Facebook has just updated its pages feature for the first time in three years as it looks, to lure local businesses onto its social network.

At a press conference held yesterday, the company detailed some of the new features it will be adding to make it easier for businesses to engage with potential customers. These include things like booking appointments, browsing store inventory, and even the ability for users to purchase things directly from the newsfeed.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told reporters at the event:

"Our mission is to help connect everyone in the world. Businesses often depend on connecting. That's where Facebook comes in. If you can set up a Facebook profile, you can set up a Page."

Sandberg says that 45 million businesses already have their own Facebook pages, but an additional 35% still have no online presence whatsoever.

"The long-term bet is that by enabling people to have good organic interactions with businesses, that will end up being a massive multiplier on the value of the monetization down the road, when we really work on that, and really focus on that in a bigger way," says Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "So we ask for some patience on this to do this correctly."

These changes come hot on the heels of the new messaging features Facebook introduced over the summer. Users can now communicate directly with business pages via private message if they have any queries or concerns that need to be answered.

Businesses that respond to messages promptly will receive a rating on their page information to indicate how responsive they are to customers.

These new features should tie in with the company's recently announced virtual assistant, the Siri like app called M.

Look for these features on your Facebook page some time soon.