What's more important? Facebook fans, or likes?

[GregMoine]

Until now, I've been focusing on getting Facebook likes for my site, and amassed quite a lot.

However it felt like I was missing an opportunity by not connecting directly to my audience. So I created a Facebook page which my site visitors can like.

But this means having to promote two different things: a "facebook like" for my site, and a "facebook like" for my facebook page, which seems silly.

So, I was wondering if:

1. there is a way to combine the likes of my site to the likes of my FB page? Or a way for a visitor to like both through a single click?

2. what's more important to Google: FB-likes to your site, or to your FB-page?

Thank you!

[GregMoine]

Very interesting. Marc, James and Ryan: thanks for your insight guys!

[RyanKent]

Is there a way to combine the likes of my site to the likes of my FB page? Or a way for a visitor to like both through a single click?

No. Liking your facebook page is not the same thing as liking a page on your website. Facebook would not want any confusion for their users. It needs to be clear which content is being liked.

what's more important to Google: FB-likes to your site, or to your FB-page?

If I had a choice, I would want someone to like my facebook page. When someone likes your facebook page, any time you publish content on your facebook page it will be updated on each user's facebook wall. You establish a communications channel with every person who liked your page. You can let people know about a sale or some news that might be interesting to them. You should exercise discretion because if you send out a bunch of spam or unwanted updates, they can unlike your page.

When users like a page on your site, a link is created on their facebook page mentioning your website's article. All of the user's friends can see the link, follow it and comment on it. They may like it as well and this drives traffic.

[JamesNorquay]

Hi,

I think the best way for you to set up your site is to -

1. Run the Facebook Page API on the website here - http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/

Then also add likes to content pages on your website where people will like the content.

2. The whole debate around if Google can even value Facebook likes is an argument on itself, Alot of people claim FB likes hold no value and the best thing to use is FB share buttons - discussion can be found here.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/does-google-use-facebook-shares-to-influence-search-rankings

I think the best strategy is to test multiple share buttons from social sites, see what has influence it has on ranks.

IMO Goolge+ will be a big player in this space we will see more in the near future.

Regards,

James Norquay

[MarcLevy]

I do not have a definitive answer for you, just some thoughts.

In terms of SEO, having likes for your site and its individual pages probably makes more sense than fan page likes. Although how popular your FB page could tie into how popular Google thinks your brand is. In anycase, how much access Google has to FB is unknown and all these social signals are changing at a very fast pace, just recently Google stopped using Twitter in the same way and with the introduction of Google+ who knows what the future will hold.

Just to throw something else into the mix, Facebook shares is something else which I think is pretty important in all this. So that is potentially 3 things!

Some good reads, but be aware this stuff could have changed already:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2011/06/yes-virginia-facebook-is-seo-smx-advanced/