If you want more traffic, leads, and sales on Instagram, you must consider optimizing your Instagram content for SEO. In this article, we’ll go over what Instagram SEO is, the factors that affect Instagram SEO rankings, and tips for getting more engagement and followers.
What is Instagram SEO?
Instagram SEO is the practice of optimizing your Instagram profile for search engines. It’s essential for two reasons:
You can get more people to see your posts by making them easier to find on Google and other search engines.
Engagement with your followers will increase, which can lead to higher follower growth and brand awareness.
3 Factors That Affect Instagram SEO Rankings
1. Engagement is the key.
Instagram’s algorithm is based on engagement, meaning that posts that garner more likes and comments will be shown to more people than those with less attention. The number of followers you have isn’t as crucial as your post’s performance. Meaning that if you’ve used hashtags in the past, but few people are engaging with them now, then it doesn’t matter how many followers you have. New users won’t see your posts because they aren’t getting enough engagement from users who already follow our profile.
2. Hashtag Density
Instagram has a limited number of hashtags you can use in each post—30 hashtags at most—so don’t go overboard and try posting 40+ hashtags every time! If you do so anyway, then don’t be surprised when nothing shows up under the “Top Posts” or “Recent Posts” sections (see below) since these sections only show posts containing fewer than 30 #hashtags at most.
3. Social media is constantly evolving.
If you’re looking to grow an Instagram account, you need to be aware of the latest restrictions. As more and more people join Instagram every day, the platform will continue to make changes to limit spamming and other forms of abuse that could potentially damage its reputation among users.
5 Tips and Best Practices for Instagram SEO
Here are six tips and best practices for Instagram SEO that will help you grow your account faster than ever before:
1. Use hashtags appropriately.
Now, let’s talk about hashtags. Hashtags are the best way to find new people on Instagram and engage with them, but they should be used sparingly. You don’t want to use too many hashtags because that can look spammy and turn people off from your content.
Hashtags are an easy way to give context to specific photos and ensure they’re used properly.
For example:
If someone posts a picture of their favorite cupcake recipe (and tags “baking” in their caption), then anyone searching for #baking would find this post, as well as others tagged with similar terms—like #baker. You don’t want your pictures buried under all those others!
We recommend using no more than ten hashtags in each post. The best strategy is to use relevant hashtags both to you and your followers, as well as strategic industry-related ones that will help you connect with other users searching for similar things online!
2. Use Your Account Name as a Keyword
A great place to start optimizing your Instagram profile for SEO is with the account name. This is one of the essential parts of any Instagram profile, so it’s worth spending some time getting it right.
Your account name should be a keyword that people searching on Google would use when looking for you or your business. This can be your brand name, niche keyword, company, or location name – whichever makes sense regarding what you offer and what people will search for when they want to know more about you.
3. Don’t Over Optimize Your Bio
It’s tempting to use your Instagram bio as an opportunity to throw all of the keywords you can think of, but it’s not necessary. You can still optimize your profile without overdoing it!
Your bio is limited to 160 characters, so you need to be concise and informative if you want people to read it. This means no keyword stuffing or links; keep it simple.
4. Don’t Include Links in Your Bio
If someone is interested enough in following you on Instagram that they’re reading your bio, they probably already follow (or will follow) other profiles related to yours. There’s no need for direct links here!
5. Tag People in Your Photos
Tag people in photos to give them exposure, but don’t over-tag or tag irrelevant users just because they have a high number of followers; this will annoy those who follow you and could even lead to unfollows.
Make sure you’re tagging the right person or people. If someone else took a photo of your dog, but your account posted your budget, another person in that photo. This makes things easier on everyone involved: when users look at a post, they’ll be able to see who is responsible for creating the content, so they can follow both accounts if they like what they see.
Get a FREE Instagram SEO Consultation
In summary, Instagram is a great way to connect with your audience and create brand loyalty. It also provides much data on who your followers are and what they’re interested in. With these tips and tricks under your belt, you should be ready to start growing your Instagram account! I’m sure you have many questions about how to optimize your Instagram profile for SEO.
That’s why we offer a FREE Instagram SEO consultation
Our consultations afford you an opportunity to get answers from our team of experts. We are here to help!
