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Facebook Optimization
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on 07-14-2011 at 10:51 AM (1195 Views)
Most of us have spent most of our online careers leveraging traffic from Google. I believe Google will continue in the direction of “help the big guy”, and new sites will be ever harder to get ranking for profitable terms. Google is also losing traffic. People are using the internet differently, and Facebook is a big part of that.
As you already know Facebook is the busiest site on the internet. Getting traffic from Facebook requires different strategies then getting Google traffic.
Website
If you have not done so already, you need to make some changes to your website to properly coexist with Facebook. You want Facebook to have the data it need to properly display your link on its site.
You can check your pages here: URL Linter - Facebook Developers
(don't only do your homepage, try your internal pages as well)
Facebook will do its best to figure out your sites data, and they do a rather good job. But, you can, and should control the title, description and image when a link to your site is added to Facebook.
To do this you will have to make your web pages objects on Facebooks Open Graph protocol. Sounds scary, but it is not. You just need some meta tags, you can find them here: Open Graph protocol - Facebook Developers
First your HTML tag needs some additions
So this:Code:xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml"
Becomes:Code:<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
Code:<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">
Next the meta tags:
You will need these tags on ever page of your site. If you have a CMS will you need code to dynamically fill the fields. If you have a flat site you will need to add it to each page with the correct details.Code:<meta property="og:title" content="PAGE TITLE"/> <meta property="og:type" content="MEDIA TYPE (article,movie, etc.)"/> <meta property="og:url" content="THE SITE URL"/> <meta property="og:image" content="LINK TO PAGE IMAGE"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="SITE NAME"/> <meta property="fb:admins" content="USER_ID"/> <meta property="og:description" content="PAGE DESCRIPTION"/>
WP code I have used:
How to Add Facebook Open Graph Meta Data in WordPress Themes
WP Plug-in, I have not used:
WordPress › WP Facebook Open Graph protocol « WordPress Plugins
Interaction
Social plugins
To truly use Facebook to its potential you will need to use social tool. The first step for most webmaster is the like button. If you don't have a like button go to: Social Plugins - Facebook Developers and get one for your site. You will also see the list of all the other tools for your site.
Facebook Pages
You will want a Facebook page for your website. When people like your page, what you post on your pages wall will be shown on their news feed. So you post the link to your article on your Facebook page wall, now people who like your page, and all their friends will be exposed to your content. This can have a very dramatic effect on traffic.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Facebook is the busiest site on the internet, and it shows no signs of letting up. Facebook is willing to share their traffic with you, you just need to know how to do it right. When Google was the largest mover of web traffic it made sense to adjust your websites to Google’s needs.
Now Facebook is the 600lb gorilla, time to make your sites Facebook compliant.
mdm13 and TheTattooedGuy like this.
Tags:
facebook, open graph protocol
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