Facebook : Likes/Shares on Company Facebook Page - or of Main Website?

[jan111]

Which is more important for influencing your MAIN website's position in the SERPS:

1 The number of likes/shares/comments on your Company Facebook page

or

2 The number of times your main website is liked in Facebook?


If it's 2, does Google take any note of the "number of Facebook Likes" box that you see on many websites? Or does it only take note of those Facebook pages that it indexes and that like your site?

I currently have a link from my main website to my Company Facebook and Twitter pages and am encouraging a few clients to like this Company Facebook page, but am wondering if I should have "Like my website on Facebook/Twitter/Stumbleupon etc" buttons and - if so - whether it is a good idea to show the like/follow count (likely to be small as I'm only a small company).

Would appreciate any feedback.

[antihero13]

I think this is more of an SMO question rather than SEO. I don't know the answer for sure, but for SEO purposes I would imagine the number of times your main website is liked is more important. It's not the likes that help you with the SERPs, but the links. Each time someone likes your page it generates a link towards your page, and links to your page help you with SEO. Plus, you get a real human being endorsing your company and free advertising to the friends of your friends.

I wouldn't imagine the number of likes on your Facebook page is as important. First off, it steals some of the thunder away from your main website, where the real eCommerce takes place. Second, most people don't know your Facebook page exists to really make all those likes mean anything. The people who like your Facebook page have already done business with you before but that really doesn't help you unless new customers can find it. Third, no one really compares which companies have more likes than others nor do they make purchasing decisions based on who has the most likes.

[janeth]

On the scale of things it's not important.

As a business owner there are so many things you need to be doing that wasting time thinking about what is going to have the most impact is foolish. You need to be on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,...writing content and creating videos.

Look at your stats and drive traffic to your site, let Google worry about their own Algo.

[weegillis]

@OP: Facebook 'Likes' are script driven, and only appear once FB's scripts have downloaded and run in the client page. SE's cannot see these Likes, this being the case.

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What they can see is links. Get links, not likes. Get people to talk about your site, so it drives in traffic. Google can see this in your analytics, as well as where they are coming from.

[morestar]

I currently have a link from my main website to my Company Facebook and Twitter pages and am encouraging a few clients to like this Company Facebook page

The ultimate effect or result of this practice is to make your Facebook page look Likable/interesting/useful to other people/customers/clients visiting your page. Sure get them to like your page as it helps make your page stand out and look alive - not dead and dry. As weegilis said, there's no effect of Likes for SEO.

The more your page looks alive, has what's considered useful or enjoyable, engaging content, the more you'll find the likelihood of your page showing up in the search results for your keywords too. That's the benefit. Not that it totally matters but the links on your Facebook page (to your content/homepage) are no-followed and so are the links in public profiles that show your page as Liked but then there's the popularity measurement that's working in your benefit.

It's great for your Facebook page to come up in the search results too as people like Facebook and like visiting business Pages to see what's going on and what's new with you. If you've got everything laid out properly (contact information, Page name etc.) you're likely to get a conversion.

One surefire way of getting conversions (clicks to your website or wherever) from your Facebook Page is by sharing awesome, interesting, informative or useful content - even points of view to get people talking.

That's just about the one way a Facebook page can help with SEO - when it comes up in the search results.

[jan111]

Many thanks all for feedback - I've found it very useful.

Morestar/Weegillis:

As weegilis said, there's no effect of Likes for SEO.

Facebook 'Likes' are script driven, and only appear once FB's scripts have downloaded and run in the client page. SE's cannot see these Likes, this being the case.

As stated, am grateful for feedback as it's something I've been wondering about for a while now (especially Weegillis's point that SEs cannot see Likes) but I based my understanding that SEs take notice of Facebook likes/shares on - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-...earch-rankings

[morestar]

Many thanks all for feedback - I've found it very useful.

Morestar/Weegillis:

As stated, am grateful for feedback as it's something I've been wondering about for a while now (especially Weegillis's point that SEs cannot see Likes) but I based my understanding that SEs take notice of Facebook likes/shares on - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-...earch-rankings

From the very end of that page I found:

Shares Might Be More Valuable than Likes
In Facebook's own environment, a "like" of content will show up on your own "Wall" and in "Most Recent" (a new feature as of last week), but it rarely shows in "Top News" where most users scan and click. If that alone isn't reason to encourage sharing v. liking, the data above certainly is (at least to me).

I also didn't see any direct correlations with Likes and search rankings. If you do see it please quote it here...

[weegillis]

Shares contain links, likes don't. There is no correlation between search and likes. It's not possible.

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Better correct myself... Likes contain URL's, but they're not links, as such, only databased objects that FB alone can discern.