How to Build a Facebook Landing Page

Building a Facebook landing page

If you use Facebook, you’d have probably noticed that there are companies that have
built beautiful, specialized Facebook landing pages. See the Facebook pages of Red
Bull and StandOutBlogger, for examples. When you go to a full-featured Facebook
landing page, you are not greeted by the standard list of wall posts, but by an
attractive, inviting design. These mini-websites should have one primary goal: to get
users to “Like” the business page. When you create a website landing page, we have
learned that the goal is to convert your visitor into a customer. Why should your
Facebook business page be any different?
Getting Facebook users to “Like” your business page gives you a valuable marketing
tool: the ability to post messages on your Facebook business page and the message
is automatically distributed out to each user’s wall page. You can create a custom
Facebook landing page with minimum efforts.

The following screenshot shows an expertly designed Facebook landing page. Note
how Red Bull directs visitors to the Like button with both arrows and text. Once a
user “likes” Red Bull’s page, Red Bull’s Facebook updates get distributed out to each
user’s personal pages.

The following are the steps to follow when creating a great Facebook landing page
for your business that will rival anything created by a Fortune 500 company.

Step 1: Add the static Facebook master language application

Start by looking at your Facebook business page. Each tab at the top of that page
represents an application. Some, like the wall tab and the pictures tab, are built
into Facebook and can’t be removed. Others are dedicated areas where fans can see
external content, such as YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and so on. We are simply
going to install an application.

In order to begin building your landing page, you need to add the static FBML
application. Go to http://www.facebook.com/apps/ and search for “FBML”. Click
on the page for the FBML app (it looks just like a regular Facebook profile page) and
then click on Add to my Page where indicated on the following screenshot:

Go back to your Facebook business page, and you’ll see a new tab at the top titled
FBML. FBML is essentially a blank canvas where you can add any content you want,
including custom graphics and links through standard HTML computer code.

Step 2: Configure your new company Profile tab

Once you have enabled the Facebook Master Language application, click on the
Edit Page link below the image of your company profile. This will display all of the
settings and applications for your business page. Scroll down and you’ll see an entry
for FBML. Click edit in that section and the edit box for the FBML tab will pop up.
You have two edit boxes: one is for the tab title. In the following example, we’ve used
the title Welcome!. In the other box, you can enter HTML code (text, images, link to
a YouTube video, just like a webpage) or code from Facebook’s proprietary markup
language. We’ve also included one HTML element: a link to an image file hosted on
our website server.

Click on Save Changes once you have configured your tab. You will see your new
tab on your Facebook business page.

Step 3: Make your landing page your default home page

If you want this new tab to be the landing page of your Facebook business page, click
on the Edit Page link, just under the image icon on your business page just as we did
in the previous step. From the list of available options, find the Wall Settings section
and click on the Edit link. Now select the option for default destination tab. From
that menu, find the setting for Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else and select
the tab that you created in the previous step. Save your settings and return to your
Facebook business page.

Step 4: Add great content to your landing page

To change the content on your custom tab/landing page, you return to the edit box
from step two. The core rule of great content on a Facebook landing page is that your
conversion goal is getting users to “Like” your page. You need to be clear about what
you want them to do. The Red Bull example above follows this rule perfectly; arrows
and text both tell the users the action that the page owner wants them to take and
even direct them to the Like button at the top of the Facebook business page. Some
other best practices for Facebook landing pages are to tell the visitors what they’ll get
if they “Like” your page. You should offer them something of value if they sign up:
coupons, discounts, special offers, sneak previews, or free tips.