First and foremost, your banner should tie in with your marketing and branding – a consistent message is key to a good marketing strategy.  But first, you need to check the Facebook guidelines – stick to these and you’ll stay on Facebook’s good side.  A few key points to remember are:

• Your photo is public
• It should not infringe on the copyright of others
• It should not be misleading or deceptive in any way.

 Make sure you maximise your photo by using the correct size:

• Displays at 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall on your Page on a PC and 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on your smartphone.
• Loads fastest as an sRGB JPG file that’s 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100 kilobytes

You don’t want to spend all you time designing a super jazzy cover photo only to have it display incorrectly.

Be visual – Facebook have scrapped the rule that a cover photo should only be 20% text however I still think this is a good rule to abide by.  If you need to use text, be concise.  This means you use text that really matters.

The cover photo is a great place to showcase products and promotions.  Nothing draws people in like an attractive, high quality photo.  However if you are a business without a traditional product, you could use your logo to attract clients – sell what you do.

Now I’ve given you the basics of creating a great Facebook cover photo, let’s do a quick health check on yours to see how you are viewed by your customers.