Instagram SEO: A Full Fledge Guide To Gain More Visibility

Increasing followers is the best strategy to make sure Instagram is successful. The more followers you have, the more successful you will be and the more opportunities you will have to drive sales. 

So, Instagram optimization is a must-have for you! 

And to boat your followers, you need to ensure your visibility. However, this could be the trickiest part, as Instagram SEO could be a little different than regular SEO. 

But, no worries! Here, in this blog, I am going to elaborate on Instagram SEO. 

What Is Instagram SEO?

Instagram SEO is a set of optimization techniques through which your Instagram profile and posts get optimized and get more visibility on Instagram. 

The users can find your brand and posts on Instagram just like in Search Engines. You can make sure your profile and posts appear higher by implementing your target keywords strategically in your profile, posts, captions, and other places. 

However, SEO optimization not only works like that but also ranks your posts in the explore section. 

And, this is only a part of Instagram optimization. Many social media marketers brand their branded accounts so that they may pop up when a user searches with a keyword. 

Why Optimize Instagram?

Then comes an important question, “Why optimize Instagram?” and “What’s the reason that you should invest highly in Instagram?” 

Well, to answer such questions, here we have some strong, credible, and accurate data to support my answer.

• Instagram has more than 1 billion active users.
• People spend around 53 minutes every day on Instagram 
• 83% of people use Instagram for product discovery. 

Check out the benefits that you can earn by optimizing your Instagram profile, below:

1. Higher Traffic

One of the most obvious reasons to optimize your profile is to get more traffic and followers. Instagram is all about getting more followers and reaching more potential audience to enhance your profile’s visibility.

The fact is, with over 2 billion users active on Instagram, just think of the rate of the scalability that your business could get and the number of followers you can earn if your profile is entirely SEO-friendly.

2. Make your business a Recognized Brand

Who doesn’t follow big brands, and one the most common example of well know brand is…

Or simply think of the Coca-Cola logo—who doesn’t know it?

Therefore, you must develop your Instagram profile to such a degree that people recognize you by just hearing your name or looking at your profile, which is what a business owner desires. 

With more traffic coming to your SEO-optimized profile, you’d have a better chance of making your business a recognized brand. 

3. Enhance Visibility and Reach

The math is simple over here…

More Traffic ➡️ More Followers ➡️ Increased Visibility To Reach More Audience

If your Instagram profile drives more traffic and has a larger number of followers, there are chances that your followers can become your promoters and enhance your profile’s reach among their followers too.

4. Amplify Brand Awareness

See, the concept of brand recognition and brand awareness has a thin line in between that becomes the only difference. That is…

Brand recognition is all about how people recognize you or your brand in a crowd or even without knowing about you. whereas brand awareness is about how people know you or your brand based on the experiences they’ve had.

A good example is “Google” itself. Whenever you want to search for something, the first source that comes to mind is Google. Even if you are on a different search engine, the first thought is you say, “Go Google it!” 

This is why brand recognition is the first step in building brand awareness. Indeed, effective brand recognition builds everlasting brand awareness.

Some Instagram SEO Ranking Factors 

Your Text

Your texts were written on your profiles’ usernames, bios, captions, hashtags, and other places that matter regarding Instagram ranking factors. Because, most of the time, the users search with the keyword, just like in the image I show you above. 

User Engagement

Instagram notices how many clicks, shares, likes, comments, and saves your previous posts have gotten. Instagram distributes your posts based on the performance of your last posts.

Your Activity

Your activities include the posts you like and the posts you save or share. This also includes the kinds of accounts you follow and how you have interacted in the past. 

These are the main three Instagram ranking factors that Instagram keeps an eye on.

Best Practices For Improving Instagram SEO

Let’s take a look at some best practices for improving your Instagram SEO. Check out below. 

Optimize Your Instagram Profile For Search

If you use Instagram on a daily basis, you will see that Instagram search works a little bit like Google search. Instagram says the ranking of posts depends on several factors, including the posts we like and the accounts we engage with. 

Not only this but also the keywords you apply on your Insta bio and username determine your posts’ ranking. 

Keywords are the base of optimizing your Instagram profile. Here’s how you can optimize your Instagram account:

Optimize Your Username:

Adding keywords to your username will give you a higher chance of ranking when a user searches for those keywords on Instagram. 

See, when I searched for SEO on Instagram, it showed me the top results, and all of them have “SEO” mentioned in their bio or username. 

But, you should add your brand name as a username. 

Optimize your bio:

Your bio is a great place to add keywords and make your profile rank higher. Use this space to describe what you do. Your bio must include some secondary keywords relevant to your primary keyword

See the image below:

Can you figure out some keywords that I have included in the bio of my Instagram page? There are some keywords like leads, traffic, and sales that definitely relate to my niche. 

Use Captions Properly

Let me explain how and what Instagram uses your captions for. If you have seen the Explore section of your Instagram account, you must have noticed that the posts you see there are most often relevant to the posts and videos you have liked in the past. 

Let’s say you have liked photos of dogs and also follow such accounts, then you are more likely to see posts related to dogs. This is exactly where the post captions help Instagram. 

The Instagram algorithm uses the framework of the account to understand what the account and posts are all about. It also helps Instagram in identifying which account is similar. The framework is based on contexts like account name, bio, hashtags, and captions.  

And that’s why you must have descriptive and relevant descriptions along with the keywords. Instagram uses the keywords in your post caption to determine what type of post it is, and along with that, it also enhances the chances of ranking your post in the Explore section of users with relevant tastes. 

See the caption below for one of our posts. 

See, how many relevant keywords I have used in the captions. These keywords are going to help me rank this post in the Explore section for my targeted users.  

Use Some Tools To Improve Instagram SEO

There are some tools available that can help you improve your Instagram SEO. Using these tools for keyword research, tracking progress, and other things can benefit you a lot! 

Here are some tools you can get started with:

1. Awario

As you know, hashtags are an important part of Instagram. Here, Awario helps you by doing hashtag research on its own. 

Awario is mainly a social media monitoring tool. Also, the tool can be used as an Instagram analytics tool. 

You can use Awario in several ways –

1. Check out who has mentioned your brand

2. What hashtags and keywords you can use

3. What other people are talking about your brand

You can track all three things for your competitor as well. You just need to submit the brand name you want to get information about.   

However, the tool is not free, it can cost you $24 per month, which is the starting price of the tool.

2. Iconosquare 

It is a powerful tool, especially popular for the statistics it provides. It is specialized in offering the largest set of options to interact with your followers and followings. 

Mainly, it helps you by letting you know about:

• Monthly stats 
• Engagement fluctuation 
• Optimization rate 

The tool is able to provide you with the most authentic data. 

3. Hashtags for likes 

The best tool to get more hashtags for your posts and account is Hashtagify. 

4. Plann

The tool that can replace Canva for post-design and monitoring all at once. 

Use The Right Hashtags

Here, you need to understand the fact that, Instagram is the whole game of hashtags. That’s how just the Instagram algorithm works. Instagram finds relevant content with hashtags. On the other hand, posting an image with a hashtag improves the post’s chances of ranking when somebody searches for that hashtag. 

That’s why it becomes so important to add trendy hashtags to attract the right audience. However, you should not overuse it. Instagram allows you to add only 30 hashtags. So, make sure you add hashtags worthy of this real estate. 

You can see this post with the relevant hashtags:

But, you should also keep in mind that, Instagram checks out for other ranking factors as well, for instance, engagement. Instagram can tell if people are engaging with your post or not. 

The more people engage with your post, the more it will show to others.

Add Alt Text To Your Image

Mainly, the alt text is used in CMSs to elaborate on what an image is all about. So, that Google would easily understand the image, since, it cannot read the image. 

But, you would be shocked to know that, the same feature is also available on Instagram, which can improve your rankings and engagement. 

Also, alt text can help users with visual impairments understand the image. 

Besides this, the alt text on Instagram helps the algorithm better understand your image and visuals. If you don’t fill up this section, Instagram will provide your post with an alt text on its own. 

Go to “advanced settings” before clicking on the button for publishing.

After you click on the advanced settings, you will come to the page like, 

After clicking on “write alt text,” you will be able to write an alt text for the post you are going to publish. 

Add Keywords To Your Profile Name

There is one more place you can add keywords, and that is your profile name. You should also understand the keywords included on your profile name perceives more value than the keyword somewhere else. 

To get noticed by your target audience, add some keywords to your profile name. 

Like, see the image below:

Latermedia has added the keyword to its profile name. which, of course, benefits them in various ways. 

Just look at the number of followers they have.

Measure The Results

The last and most important step is to measure your results. Just like you analyze the website SEO results through Google Search Console and Google Analytics to see what results your website is bringing in, you need to measure the results after Instagram optimization as well. 

Check out, were the changes you made worth it? Did they have any impact on the visibility? 

The built-in analytics function of Instagram will analyze the whole report before you. 

However, if you have a good budget and can use paid tools to measure results, there are many paid tools available on the market. like SocialPilot, Social Status, Sprout Social, and many more. 

Conclusion

By developing a strong SEO strategy for your Instagram profile, you can definitely have a roll on to reach the maximum audience. 

Not only that, but by using the above-mentioned Instagram optimization strategies, you can surely maintain your profile at the top, enhance your visibility, gain more followers, and build a well-known brand.

Schedule a 30 minute free strategy session with us and make your Instagram profile rock the “Explore Page.” Still waiting? Go get your Instagram profile optimized right now!

FAQs

1. What are the 3 C’s of SEO?

There are 3 c’s you can use for Instagram SEO, content, code, and credibility. SEO revolves around these three factors. Just make your SEO tactics stand on these 3 pillars and your website is going to win for sure! 

2. How can I increase my followers on Instagram for SEO?

You can consistently increase your Instagram followers by following the right SEO technique for Instagram. The tactics given above are sufficient enough to get you more and more followers. 

3. How do I get followers on Instagram fast?

It is very easy to increase your Instagram followers. See the steps below:

• Optimize your Instagram bio and profile name. 
• Stay active on the platform
• Use catchy images 
• Use right hashtags to target 
• Use geotags