How To Make Your Facebook Page Searchable On Google

Trevor Elwell recently released this post on Social Media Today. This article will provide you with the knowledge that you need to get your Facebook profile to rank on the first page of Google for your name, Enjoy!

Understanding how to make your Facebook page searchable on Google is important for a number of reasons. In this post we want to cover why this matters, and how you can make it happen.

Facebook and Google are Friends?

Since your Facebook profile has so much personal information about you, it’s probably best for you to hide it away in a corner of the Internet where no potential employer, customer, or date can find it right? Wrong. If you can get your Facebook in Google search you can make yourself more marketable (if you do it in the right ways). Exposing and publicizing your Facebook allows you to show a more personal side to your employers, seem more well rounded, and prove that you aren’t hiding anything from them. Best of all, Facebook profiles are perfect pieces of content to easily boost up to the top of Google- a great way to bolster your online reputation. So let’s get started learning how to make your Facebook page searchable on Google:

Step One: Clean Up Your Profile

Let’s face it, your Facebook profile isn’t exactly the cleanest thing in the world (as in, it doesn’t exactly put you in the best light)- you’re going to have to do a little work to get it up to snuff. Go ahead and remove those harming pictures, curse-word-filled status updates, and videos of you at 5AM signing “Small Town Girl”. Trust me, these are necessary measures on your quest to conquer Facebook and Google. If you want to make the process a little easier, just sign up for our free reputation management software which will guide you through this step by step.

Step Two: Change Your Privacy Settings to Public

If your friends can’t find you, how can search engines? If you want to get your Facebook in Google search this is a must-do. Luckily, it’s very simple to go into your Facebook settings and make your profile “Public”. If you have privacy concerns with this step, you still have a solid amount of control here. You are still able to restrict access to some of your content, but in order for a search engine like Google to find and rank your profile you need to make it available to the public.

Step Three: Use Your Actual Name

This step for understanding how to make your Facebook page searchable on Google is more about understanding how people look for you, than anything technical. Do your buddies call you “T-Smooth” or Dave “Danger” Lewis? Even though your nickname is probably awesome, it should stay between you and your friends and shouldn’t make it’s way onto the Internet.

The reason for this is simple. Using your real name on social networks like Facebook allows potential employers, customers, and even dates to easily find your Facebook in Google search. Your nickname may give you and your friends a few laughs but everyone else won’t be in on the joke and might not be able to find you. With this step, make sure you keep your name consistent as well! Even though Trevor Elwell and Trevor R. Elwell are very similar, in the eyes of search engines they are very different- use the name that people will be searching for you with.

Step Four: Don’t Forget Your Vanity URL

This is a common step that many people miss when trying to make their Facebook page searchable on Google, so listen up! A simple way to boost up your Facebook page on Google is to get your vanity URL set up properly. If you go to your account settings you will easily be able to change this. A vanity URL is a URL with your name in it (for instance facebook.com/AboutTrevorElwell). If “Facebook.com/YourName” isn’t available then make sure that you use some variation of it like I did.  The important thing is keeping your name in the URL and in the same order (as in nothing in between your first and last name). This is probably the single most powerful way to get your Facebook page in Google search.

Step Five: Links!

Understanding how to make your Facebook page searchable on Google doesn’t stop with changes to your Facebook page. Luckily, you probably already have some of the tools you need for this step! You have a Twitter and a LinkedIn on top of your Facebook and Google profiles, but are you linking between them? Google loves to see inbound links- and a very easy way to get them is to utilize the profiles that you already have set up! Link to your now-public Facebook profile from all of your other social networks and make sure to include your name in the link text (for instance “Trevor Elwell on Facebook” would be a good link but “Trevor Elwell on Facebook” would not).

Should I Google My Facebook Page?

“Can I Google my Facebook page” is a common question we get from people who have followed the steps above. Our answer is yes! We highly recommend it actually. The reasons you want to Google your Facebook page is to keep tabs on the progress it makes in the rankings, which will let you know if you need to focus on it a bit more or if you might have missed a step or two. One thing to remember here, always Google your Facebook page in incognito mode in your browser. This will give you a more accurate representation of where things stand because you won’t see personalized results.

Also, if you want to Google your Facebook page without the extra hassle, our reputation management software will show you all of your search results in one simple place. You can use this to track your Facebook in Google search as well as many other websites and properties. Our software will also recommend additional steps you can take to make everything rank higher.

Wrap up

There you have it ladies and gentlemen, all the tips that you need for how to make your Facebook page searchable on Google. If you have any more ideas please feel free to let me know in the comments section below, good luck!