Like my Facebook Page or my Facebook URL?

[lsujoe]

Like many other companies or company has a site and a Facebook page.  With the Facebook like button your can either specify a url or a Facebook Page.  So I don't know what would be better to get more 'likes' or if I need both?

My thoughts:

• More people liking the Facebook Page then we can post updated to more people that will show on their wall.

• More url likes, I think this might have (or will have) effect on search engine rankings.  The more people that like your url the higher it could be in rankings.

• I don't really want both as most people won't go through the trouble to 'like' both plus it is confusing.

Please let me know your thoughts or strategy.

[RyanKent]

For the home page, I strongly prefer users to like my Facebook page. Pressing the Like button for your Facebook page establishes a communication channel between you and your users. You can make an announcement on your Facebook page and it will appear on the wall of all the users who liked your page. If a user likes your home page, then one page of your site has been liked so when the user's friends visit your page they will see it, which is no where near as strong in my experience.

[JoeAmadon]

I agree with Ryan that a Like Button on your homepage is best utilized by that user "liking" your FB page, as this is likely a vote on their part for your brand.

However, I think for deeper pages, like a product page or a blog post, it makes more sense to have the like linked to that specific URL, since that is what the user most likely is "Liking". And this should help that page rank better. There are others who would disagree with this advice, though. I believe Ian Lurie from Portent has the Like button on his blog posts pointing to his FB page to gather a stronger following there.

[lsujoe]

Perfect, just needed some re-assurance.  Thanks Ryan & Joe!

[RyanKent]

To clarify, I agree with Joe's response as well.

On your home page, like your facebook page. On the remaining pages of your site, tie the like function to the page.

Some sites break their like buttons down further. You can have a product page which shows multiple products where you place a Like button next to each product. Another example would be this Q&A section. You can place a Like button next to each reply and Like them individually. The system offers a lot of flexibility and some experimentation is suggested to determine what works best for your site.