Facebook is the second most popular website on the internet after Google. That fact is more powerful when you remember that people who visit Google are primarily looking to go somewhere else, whilst Facebook is a place people spend on average twenty minutes per visit.
On January 29, Facebook published their fourth quarter and full year results for 2013. The report highlighted a number of interesting statistics such as:
- The daily active users for December 2013 was 757 million (on average)
- The monthly active users for December 2013 was 1.23 billion
- Daily active users increased by 22% over the year and monthly active users increased by 16% over the year
There have been lots of news reports over the last six months that Facebook could lose 80% of its users by 2017. The figures above, that were published for the benefit of investors, suggest that the stories of Facebook losing popularity is nothing more than rumours and spin. The truth is that Facebook remains the largest social media service on the internet by a long margin.
Be sure to follow Elegant Themes on Facebook
One of the best ways of tapping into this huge wealth of traffic is to create a Facebook page for your website. In this tutorial, I would like to walk you through the steps necessary to create a
Quick Note:
Those of you who do not like Facebook will be annoyed to hear that you need to have a Facebook account in order to operate a Facebook page. It is also frustrating that pages are tied to your personal account as it makes it difficult to disable your Facebook account in the future. If you manage pages, the only way to disable your personal Facebook account is to create a second Facebook account and migrate all pages to that account. Facebook does, however, frown upon this.
How to Create a Facebook Page for Your WordPress Website
New Facebook pages can be created at https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. Six options are available including pages for local businesses, brands and products, and causes and communities.
The initial page presents you with six options.
The box for “Brand or product” allows you to select website as your purpose. Other options, such as causes, allow you to control whether the group is available to everyone or if it is closed. Facebook Pages Terms also need to be agreed before you proceed.
The “Brand or Product” box is suitable for website owners.
On the next page you can add a description of your page and define your website URL. It is common for website owners to display their website URL in the description as well to increase clicks to their website.
You also need to agree to a disclaimer that you are authorised and an official representative of your website.
Enter the URL of your website and a small description that describes the page to visitors.
You then need to upload a logo from your computer or from a URL. Depending on the nature of your website or blog, you could use your website logo or a photograph of yourself.
You can upload your logo from a URL or directly from your computer.
Next there is an option to add your new page to your Facebook favorites area. This section is displayed prominently at the top left hand side of the Facebook home page. All of your pages are listed underneath the favorites section, therefore it is not essential that you add your page as a favorite.
You can add your page to your Facebook favorites so that it is displayed prominently whenever you login.
That is all there is to it; however, as you can see, your initial page looks a little bare.
Your Facebook page will look a little bear when you first view it.
One of the main things missing from your page initially is a cover photo. Uploading a cover photo will help you distinguish your page and convince more people to follow you. You can also use photos that have been uploaded previously as a cover photo.
Be sure to add a cover photo.
Be sure to use a large image for your cover photo. If you are struggling to find a suitable image, I recommend searching for good desktop background images. Alternatively, you could hire a designer to create something unique.
As you can see, the simple act of uploading a cover photo makes your Facebook page look much better.
Do not look at cover photos as optional; they are a vital part of branding your page.
At the top of your page you will see a navigation menu. It links to various settings and statistical pages. It also lets you login as your page; which allows you to like pages and publish comments on Facebook as your page (i.e. as opposed to your personal account).
The top navigation menu can be viewed from your main Facebook page.
The general settings area allows you to modify page visibility, add filters and add restrictions. You can also delete your page from this area or merge it with a similar page you own.
A number of settings are available in the general information page.
The page info area allows you to add information about your website such as foundation date, physical address, contact telephone, email address, and more.
Information about your website and business can be added too.
By default, you will be set as a manager of your Facebook page. This allows you to change your page settings and update your page as you see fit.
You can also add other people as managers, content creators, moderators and advertisers. Insight analysts can see statistics about your page.
Staff can be assigned various roles and permissions.
The Facebook insights page allows you to see the growth of your Facebook page. It also highlights how many people have seen your post updates and their level of engagement. As your page grows, you will need to pay more attention to these stats (though this is not an area I will delve too much into in this tutorial).
The insights helps you analyse the performance of your page and see how followers are responding to post updates.
Many of you will create multiple Facebook pages. To switch between your pages, click on the cog icon at the top right hand side of the page and select the page you want to manage.
You can switch between pages at the top right hand side of each page.
Last, but by no means least, you need to publish updates to your new page. Publishing updates to your page works in the same way as publishing a message to your friends. It also has an extra feature that lets you schedule posts for a specific time and date. This is essential for scheduling posts in advance.
An empty Facebook page is pointless, so be sure to connect with your readers and post updates.
Creating a Facebook page is easy and only takes a few minutes to complete. Every website owner should create one for their website and engage with their readers, even if it is only to share news updates or announcements of new articles.
I hope you found this tutorial useful. If so, I encourage you to follow us on Facebook for our latest blog updates.