Facebook’s much-anticipated January announcement turned out to be an introduction to its new Graph Search product, which will (hopefully) drastically improve Facebook’s otherwise-atrocious internal search function.

Currently still in beta, this upcoming change places a high level of importance on the keyword optimization of your business’ fan page. Now is the best time to spend a few minutes reviewing your fan page from top to bottom to ensure your business will be competitive in Facebook’s Graph Search.

Optimize your Fan Page: 5 Places to Look

1. Your Vanity URL – Fan pages created today can claim their vanity URL right from the start. But many businesses began their fan pages at a time that you needed at least 25 fans before you could claim your vanity URL. So if you are still working with a URL that looks like this – http://facebook.com/page/Your-Business-Name-With-Dashes/1234567890987654321 – it’s time to upgrade.
2. Your Fan Page Name – To use our business name as an example…naming our page simply, “Eli Rose”, would not be very good for search. Whereas its title of, “Eli Rose Social Media”, is much more beneficial because it includes our business’ keywords: “social media”.
3. The Category of your Business  – This can be set from within the “Basic Information” section while editing your page. There are several options to choose from among the 2 drop-down menus.
4. Contact Information – If your business has a physical location, be sure you complete the address and phone number fields. If you do not have a physical address to list, make sure your website address is included in the “Short Description” area.
5. Info Fields – There are several fields (labeled as Company Overview, Description, Mission, Products, etc.) for you to use to include information about your business, your products or services, your other social media profiles and anything else a prospective customer might need to know about your business. These areas should be keyword-rich to give you the best chance at showing up high in Facebook’s new Graph Search results.

Once you’ve completed these 5 steps, you can feel confident you’ve maximized your fan page profile for Graph Search. From there, it’s a matter of consistently posting relevant content to your fan page wall.

Periodically reviewing and optimizing your website’s About page and business’ social profiles is always a good idea. While the usefulness and relevance of Facebook’s Graph Search remains to be seen, the changes going on at Facebook serve as a good reminder to give all our online properties a once-over.