Get the most out of your business Facebook page.

As Facebook becomes more important for businesses it is becoming more common for your Facebook page to be the first point of contact that you have with your customers, at least for basic information about who you are. To ensure that you are getting the most from your Facebook page you need three basic things. You need some basic information about your business so that potential customers can get an idea about who you are after a quick scan. You need to have your contact details available, particularly a link to your website. Finally you need to make sure that your page is optimised to be found. Thankfully Facebook has made this easy with a couple of simple categories.

Facebook gives you the option to add "Place Topics" or sub-categories to your business Facebook page. This will not only display on your page but will also be indexed by search engines, meaning your Facebook page is more likely to come up in a search. On Facebook it is already possible to search a location for a specific type of business. Adding place topics to your business page will make it easier for you to be found.

Your location is also important to have available on the page because Facebook already has the location of most of its members. If someone is searching in Facebook for a particular type of business or even for your business' name it will provide a list of those businesses closest to the searcher before listing businesses further away. If you don't already have your location listed then you can do so by clicking the 'About' button on your own page then editing in there.

With these simple additions you can get more impact from your Facebook page with minimal effort. As more people see Facebook as an alternative source of information to traditional websites it really pays to have some basic information up there and to have done some simple optimisation. Even if heavy social media engagement is not part of your online strategy at the very least it will help to point traffic your direction.