Friends. Photos. Marketplace. Questions. Places. Chat. Pages. Games. Name a topic and most likely Facebook’s got it covered.

With Facebook’s growing list of offerings, it’s hard to escape the ever-expanding social network, and a constantly growing number of companies are seeing the marketing benefits of participating in this channel. However, many of the pages that are being created are being done so without a lot of strategy and thought behind them. A recent study revealed that nearly 100% of 200 top brands had Facebook pages, yet 70% of them did not have organic rankings within the top 20 positions.

In addition to considering how to optimize your Facebook page for organic search results, it is also important to consider that Facebook has become the first and longest destination for many internet users. With this phenomenon, one can assume that consumers will increasingly be using the search functionality directly within Facebook itself. As a result, Facebook SEO is becoming crucial in online marketing.

Although still in its nascent stages, Facebook’s search algorithm looks at several important factors. Here are some tips on dominating Facebook search:

1. Display your website link in a clearly visible place. The information side bar at the left side of your Facebook page is a prime display spot.
2. Create events with keywords in the name and maximize RSVPs. It’s important to note that Facebook appears to only give “Attending” ranking value rather than “Maybe.”
3. Think of creative ways to generate “likes.” Remember that Facebook requires users to “like” a page in order to participate, such as comment on the wall. Inspire participation and discussion on your page to attract “likes.”
4. Offer exclusive content (such as coupons) in exchange for “likes.” Making content “visible to connection” requires Facebook users to dedicate their “likes” in exchange for content.
5. Answer Facebook Questions. Keywords in both Questions and Answers provide ranking value. Provide valuable information on relevant topics and get “voted up” for a rankings boost.
6. Use tags in order to show up on relevant and popular pages. If you’re a business in Manhattan, New York, use a tag to link yourself to the Manhattan, New York page and have your post show up on the page wall.
7. Use QR codes to drive traffic directly to the page. It’s more innovative than telling consumers to “Find you on Facebook.”
8. Implement micro formats to your site in order to designate important keywords in meta data for “rich objects.” The Open Graph protocol is being used to create “rich objects” on Facebook from existing web pages. Unless manually implemented to your site, the “rich object” data is automatically generated whenever a user “likes” your page.

In addition to the above tips, the good news for existing SEOs is that many similar rules still apply to Facebook SEO. Keywords in the vanity URL play a major role; “like”-wise, the number of “likes” (or essentially links to your page) is cardinal to the rankings. From there, things become a little muddy as Facebook looks at a combination of factors such as friends with keywords in their name, as well as 2nd degree friends with keywords in their name. Further, it looks at the number of friends over the total number of likes.

In all, estimates now put Facebook at roughly 3% of all searches conducted in the United States. Although minimal in the face of Google’s 60% share, this figure puts it past AOL (once a big player in search) and close to overtaking Ask. Not bad for a company that doesn’t even consider itself a search engine.