoid any issue with the image distorting to fit.
‘About’ section
This little area is where you can add a short sentence to describe who you are and what your company does.
Clicking this area on your page will take you to the ‘About’ page. If you are logged in as a page administrator, you can update various fields of information, like your company mission, company overview and detailed description. You can also update basic information like what products or services you sell, when the company was founded, and your contact information.
It’s vital you fill all these fields in! All of this data is used by Facebook to help users who search for products and services to find you.
