If you were to integrate one social networking website into your business or personal website, the most likely choice would be facebook. With over 500 million active users, your visitors are far more likely to be using facebook than any other platform. For this reason, it almost leaves you out of the loop if you have NOT integrated facebook into your website. Don't worry though... if you are not in the loop, its quite simple and, dare I say, fun to get everything setup.

Let's look at some of your options. You'll want to consider the the appearance and usefulness of each as they relate to your business, your target market, or your clientele. Listed below are some of the best options_

1. Facebook Like Button

This is the button that you see next to many blog posts, articles, videos, and web apps anywhere on the web. The button tells you how many people 'like this' and even tells you which of your friends 'like this'. When somebody clicks the 'Like' button, your website is shared on that user's friends' news feed, or all of their friends home page. Imagine if you can get somebody with 500 friends to 'Like' your page. You are essentially gaining 500 additional opportunities to get noticed on the web. This button can be customized in different layouts, themes, sizes, and fonts.

2. Activity Feed

The Activity Feed is a great little widget that will show any user what other people are up to on your site. This is ideal for a website that has multiple articles and pages being shared every day. You can put this Activity Feed on your home page and under 'Recent Activity', it will be obvious to any user what other people are doing on your site. For this reason, your visitors are going to be more likely to view the popular content on your page if they see that other people are doing the same.

3. Facepile

Facepile is exactly like it sounds. When installed, you will see a box full of profile pictures of the facebook users who have liked your page. For an example, head over to http_//blog.webstarts.com/ and look on the right side where all the faces are. If you are logged into facebook and one of your friends 'likes' that page, then they will be among the first faces you see. This is perfect for a business that is trying to establish some reputation and credibility. If 10 of your friends' faces show up and they like my business or my website, you are far more likely to give me a try.

4. Comments

The Comments Box, when installed on your site, allows users to add comments using their facebook identity. This is a great way to get some conversation going on your articles or blogs because users are far more likely to have legitimate, honest conversation when their facebook identity is tied to their comments. When the user is logged in, they will see an empty comment box above all the previous comments posted to your page. The user can also choose to publish the comment box to their facebook profile and share it with all of their friends.

This list is not complete, but the four listed above are the easiest and most effective implementations of facebook on your website. Each one is easy to configure and install using HTML embed code. Make sure you check it out and get started as soon as you can. The sooner you integrate the most popular social network with your website, the sooner you will see results!