Facebook likes for website OR FB profile page?

[ShoutOut]

I am expecting answers/views from social SEO experts.

Should i encourage people to "like" my main page of my website OR FB profile page of website? Which one works better and why?

[gfiorelli1]

My answer could seem a "not answer": it depends.

Yes, it depends on the social media strategy you want to follow and if you really are looking to a deep integration of your site in the social graph.

In fact, to "like" your page means that you integrate the open graph codes into your site, in order to take advantages of all the feature Facebook offers: facepile, comments, sign-in, like/share andthe incoming action button (read, listen...) and Facebook Insight for Websites. If you are looking to a direct way to show you site into Facebook, the integration of the site with Open Graph is a must, because every action done by a logged in Facebook users is reflected in his timeline.

This has an advantage respect the Page, because this way an user is not "obliged" to pay attention to the status updates of the Page itself, that maybe he is not seeing because those same updates are not having the sufficient edgerank to appear in their streamline (and soon "ticker").

Anyway, to have a Facebook page for your site is useful too... always if you don't use it simply as a repository of links to your new blog posts or new products. If you plan a real marketing strategy with your page, that means contests, special offers, real dialogue with the fans, than you can create brand evangelists that can become your "not paid" commercial force.

See for instance what SEOmoz does with its Page. SEOmoz uses it not only to communicate the new blog posts, but also as a way to strengthen the Community bounds with photos, videos (sometimes) and active conversation (apart that they use Roger as brand ambassador).

To conclude:  Site integration to the Open Graph and Facebook Page can coexist and complement one each other and have different reasons to be.

[evolvingSEO]

Gianluca said it very well, so all I'd like to add is:

If you're asking in terms of RANKINGS (which will help you rank better?) use likes on your website.  And be sure the proper Open Graph meta tags are installed on your page.  The amount of Facebook Likes and Shares from your website can improve rankings.

You can generate the meta code here.

-Dan