A short and definitive guide to Instagram SEO

Jibreel Yilmaz

Jan 5·5 min read

We all know that Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms, with more than a billion monthly active users.

So, with this much population, there must be a lot of competition in every niche.

Have you ever thought about how you can make your content stand out in the audience with such high competition?

I know you’re thinking that if you create GREAT content, you’ll grow. Of course, making quality content is necessary but there is something else other than content only.

Instagram is a self-contained search engine and if you want your content to perform better than try doing SEO for Instagram.

The SEO process for Instagram won’t take much time. Here are the steps that will lead the way for you.

Optimize your Profile

The first step to perform is your profile optimizations. Below are a few tips for optimizing your Instagram profile:

• First of all register for a business account, select your category, and make your account public.
• Create a colourful, and simple logo or profile picture for your account.
• Choose a username that is easy to remember and searchable. Don’t go for words that are difficult to pronounce.
• Find a good business name for your account.
• Use tools like Linktree, or Milkshake to create a bio link. With these tools, you can diverge your Instagram traffic to your other social media profiles.

At first, you’ll find these steps of no use but they are important and considered as the basics for Instagram SEO.

Keyword Enriched Name & Username

After optimizing your profile, remember to add your focus key phrase in your display name, and username as well.

By adding your primary keyword in your name or username, there are chances that people will find you first while searching for the relevant query.

Unless, if you have a brand name, consider using your focus keyword in display name only.

Use Secondary Keywords in your Bio

Secondary keywords are amazing to find users who were unable to search for your primary keyword but they can be interested in your product or service.

Let’s suppose your main keyword is “Writing”, and you have included it in your name and username.

Now, what you need to do is to find secondary keywords that are related to your primary keyword, and then add them in your bio.

For “Writing” you can add secondary phrases like Blog post writing, Ghost Writing, Affiliate Writing, etc.

That’s how it works!

Use your Hashtags as Keywords

After you have finished optimizing your profile, now it’s time to optimize your posts. This process is important, that is why you have to pay attention to it.

There are chances that users will discover you through a specific hashtag that you used in your post. Sounds good to me!

But, your hashtag strategy can’t be same for every Instagram post, that means you can’t use the same tags for every post over and over again.

You should treat your hashtags as secondary keywords. Instagram provides you with an opportunity to add 30 hashtags per post.

If you add a variety of post-specific hashtags then you will be targetting a more diverse audience.

In simple words, targeted hashtags for your posts and stories can help you get more engagement.

If you don’t know how to find out the best hashtags, you can simply use a powerful Instagram tool like Ingramer. I have been using this tool to find hashtags in order to optimize my post. You can use the hashtag generator as well. Follow this link to get a 15% discount on hashtag generator.

Use Keywords in your Post Captions

Another essential step is to craft a simple and engaging caption for your followers.

A good caption is capable of having the attention of users, as a result, you can get some amazing results.

Make sure to use post-specific secondary keywords in your caption.

You can search for your post related secondary keywords by using a bunch of tools. (I’ll be adding the resources below)

Image Optimization on Instagram

For image optimization, Instagram has introduced a new Alt text feature.

By using this thing, you can optimize your images for specific keywords. Craft a nice alt text so that your post can perform better.

Here’s how you can do that:

Track Your Performance

Tracking your account’s performance can help you create amazing data charts. With these charts, you can reshape your Instagram Marketing strategy to perform better.

For basics, you can use Instagram analytics but to get a broader view you need advanced tools, such as Ninjalitics, etc.

I will be posting a list of tools that can help you track your progress on Instagram, stay tuned.

Things you should avoid doing:

• Don’t steal content
• Don’t buy followers
• Don’t use bots
• Don’t use the stupid follow/unfollow strategy. Following too many people at once can make you look suspicious.
• Don’t stuff your keywords.

Grow organically!

SEO is a long term strategy for Instagram, and if you want a good outcome, never neglect it. Also, make sure to post quality content.

What is your opinion about this post? Let me know in the comments.

Resources:

• Tools for finding keywords, and hashtags: https://medium.com/better-marketing/top-10-instagram-tools-every-marketer-should-use-in-2021-e8b9838f4c29