2023 SEO on Instagram: 10 expert tips for expanding your reach

If your Instagram growth strategy aims to please the algorithm, you are behind the times. As social media is changing to allow users to find content with more intent, it’s time to master Instagram SEO.

Keep reading to learn the top 10 ways to optimize your profile and content and get the attention of people who are actively looking for brands like yours.

What is Instagram SEO?

Instagram SEO is the practice of optimizing your content on Instagram so that it can be found in search results on the platform. When someone uses the Instagram search box to search for words related to your business, you want your account or content to appear at the top of the list – and Instagram SEO tactics can help you achieve that goal.

Instagram search results include relevant content, accounts, audio, hashtags, and locations.

There are also keyword result pages to browse. Each page of keyword results (indicated by a magnifying glass) is essentially a page of research for that particular keyword.

Source: Instagram search.

Below we break down the different “types” of SEO on Instagram, or parts of your profile, that can be optimized for greater visibility.

SEO Bio on Instagram

Your Instagram bio is an important SEO component for Instagram. This is an important place to include relevant keywords and search terms.

Source: Jen Pistor on Instagram.

Instagram SEO 4.jpg

Use your Instagram bio to provide context for both visitors and bots that return search results. Who are you and what are you all about? What content can people (and the Instagram search engine) find in your grid?

Instagram name SEO promotion

Instagram name SEO means choosing a handle and profile name that is relevant to your content and includes terms that people will use to find accounts like yours.

If you are well known for your brand, then this is the best place to start. If your descriptor or name has room for a relevant keyword, include that as well.

SEO optimization of alt text in Instagram

Alt text on Instagram is no different than alt text on the web. This is a textual description of an image or video that makes the content accessible to people with visual impairments. It also provides a description of the content in case the photo itself doesn’t load.

Instagram alt text is also important for SEO because it helps Instagram better understand what’s in your content and therefore better understand if it’s relevant to a particular search term.

Why is SEO so important for Instagram?

There was a time when people mostly found out about new content on Instagram through hashtags or the Explore page. Those days are over. Now, when people want to find certain types of content on Instagram (and other social networks), they use search.

Hootsuite ran an experiment to test Instagram SEO against hashtags. SEO-optimized posts got 30% more reach and twice as many likes. So, if you want to reach a relevant audience that is actively looking for brands, products, and services similar to yours, Instagram SEO is the strategy for you.

Instagram SEO Ranking Factors

SEO, in general, is a bit of an art, a bit of a science. SEO on Instagram is no different. There is no exact formula for getting your account to the top of the search results.

However, there are three specific Instagram SEO ranking factors that help crawlers understand what content to provide in response to an Instagram search.

Text Search

Unsurprisingly, what someone types in the search bar is the most important search cue. Based on the search terms, Instagram looks for relevant usernames, biographies, captions, hashtags, and locations.

User activity

This includes hashtags and accounts the user has followed and interacted with, as well as posts they have viewed in the past, even from accounts they are not following. Accounts and hashtags that a user interacts with rank higher than those that they don’t interact with.

Even mutual connections matter. Take another look at the search results for “fashion”. Almost all the best results have reciprocal links. Your own results for the same search will differ depending on the accounts you are already connected to.

Popularity Signals

Content that is already popular is more likely to rank higher in search results. Instagram determines popularity using signals such as the number of clicks, likes, shares, and followers.

10 Instagram SEO Tactics to Increase Your Reach

1. Use Instagram SEO Keywords in Captions

You need to understand what search terms people use to find content like yours and then include them in your captions.

Free SEO tools for Instagram keyword discovery include Google Analytics (to see which keywords are driving traffic to your site) and Google Trends, to identify other related keywords to test in your Instagram posts.

Hootsuite Insights from Brandwatch is another good SEO keyword research tool on Instagram. Use the word cloud feature to find common words used in relation to your brand, industry, or hashtags.

You can also use the Instagram search bar itself to find relevant keyword phrases. Start typing a keyword in the search bar and you’ll see suggested keywords that you might want to add to your existing list of keywords.

2. Use SEO-friendly hashtags

Instagram shared some tips for using hashtags to show up in search results:

• Use only relevant hashtags.
• Use a combination of well-known, niche, and specific (e.g. branded or campaign-related) hashtags.
• Limit the number of hashtags to 3-5 per post.
• Don’t use inappropriate or overly generic hashtags like #explorepage.

And here’s an important social ad: Hiding hashtags in comments no longer works! Hashtags must be placed directly in the caption in order to influence search results.

So what are the best hashtags for SEO on Instagram?

It depends on your business and your audience. To understand which hashtags are already driving traffic to your posts, take a look at Instagram statistics. Insights for any post will tell you how many impressions for that post were generated from the hashtags.

If you’ve used multiple hashtags, Instagram analytics won’t tell you which ones did the hard work. But if you stick to the recommended 3-5 hashtags, you should be able to identify which ones consistently drive traffic over time.

You can also use social listening to find out what hashtags your target audience, your competitors, and influencers in your industry are already using.

Finally, just like for Instagram SEO keywords, you can use the Instagram search bar for some hashtag research.

Enter a keyword in the search bar, then click “Tags”to see the most popular hashtags for that keyword.

3. Optimize your alt text

Instagram uses object recognition technology to generate an automatic description of each photo for those using a screen reader. This information also provides information to the Instagram algorithm and search results about the content of your photo.

Of course, automatic alt text will never be as detailed as human-generated alt text. For example, here’s an auto-generated alt text for a photo I posted on Instagram.

Source: @ckjnewberry

The photo is indeed a bull moose. While I described the photo as a bull moose in the caption, adding custom alt text here will improve the experience for people with visual impairments, as well as send better Instagram SEO signals for alt text.

To add alt text when posting a photo, scroll down to the bottom of the screen where you write your caption and tap More Settings.

In the Accessibility section, click Write Alt Text and add a photo description that includes relevant keywords.

Be sure to follow Instagram’s guidelines for alt text:

• Add context about objects, concepts and locations
• Include any text that appears on the image
• Aim for 2-3 sentences.

To view an existing photo or add alt text, open a photo and tap the three dots icon, then tap Edit. In the bottom right corner of the image, click Edit Alt Text.

Enter alternative text, then tap the blue check mark.

For more information, check out our full post on working with alt text on Instagram.

4. Use subtitles for videos

Instagram has auto-generated video captions, which is great for accessibility. But the added benefit of using video captions that include your target keywords is that they provide more context for SEO – both on Instagram and on regular search engines.

Adding subtitles, in essence, allows search crawlers to better understand the content of your video than a simple title.

We have an entire post that walks you through how to use video captions and captions on Instagram, so head over there for more details.

5. Post at the right time

Posting at the right time is an important factor in early engagement, which affects the popularity ranking signal. Knowing the best time to post ensures your content gets promoted in searches while it’s still relevant and fresh.

The Best Time to Post feature in Hootsuite (found under Analytics) tells you the best time to post on Instagram (as well as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok). Recommendations are based on your past performance and tailored to your unique audience and their social media activity patterns.

But there is no “best” time to post everything. The Best Time to Post tool goes one step further and suggests different times for four key goals:

• Expand Reach
• Raise awareness
• Increasing Engagement
• Attract traffic

This allows you to match each piece of content to specific business goals and optimize your publishing schedule for maximum efficiency.

6. Build on your niche

The tips we’ve talked about so far are for individual posts. We now move on to talking about improving your account’s visibility in search.

The purpose of the Instagram search feature is to provide users with the most relevant results. One way to signal this relevance is to have a permanent theme for your account. Pick a niche and generally stay in it by posting relevant content that matches a consistent set of keywords.

This total body of work will tell the Instagram search engine that you have more to offer than just one particular post.

Focusing on a niche is also a good way to build loyal and active followers. While this is a great goal in itself, it also promotes visibility in search since engagement is important for a popularity ranking signal.

7. Add Location to Your Bio

Include location in your bio if it is relevant to your business. Only business accounts can add location, so that’s another reason to switch to a business account if you haven’t already.

To add a profile location for Instagram bio SEO, open the Instagram app and tap your profile icon. Click Edit Profile, then Contact Options. Enter your address, specific or general, as you like. You can enter your specific postal address if that’s important, or just use your city.

Make sure you enable the slider for displaying contact information.

Your location only appears on your profile page in the app, not on the web version of Instagram. But once it’s linked to your account, it becomes a ranking signal for the Instagram search engine, whether your audience uses the app or the web.

For more Instagram search points, make sure your business location can be tagged to appear on an Instagram searchable map.

Browse the map: ? by clicking on location tags in Feed or Stories ? by searching for city or hashtags in Explore pic.twitter.com/BWY3M4HNOI

— Instagram (@instagram) July 19, 2022

To do this, you need to connect your Instagram account to your Facebook business page and edit the address on your Facebook page. It’s a little tricky, so we’ve created a video to walk you through it.

8. Engage with accounts that rank for your target keywords

Engaging with accounts that already rank for your target keywords helps Instagram understand what niche your account is in with a user activity ranking signal.

But beyond that, interacting with other Instagram users is a good way to encourage them to come back to you. And, as we’ve said a few times, engagement is an extremely important popularity ranking signal, so it’s an easy way to double your ranking factors. It’s also just a general Instagram best practice!

9. Follow the recommendations

Instagram search results count towards the Instagram Recommendations Guide. Accounts that break these rules appear lower in search results or don’t appear in search results at all.

Keep in mind that the Guidelines are more restrictive than the Community Guidelines. In short, if you violate the Community Guidelines, your content will be permanently removed from Instagram. If you go against the Recommendation Guidelines, your content will still show up on the platform, but it will be harder to find.

Instagram Search does not recommend content that is “low quality, objectionable or sensitive”or content that “may be inappropriate for younger viewers.”Some specific examples of what NOT to do include:

• Clickbait or Engagement Lure
• Exaggerated health claims
• Non-original content copied from another source
• Misleading statements or content
• Buying likes

Make sure you’re on the right side of the Referral Guide by checking your account status.

In your profile, tap the menu icon, then Settings > Settings (or Account, depending on your account type) > Account Status.

Here you will see if what you posted breaks the rules and what you should do about it.

10. Consider Meta Verified (Authors Only)

Meta is currently testing a paid review package that includes “increased visibility and accessibility in certain areas of the platform, such as search, comments, and recommendations.”

At the moment, Meta Verified is only being tested in Australia and New Zealand. The paid nature of the program has caused some backlash, so it’s not yet clear where it will go. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on for potentially higher SERPs.

Note that Meta Verified is only available (at least for now) to creators, not companies.

Frequently Asked Questions About Instagram SEO

Is Instagram good for SEO?

Instagram includes many ways to help you improve search engine optimization both within the app and on external search engines like Google. Keywords, hashtags, and locations are important when it comes to SEO for Instagram.

Do hashtags help SEO?

Hashtags help SEO on Instagram, but only if they are directly relevant to your content and help provide context that helps the Instagram search engine understand what your content is about. Using too many hashtags or irrelevant hashtags won’t help your SEO (and potentially hurt engagement).