It takes a lot to cut through the clutter and stand out. When it comes to Facebook, your brand is competing with rants, life events, link suggestions, pet photos, Mafia Wars, Farmville & other businesses vying for attention!

Whether fans visit your Fan Page or share your link, you need to make it count every time! Below I’ll share with you a few ways to optimize your Page as well as a few tactics on optimizing your website for Facebook sharing!

Optimize Your Facebook Tabs

First, you need some information: Go to your companies’ Facebook “Insight”s page. Next to “users” at the top click “see details”.  Scroll down to “Activity”. Just below the demographics chart you should see “Tab Views.” Here you will find how many people are visiting your different tabs. Take note of your first & second most visited tabs. Keeping an eye on this list is critical to optimization!

Here are 2 tweaks you can make based on your “Tab Views” that will immediately improve your Fan Page marketing efforts:

• Check your Tab with the Highest Views:
  It’s more than likely this is your Wall, but if it’s not, and let’s say, it’s your Photos tab… you better step it up a notch! A restaurant, for example, might already have staff photos and pictures from inside and out, so consider adding photos of your “regulars” to add some personality to your gallery (with permission of course). Make sure that whatever tab has the most views is an engaging tab that will entice fans to return.

• Check your 2^nd Most Popular Tab:
  While recently reviewing a client Fan Page we discovered 30% of their traffic clicked on the discussion tab – and the client had NO discussions! This means fans were actively looking for more information, not finding it and probably leaving disappointed! In this case, we recommended utilizing the discussions tab and encouraging fans to submit product & service questions. Another option would have been to remove the tab and keep a close eye on where traffic migrated next. Again, whatever your most popular tabs are, make sure they’re worth seeing!

Optimize your Website’s Title & Meta Tags for Facebook Sharing

Note: in order to make the following tips happen, you’ll need to be able to change some html code on your website, namely the “Header” and you can learn How to Get the Header Changed on a Website here.

By default, the title & description Facebook shows for a shared link from your website come directly from the Title & Meta description on that page. By identifying these areas and rewriting them with Facebook sharing in mind, you can ensure that, whenever your website is shared on Facebook, your links will be far more impactful! You can learn more about changing your website title tag here and more on changing your meta tag here.

For more tips on optimizing  your website images for Facebook, be sure you sign up for our RSS feed or follow Harp on Twitter and Facebook!

Harp Social has the certified expertise, tools and social media acumen to take your SEO and social media marketing campaigns to the next level. Find out how we can help you use search marketing and social media more effectively for your business. Email or call 630.691.9500 today to get started today!

Richard is an ISMA Certified Founding Member and Social Media Marketing Specialist for Harp Social.