New tactics to improve your Facebook reach

Last week, I posted an article about the current status concerning Facebook traffic. I shared the fact that for Yoast.com, the Facebook referral traffic is decreasing. I also asked you all whether or not you noticed something similar and invited you to share your tactics to deal with such a decrease. You left lots and lots of interesting replies, so first of all, thank you for that! Most people noticed a decrease in Facebook traffic as well. Today, I’ll share three promising tactics that were shared in the comments.

If you want to learn more about using social media and other essential SEO skills, you should check out our All-Around SEO training! It doesn’t just tell you about SEO: it’ll help you put these skills into practice!

Facebook traffic is decreasing

The majority of the people who left a comment on my blog post also noticed a big drop in referral traffic from Facebook in the past few months. Quite some people left Facebook altogether. These people didn’t notice a drop in their traffic. Most people are less active on Facebook than they used to be, but they still use it. Also, three people responded that they didn’t notice any difference. Overall, it is safe to say that the large majority of people replying to my post did notice a significant drop in Facebook referral traffic. But what can you do about it?

Tips and tactics worth trying!

I found three tips and tactics when I was reading through the dozens of comments, and I believe that they are definitely worth trying. I am not at all sure to what extent these actually work. However, these are all things that we will be trying out on our own Facebook account in the near future. So perhaps they will be of use to you as well.

One of our readers suggested that Facebook posts that contain external links have far less reach than those with just text or posts with video’s or images. In her case, video (and especially live video), was performing the best.

Another reader suggested pretty much the same thing. He also added that a lively discussion on the Facebook-platform can pay off.

This could be a good approach, since Facebook likes it when people stay on Facebook, instead of clicking to another website. It could well be that Facebook treats posts without external links in it differently and that these are shown to more people. We’ll definitely try this one out!

Tip 2: Facebook groups

Several commenters pointed out that although Facebook referral traffic was going down, Facebook groups were still very active. Sharing posts in active groups does seem to be paying off. Time to get active in those groups! Perhaps we should start a Yoast group on Facebook?

Tip 3: Lengthy posts

One of our readers suggested writing longer posts. His experience was that lengthy Facebook posts performed much better than short posts.

This is easy to experiment with. Adding a bit more text to a post is not that hard. We’ll be experimenting with longer and shorter texts in our posts. I’ll keep you informed on the results of this tactic!

If you want to experiment with these tactics, but don’t have the time to write every social post by hand, we might have a solution. With our Zapier integration in Yoast SEO Premium you can automate your social sharing without losing control of what your social posts look like. You determine what the social posts contain, allowing you to try the tips mentioned above, and these custom social posts will be automatically shared to your social networks every time you publish new content.

Conclusion

Although Facebook referral traffic is decreasing, there are some tactics we can use in order to get some of that traffic back. Perhaps investing in lengthy, well-written Facebook posts without external links will do the trick. You will not get those people to your site then, but your reach on Facebook will remain intact. That’s something to consider. We’re going to try out all three tactics we discussed in this post. We’ll keep you informed about our findings!

Read more: How to optimize your Facebook reach »

Coming up next!


29 Responses to New tactics to improve your Facebook reach

  1. Cyndi Smith
    Cyndi Smith  • 6 years ago

    Great post! I’m always grateful when smart people analyze the situation when it changes…

    We’re one of the rare crowd who have not seen a decrease, but rather an increase in Facebook traffic. I believe the new model that Facebook is following is a great boost to any business that needs to tap into a local crowd. We’re a growing Pest Control company that serves the entire Seattle area, and we’ve really upped our game in SMM. We’ll test out the theory of the “no external link” post, and hopefully stir up some discussions. Our social engagement is booming right now.

    Things change so fast these days – we’re also dealing with the major overhaul of Google Ads (…lengthened text and titles! And the lengthy ones seem to grab the most traffic!)

  2. Urvish S
    Urvish S  • 6 years ago

    Hi,
    Thanks for sharing your insightful view for getting Facebook reach for post.

  3. Tunde Sanusi (Tuham)
    Tunde Sanusi (Tuham)  • 6 years ago

    Am not really a fan of lengthy posts and videos on Facebook but might give them a trial soon
    Hopefully, there should be an improvement

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      good luck!

  4. Ashish
    Ashish  • 6 years ago

    Hello

    I have been sharing my blog posts on my Facebook page for a few years now. And I would definitely agree that traffic through Facebook (especially if you’re posting an external link) to my blog has decreased consistently over time.

    But, in addition to the tips you mentioned, you might also want to try and play a little with the titles of the links you share on your Facebook page. From personal experience, I can say that titles which attempt to engage with the audience tend to do much better than the ones which are a mere statement.
    Eg. The title “Do you know which is the tallest building in the world?” would get more attention and engagement than “Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world.”

    So, put some efforts on your link titles before you share them on Facebook. That always seems to help.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      good tip! thanks so much for sharing

  5. Coach EmRatThich
    Coach EmRatThich  • 6 years ago

    Thank you Marieke van de Rakt for sharing good tips. In our case, we change from posting to the Page, we now focus on the Private Group. People in the Facebook group discuss a lot more on the page. It’s so cool, that you share the reader’s opinion in the article. :) Love it!

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      you’re very welcome

  6. Rick Rouse
    Rick Rouse  • 6 years ago

    About two years ago I switched gears and started concentrating my posts on my blog’s companion Facebook group instead of on the Business page that I’d been using for several years. The results were dramatic.

    I’ve discovered that only about 20% of the people who like the “Page” see the posts in their newsfeeds but every member of the group is notified about every post. That leads to much higher response and engagement.

    Virtually every post I make to the group links directly to a blog post and as of right now I’m receiving more traffic from Facebook than I’m receiving from all the search engines combined.

    This is a great post. Thanks for sharing it with us!

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      groups it is…. thank you!

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thanks for sharing your experiences!

  7. Mark
    Mark  • 6 years ago

    Tip 3: Lengthy posts is true. When I write a long article (with external links) 2500+ words and share it on Facebook, my reach is always bigger than when I write about 1500 words.
    Greetings from Croatia :)

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thanks!

    • Gracious Store
      Gracious Store  • 6 years ago

      How many people actually read all the content of a lengthy post? Sure not people like me. I tend to scan through posts, get the gist and move on.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thanks for your input!

  8. Yann
    Yann  • 6 years ago

    Hello,

    Interesting… i noticed the same. Also, it seems that i receive less notifications on my Facebook… people get slowly bored of it???
    How bring visitors from Facebook without adding a link to our publications?
    Working on groups for our notoriety? Making videos announcing new content on our website?
    :-)

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      I’m also struggling with how to get people to your site without adding links. It could be a good tactic to raise brand awareness en let people see your post. You still need to draw them to your site eventually. So that remains a struggle!

  9. Sana
    Sana  • 6 years ago

    Another thing, I also, tried my personal accounts and it performed even better. People like to engage with persons more than companies, he/she better than it! But didn’t try in Facebook by myself but saw some friends did and worked.
    Thank you

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      That’s a really good tip as well! Thanks

  10. Sana
    Sana  • 6 years ago

    Hello, thank you for sharing. Yes it is the video which performing better than other I get 10 folds than other types!. But the issue is that we are using social media to increase traffic to websites! since my traffic decreased very I moved to Twitter and Pinterest and I am getting better results and even more than expected from both without expending money

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thanks for sharing your experiences!

  11. Haynet
    Haynet  • 6 years ago

    Thank you for the interesting advice. Can I ask about blog posts where some have a lot of imagery and text which could be too much for a Facebook post, hence using an external link and wanting traffic to a separate blog page/website?

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      we’ll look into that!

  12. Marcos Meress
    Marcos Meress  • 6 years ago

    Thanks very much!
    Some tips precious!

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      very welcome!

  13. Salvatore Salpietro
    Salvatore Salpietro  • 6 years ago

    You forgot one major tip here: Instant Articles. For publishers, this is a big benefit. Not only is there built-in email acquisition, but if your content is also published as an Instant Article, Facebook considers this “on-site” since users don’t need to leave the app.
    Note: Instant Articles are mobile app only.
    Note 2: Instant Articles are to Facebook what AMP is to Google.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      You’re right! We should write an article about instant articles. Thanks for your feedback!

  14. Paginas web en Guatemala
    Paginas web en Guatemala  • 6 years ago

    Awesome. We will definitively try all three suggestions.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      Hope it works out for you!