How to rank Facebook Posts in Google - James Dooley Interviews Jesper Nissen

James Dooley: How to rank Facebook posts in Google. Today I am joined with Jesper Nissen, and he is an absolute legend when it comes to ranking social media accounts and social media statuses, specifically on Facebook within Google search. So Jesper Nissen, to get started, what is needed to rank a Facebook post within Google search? Jesper Nissen: What you need is one of two things. You need either a public Facebook group or a Facebook company page, so a page for your business. Last year, Meta changed their indexing rules for the three social media platforms they have. They have Facebook, Instagram and Threads, and today we are talking about Facebook. Jesper Nissen: What that meant is that since last summer, all three social media posts can index and rank in Google. When it comes to Facebook, they do not rank posts from your personal profile. It does not matter if you have a public profile for James Dooley and all your posts are public. They will not be found in Google. But they do rank company pages and group posts. Jesper Nissen: So if you have a company page for James Dooley SEO and you go in there and post something about SEO, you can just sit back and wait to see if Google actually finds and indexes your page. That is just how easy it is. The same thing applies to Facebook groups. You can post about a topic, and if it is public, chances are Google will actually find this post, index it and rank it. Jesper Nissen: There are some rules that you should consider. The main limitation is that when you are trying to rank and index a Facebook post from a company page or group, you cannot define the SEO title. If you wanted to rank for something like link building for new websites, you would normally place that in headings and structured content. You cannot do that on Facebook company pages. Jesper Nissen: Instead, Google takes the first seven to 12 words of your post and uses that as the SEO title. So if you start your post with how to do link building for a new website, that becomes the title Google ranks. This is critical because Google ranks it exactly as written. It is not interpreted loosely. It is ranked word for word. Jesper Nissen: There is an upside and a downside. The upside is that Facebook is extremely high authority, so posts have strong ranking power, especially for long tail and local keywords. The downside is that it mainly ranks for exact match phrases based on those first words. Jesper Nissen: You also need to be aware of formatting. If you write a short phrase and then add a line break, Google may stop reading the title at that break. So the first line becomes everything. That is why the opening sentence needs to be deliberate. Jesper Nissen: Another tactic is local relevance. You can write a post about your service, for example plumbing in London or roofing in Chelsea. At the end of the post, you can insert a Google Maps share link. When the post is indexed, the map can appear inside the result, which strengthens local intent and visibility. Jesper Nissen: When it comes to indexing, you publish the post, then click the timestamp to get the direct URL. Copy that URL and submit it to an indexer. Once submitted, it can be indexed within minutes or a few hours. James Dooley: So just to clarify, it cannot be from a personal profile. It has to be from a page or a group. The first sentence is the most important. You start with the keyword, then break and expand underneath. Then you grab the URL and send it to an indexer to speed things up. James Dooley: Do you build links to these posts or send traffic to them, or is that not needed because of Facebook’s authority? Jesper Nissen: Most of the time, I do not do anything. They just rank. Facebook posts can rank out of the box. But sometimes I do build links. I do not send traffic, but I do build links. Jesper Nissen: I use other platforms like Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Blogger, WordPress.com, Tumblr and Ghost. I write supporting articles on those platforms and link back to the Facebook post. Then I send all of those URLs to indexers. Jesper Nissen: Even though those platforms are often considered low power, I still see a ranking boost when linking them together. The Facebook post tends to rank higher when supported this way. James Dooley: What about images? Do they matter for ranking? Jesper Nissen: Not for standard web search ranking. Images do not affect indexing or ranking in the main results. But they do matter for image search. If you add an image, it can rank in Google Images, which is useful depending on the niche. James Dooley: What about comments and engagement? Do they influence ranking? Jesper Nissen: You have two approaches. One is to publish and index immediately. The other is to wait. If you have a growing page and your post gains traction, you can edit the post later and refine the opening keywords. Jesper Nissen: Once the post has engagement such as comments and reactions, it becomes stronger. When it ranks in Google, it can show those engagement signals, which improves visibility and credibility. James Dooley: Does the strength of the page or group matter for ranking? Jesper Nissen: I do not see much difference. What matters is that the post is public and properly structured. However, I prefer company pages because groups have lost a lot of engagement. Most interaction has shifted towards business pages. James Dooley: That makes sense. If users click through, they are more likely to follow a page than engage in a group. James Dooley: That covers everything. If you want to learn how to rank across other platforms like X, Instagram or LinkedIn, check out the other videos. Jesper Nissen, if people want to reach out, where can they find you? Jesper Nissen: You can find me on X, LinkedIn, Facebook or my website. James Dooley: Perfect. It has been a pleasure. Thanks, Jesper Nissen.