Greetings!
You’re probably wondering, what the heck a facebook url is or if it should mean anything to you?
You see up until 12:01 am EST on Saturday May 13, 2009 facebook users did not have an easy url to direct their friends, colleagues or customers to. Typically their urls would look something like this www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789.Well as of last Saturday at the stroke of midnight that has changed and industry experts are highlighting the major boost that this could mean for search engine optimization and driving traffic back to your website.
Facebook is a highly searched and highly ranked social networking site with over 150 million ACTIVE users.
Now, imagine for a second that you sell barbie dolls and you are able to register the following highly searched keyword as your facebook url such as www.facebook.com/barbiedolls. Once a searched is conducted for barbie dolls because of the weight that facebook holds in the web world, your facebook page could very well be one of the first that’s shown organically.
Now just as domain names, these vanity urls are going like hot bread. The key is to conduct some research to see which keywords would benefit your business the most. I suggest you create a list and see which ones are available. You can go here to check for availability and to setup your vanity url http://www.facebook.com/username/.
Now, there is a little road block to getting a vanity url from facebook. You must have been signed up to facebook by May 31, 2009 or else you would not be able to get a vanity url. This is a measure that was taken to prevent people from squatting on others names. Think Bill Clinton and the RNC.
Secondly, you need to put serious consideration into the name that you are choosing, because you will NOT be able to change or transfer it.
Now, happy hunting and best of luck in getting the best name that would mean traffic boost for your business.