This tutorial will show you how to create a welcome landing page for Facebook pages.
Facebook allows you to create pages that other facebookers can 'like' and this tutorial will explain how to create a welcome landing page for them. A landing page is the first page you see when visiting a website. By default, your page's landing page is to the wall but you may want something more aestetically pleasing. Aside from simply looking spiffy the other added advantage to having a landing page is if you are a business or public figure it will look more professional. You will find many businesses and companies have a nice looking landing page instead of you first landing at their wall.
Please note: community pages will let you create a welcome page but you will not be able to make it a landing page.
Let's get started.
First, go to this page. This is Static HTML: iframe tabs page. Scroll down and look on the left hand side for 'add to my page.' Click it.
It will prompt you to pick a page to add it to. Click the button 'add to page' next to the page you want to add it on.
Now, if you haven't already been directed to your page, go there. Look on the left hand side where it lists your wall, info, friend activity, etc and see if you see a new addition labeled 'welcome' with the little star emblem next to it. Click this.
The next page may look a bit strange to you. Instead of taking you to the welcome landing page you were expecting, you are taken to something like a 'back door' where you can add HTML to create your welcome page. Oh no, HTML? Do not panic. HTML is fairly simple and I will walk you through this and also provide a free template you can use.
First, I'm going to quickly make a basic design using dreamweaver. I created a simple graphic for the 'header' - a bubble that reminds the viewer to click on the 'like' at the top. You'll see a lot of facebook landing pages have some sort of reminder of this. It's a good idea too: a lot of people will forget to click on the 'like' and you want to build your followers so it's important to encourage this. Here's the quick basic template we will be using:
It's simple, clean, and straight-forward. For most businesses this is probably the best way to go (unless you are an artist, band, designer, etc - then you may want to go with something more flashy).
Time to apply this to the welcome page.
Here is the code:
You want to copy all of the text inside the box above and paste it into the box that says 'Enter your content here.' I'll explain afterwards how to edit it. Let's test this first before we do anything. Check the box marked 'no scrollbars' at the top and then click on 'save and view tab.' A new prompt will come up and you want to either click on non-fan or fan (depending on if you added anything in that other box that said for fan-content only). If you didn't add any fan-specific content then it doesn't matter which you pick - both will look the same.
Hey, not bad! If you've followed all of the steps correctly up to this point you should see something similar to the picture below. If not, go back and redo the last step and try again.
Time to edit this and make it yours.
Hit back on your browser to enter back into the editor for this page. Scroll down through the code until you see <!--HEADER 1-->
This, along with other labels defined throughout the code is your guide to editing the text. Only edit what follows after these markers - any other editing is at your own risk!
<!--HEADER 1--> corresponds to the top header that says 'Welcome to our facebook page!' You can change this text to whatever you want. If you want to edit the text that appears below that header, look for <!--UNDER HEADER 1--> and edit the text in there to say whatever it is you want to say. Do this for the other header sections too.
If you look at <!--UNDER HEADER 2--> you'll notice there are some hyperlinks in there. This is where you can add your website, your blog, etc for people visiting to click on if they want to seek out more information. To edit the address of the site, just replace the text inside the parenthesis that says http://yourwebsite.com with...you guessed it, your website address. Change the text 'Our website' to whatever you want. Make sure not to delete any < or > - those are important. Continue editing your page until it's the way you want it. Then again, make sure that 'no scrollbars' box is checked and hit 'save and view tab' to view it the way others will see it.
If it's how you want it then you can move on to the next step. If you want to make more changes, hit back in your browser. If it looks weird and messed up hit back on your browser, delete all of the text in that text box, and paste in the original code I provided earlier in again and start over.
Okay. You may think you are done, but you're not quite there yet. Go to your page and look in the upper right hand corner for a button that says 'edit page.' Yep, you guessed it. Click it.
Welcome to the editing section of your page where you can manage a lot of different things. On the left hand side you will see all of the different things you can control. Click on 'manage permissions.' Now, look for something that says 'Default Landing Tab' and click on the drop down menu next to it. Some of you might not have this. Community pages (non-official facebook pages) will not be able to change their default landing tabs so it is not an option listed for them. Everyone else with an official facebook page (non-community type) will be able to edit this setting. In the drop down menu, click on 'welcome' to set this to your default landing page. Then click on 'save changes' at the bottom. Now the page you just made will be the first page everyone sees when going to your facebook page.
Now we are all done! Remember: you yourself will always see the editing back door when you view your own welcome tab on the page. Only admins of your page will be able to see this. Everyone else will see the page that you see when you click on 'save and view.' Whenever you want to edit your welcome page, you can come back at any time by clicking on the 'welcome' tab on your page.
If you want the tab to be moved up higher on that left hand side go to your page, click on 'edit' and then click and drag that welcome tab wherever you want it to go over there. It will save automatically wherever you move it and if you refresh you will see the changes stuck.
If you don't want the welcome tab to say "Welcome" you also can change the name. Click on 'edit page' at the upper right hand corner of your page again and on the left hand side you will see all the controls again. Click on 'apps' this time - it is closer to the bottom. Look for the Static HTML: iframe tabs application and click on 'edit settings' below it. A box will pop up that has an editable region. Enter in whatever name you would like for your welcome page tab and hit 'save' then 'okay' and when you go back to your page you will see the change has taken place.
