4 Easy Steps to Optimize Your Facebook Page for the New Social Graph Search

Graph Search is a replacement for the archaic search engine that Facebook used to have. Instead of searching just for names of people, pages or groups using just keyword matches, social factors are taken into consideration. This includes the number of Likes that a post or Facebook Fan Page has, the activity on posts and pages, and things like the physical location of a page.All of these things are taken into consideration so that a phrase like “Restaurants in New York that my friends like” can pull up accurate results.

Facebook’s Graph Search offers a search replacement that may even be more powerful than Google’s own search engine, which is why it makes sense to capitalize on it. Below are four ways that you can improve your Facebook Fan Page’s odds of showing up on someone’s Graph Search.

1. Pick a Category and Fill Out Your About Section

Pick the category that most closely fits your business. Categories may have further defining features to them. For example, if your business is a restaurant, select as many styles of food as your restaurant serves.

Places will be able to pick up to three sub-categories, so make sure to utilize all of them.

Make sure to completely fill out your About section using as many keyword-rich phrases as possible.

2. Places Should Encourage Users to Check In

Places will see a big benefit from having users “check in” on Facebook by using the geolocation feature of Facebook. Friends of users that have checked in to your location will be able to find your business more readily compared to businesses that their friends haven’t checked in at.

3. Get Credit for Your Place

Facebook will attempt to automatically assign your Fan Page a place when you categorize it. There are times when it won’t be displayed for one reason or another.

When this happens, your “Place” is simply floating out there for anyone to claim. If someone checks into it, they may unwittingly claim it as their own Place.

Prevent this and assign your Place to your Fan Page.

4. Make Sure Users Tag and Like Photos

Photographs are one thing that the Graph Search engine seems to love. By making sure that your users like and tag people posted in photographs on your Page, you ensure that the Graph Search counts your Page and its content as highly active.

This makes it so your content shows up first on the Graph Search.

Remember that the Graph Search is likely to change. The one thing that won’t, however, is that the results are heavily influenced by the amount of user interaction content receives. So if you want your Page to come out on top, make sure that your users interact with it.