“At present, there are one billion active monthly users on Instagram and the number is growing every year. Instagram is a visual platform that helps you build a more personal connection with customers. It even has a higher brand engagement rate, which means that the audience on Instagram is more open to branded content compared to the audience on any other social media platform. Therefore, businesses should invest in SEO services to run a promotional campaign that creates brand awareness among the audience. This will help boost traffic and conversions,”says Business Strategist Hirav Shah.
Shah adds, “With a large number of active users on Instagram, businesses have a great opportunity to reach and engage with new markets. In fact, Instagram marketing is more of a necessity than the choice to promote your account, increase your engagement rate, and get new followers. Instagram rewards well-optimized pages with a good ranking.”
Therefore, optimizing your Instagram account is essential, and here are a few steps according to Hirav Shah:
Come up with a strategy: This is one of the most overlooked factors but the most important step in optimizing your Instagram profile. So, sit down and think about what you are trying to achieve with Instagram marketing. Once your goals are clear, it will help you with setting up your keywords.
Optimize your profile for search: Just as Google has a search bar where you type in a term or phrase, Instagram also has a search bar to help find different accounts. Instagram search results are based on various factors like the people you follow, photos, and videos that you have liked, whom you are connected to, etc. They are also based on keywords. When a user searches on Instagram, it sorts through many Instagram accounts to find the relevant account that has the keyword. So, make sure to optimize your profile for relevant keywords.
– Name and username: Username is the first thing that Instagram will research against the user’s keyword. So, keep your username simple and include a relevant keyword related to your brand so that you will be found easily. Make sure not to include any symbols that can confuse the audience.
– Instagram bio: Just like your username, your bio is also essential and should be optimized with keywords relevant to your business. You can also add clickable hashtags to improve your chances of visibility.
Use target keywords throughout the content: Include appropriate keywords throughout your content. There are three main places where keywords should be used wisely:
– Bio: Primary target keyword, that describes your brand and business, should be included in your company name. Use secondary keywords in your bio. Secondary keywords are words or phrases that complement primary keywords and they expand the meaning of primary keywords. They reveal more about the brand and the product.
– Post captions: Writing a good caption for your Instagram profile is an art and also ensures that it helps your content to appear in the social platform search results. You can do this in two ways:
* If you are posting something related to your product, use secondary keywords in the captions.
* If you are promoting your content, then use keywords that are related to the topic.
– Hashtags: Relevant hashtags enable you to optimize posts and add additional search-optimized keywords, and there is no need for expanding the captions. Optimizing hashtags for SEO enables you to include keywords and phrases in your captions. Do not use the same group of hashtags under every post, as it could be regarded as spam. Never copy and paste the same hashtag on every post.
Create your own alternative text: Instagram alt text was first introduced to help visually impaired people to enjoy Instagram. But alt text can also be used for Instagram SEO. You can access the alt text option by selecting the advanced setting when creating a new post. Making changes to your Instagram alt text helps to rank your post better and reach out to more of your followers.
Get tagged: Apart from optimizing your profile and content, getting tags is also important. Tags cannot be controlled and are similar to backlinks for web pages. When someone tags your account in one of their posts or stories, users who see the post can click the tag to go to your profile and this is a great way to drive discovery. Getting a tag shows Instagram that your content is valued and people become interested in it.
Track with analytics: Make sure to track your SEO strategy to know your social media growth. This will help you to refine your content accordingly.
4 Tools to Improve User Experience on Instagram
There are many tools available that help to manage your Instagram account. These tools are apps that aim at enhancing the user experience. They help to acquire detailed Instagram stats and analytical data, manage your followings, improve photo experience, and to explore niche.
– Picodash: This is a free online-based app that brings Instagram feed to the web. It has many options such as an extensive ready-to-use list of Instagram influencers, log in with different accounts, advanced search filters, and search and post comments on follower’s photos. It has a user-friendly interface that lets you identify the most influential players of your niche and the promotion strategies they use.
– Unfollowgram: This is a web-based app that lets you manage your Instagram following. It also allows you to clean up your friends’ list and delete users that you do not interact with. It helps you see your followers, people whom you follow, and people whom you follow but don’t follow back.
– Instafy: This is an app that allows you to check the popularity of Instagram pics and check the basic Instagram stats. It is not as powerful as the other tools but provides you the basic stats on your Instagram popularity.
– Statigram: This is a web interface that offers the largest set of options to interact with your following. It also has a Statistics tab that gives you a brief overview of your Instagram activity and the activities within the last seven days. It also offers advanced analytical data regarding your most engaged followers, most liked and commented pics, filter usage stats, an average lifespan of your media, and many more.
Business Strategist Hirav Shah concludes the discussion by saying, “Optimizing Instagram SEO is important to gain visibility and traffic. However, you cannot expect immediate results because SEO is a long-term strategy. Instagram SEO is different from Google SEO. If you want to get organized, plan out your Instagram content, and implement a strong Instagram marketing strategy, then approach a reliable provider of SEO services. They will help you with improving the discoverability of your brand and content to gain more traffic and sales.“
