Complete Your Small Business Facebook Page

Facebook is the largest social media network. For all the places your business should be presence, Facebook might be the one that’s not optional. That means your Facebook page is an important part of your business being online.

Completing your Facebook page and making sure each part of your page represents your business will help it be seen online. Not only that, but as you make posts to your page, you want people to see a complete business that gives them a great first impression.

Facebook isn’t the best social media network for organic reach, but people may search for you specifically. If your customer searches for you on Facebook, you want them to find your page. Also, if you plan on spending any money on advertising, Facebook is a good option. Your advertising dollars won’t be well spent unless your Facebook page is complete and looks authentic.

There are several things you can do to make sure you Facebook page is successful and that starts with representing your business with some great photos.

Photo Customization

The two photos that are most important on your Facebook page is the cover photo and profile photo. Those aren’t the only two photos, though. I will only cover these two but posts with a photo often perform better than those without. When you’re doing regular posting to your Facebook page, try to include a photo.

First up on the importance scale for your Facebook page is the cover photo, the most prominent part of your Facebook page.

Cover Photo

When a visitor sees your Facebook page, the cover photo is that huge image at the top of the page. This is your opportunity to position your page for your business. It’s a huge opportunity to promote something, set the mood for your business, or whatever you want!

I use my cover photo to set up the free brand report I offer which I then promote further down as a pinned post. When visitors come to my page, the first thing they see is The Online Presence Report and that they can get their own. Keep reading to check out the pinned post which is a great opportunity to put an action visitors can take to your cover photo.

You don’t have to be a graphic designer to create a great cover photo that fits your business either. There are numerous tools and easy ways to create the perfect size cover photo that also gives you the tools to make it great.

The next thing visitors to your Facebook page will see is your profile photo.

Profile Photo

For a business page on Facebook, your profile photo will most likely be your company logo. You can choose to use a photo of you if that’s what you use as an image for your business elsewhere, though. Representing your brand with your beautiful smiling face can be an excellent way to create an instant connection with visitors.

Make sure before you do anything with your Facebook page that you have these two photos in place. There’s nothing worse than an incomplete Facebook page. An incomplete Facebook page is like an abandoned building or just an empty room. Not a great first experience  for businesses seeing your business.

Message Customizations

Now that your photos are customized and looking great, it’s time to customize some of the messages in Facebook. This is the most important part to get your Facebook page coming up in search on Facebook and other search engines.

Facebook and other search engines can’t read your photos and they don’t know what your business does. These are opportunities to make it known what your business does and why someone would want to call you.

Call-To-Action

This is a simple call-to-action button that sits below your cover photo. Facebook lets you customize it with several different options.

The call-to-action sits just below your cover photo which you can see in the image below.

You can customize the text in the button from a long list of options. You also get to choose what happens when someone clicks on the button, I’ll cover that after the list of options.

Here are the options you can choose:

• Book Now
• Call Now (enter a phone number and visitors can call you directly)
• Contact Us
• Send Message (lets visitors send a message and you can even set up auto-messages)
• Use App
• Play Game
• Shop Now
• Sign Up
• Watch Video (upload a video or send visitors to a page with a video)
• Send Email (enter an email address and a visitor can send you an email)
• Learn More

That gives you many options to choose from. Each one gives you unique options for what happens for visitors if they click the button. You can send visitors to another website or even have an app open!

What if you only have an iOS app? They have that covered too! You can send a visitor using iOS to the app and a visitors on an Android device or computer to your website.

There are many options so you can set up your call-to-action to fit how you do business with customers. To customize the call-to-action button, just hover over the button and choose the edit link.

The next section to customize is the about section, where people learn about your business.

About Section

This is where the meat of your Facebook page is located. Most of the text that Facebook looks at is in the about section. That means you should spend some time customizing the description and contact information at a minimum.

There are two descriptions you can provide when customizing the about section, the long and short description. Take advantage of this section and fill it out completely.

The information that shows up on your Facebook page is basic, but all the details are just a click away. Below is a picture of what my about section looks like.

To personalize the about section, hover the cursor over the about bar (show above) and a pencil icon shows up. Click the icon and choose the edit link, that’s where you can edit everything.

People may not look at the full about page but Facebook uses that information to index your business page for search. The more you provide the better you’ll fare in Facebook search results.

Pinned Post

This is where your Facebook page comes together before it starts getting into all the messages. A pinned post is an awesome opportunity to have another call-to-action on your Facebook page but this time a more robust call-to-action.

You can include so many things in a Facebook post and with your pinned post you can make them all work together. Your message can include a call-to-action message that leads to a link. You can also include a photo that draws attention and draws people into your post.

That means you can customize the message of the post to then lead to a page that matches the message on your pinned post. This is a great way to lead customers down the perfect path.

I used my pinned post to follow-up my cover photo which set the stage for visitors getting their free report.

To set up your pinned post just make a new post on Facebook first. Once posted, click the small down arrow in the top right of the post. From there you can select Pin to Top. Once you do that a special icon will show up signifying it’s pinned and this post will always be above all your posts.

The last piece to perfecting your Facebook page for your small business is to verify your page.

Verify Your Page

If you have a Facebook page for a small business, you’re allowed to verify your account. Verifying your Facebook page will help your page rank better in Facebook search results. It will also give you a check mark on your profile which looks more trustworthy and professional.

The option to verify your Facebook page is available in Settings. It’s available to pages that are local businesses or a company & organization.

Here’s how you verify your page:

1. Click the Settings link at the top of your page.
2. On the General tab click on page verification.
3. Click on Verify this Page then Get Started.
4. You can enter your business phone number and Facebook will call you.
5. Enter the 4-digit code that Facebook calls you with and click Continue.

That’s it! Now you’ve verified your page and you’ll get the grey check mark next to your business name. The check mark adds authenticity to your account because it now appears verified. All visitors to your page see your verification and it tells them it’s verified if they hover over the check.

Be Trustworthy

Now your page looks more authentic because you have a complete and professional Facebook page profile. Customers and visitors are more likely to see your business as trustworthy if you do all these things for your page.

There are a lot of things you can do with your Facebook page. It’s even a great place to get people to sign up for your email list. If you want more ideas on how to grow your business, make sure you download the free eBook that shows you how to grow your email list without a website.