Instagram is a social platform with billions of users. It is always good for brands to have a good fanbase on Instagram. Nowadays, not only brands but people who are ‘influencers’ are also working to gain followers on their personal accounts. In this Knowledge Graph we will learn about the importance of Instagram followers and some unique suggestions to gain Instagram followers by doing SEO. These Instagram SEO tips are going to help everyone. Being a Melbourne SEO agency, we would like to share a few methods and best practices to do SEO for your Instagram profiles and pages. This blog will help people who are looking to increase Instagram followers organically.
Why Instagram?
Every business needs a social media presence and Instagram is commonly used. A huge number of android and iOS users have installed Instagram on their devices. There are more than one billion users available on Instagram (Source: Instagram Users Official). This mobile only platform is making a difference to social media marketing.
Instagram is mobile centric. It is easy to use Instagram and does not require heavy devices i.e. laptops and desktop to run a campaign. You can manage everything with your mobile device in hand. For example, you can update photos, write descriptions, create hashtags, run campaigns and do everything else with only your mobile device.
Since it is an important app and amazing social media platform, everyone is looking for growth on Instagram. As we said earlier, we will learn about a few cool tips to grow using Instagram.
Instagram Profile Optimisation
Instagram profile optimisation is important as it helps to represent your business or your identity on the platform. Your profile name and profile description are searchable and can appear in search engine result pages (SERP). This is a useful tool to search for people and businesses and helps to create a decent profile. When it comes to optimisation, you should start with a profile description. It is a short summary which represents everything about your Instagram profile. Make good use of it and use targeted keywords in your bio.
Once you have prepared a description, you must create a unique profile username. Develop a username which represents your brand and identity. For example, our username is @sharpinstinctsmelbourne. Make sure the username is easy to remember and find so that someone can search for it and find you or your business. For example, adding the ‘melbourne’ location helps.
Pro Tip: We would advise you to create a username which has your brand name or keyword based out on your product or services.
ALT Text on Images
Alt Text is a good SEO method for Image optimisation. You could add ALT text on Instagram images as well. This feature allows users to write captions for their photos. However, this feature was introduced to help users who are visually impaired. As soon as we add ALT text on images, Instagram automatically pop up the added ALT text on images. This makes it easier to search for images based on the associated text.
Instagram Analytics
Understanding user behaviour is always important for any kind of SEO. In Instagram, you can understand user behaviour with Instagram analytics. This is an essential tool for Instagram SEO. You should always have better understanding of your audience. This will help you develop a great Instagram Marketing Strategy. If you don’t have a strong marketing strategy, you might lose your existing followers.
Instagram is not only a social media platform. It provides the opportunity for business owners to market their product and grow their audience. A well-developed profile can help you to boost sales by generating leads through social media platforms. Instagram can help you generating leads if your content is strong enough to attract a large group of people.
Use of Hashtags
We have all seen or heard “Trending Hashtag” or “Hashtags”. Most of the big social media platforms have hashtag features. Hashtags are also important for Instagram SEO. When a hashtag is added, your post is added to the directory of that hashtag. The “#” symbol is added to a word or the combination of words to attract target audiences to your post. For example, We are Marketing Consultants in Melbourne and if we want to show our work or market our product we will use the Hashtag #Marketing or #MarketingConsultants.
However, we are not the only business who uses this hashtag. There are other businesses and people who are doing similar work and use the similar or same hashtag. As soon as we add this hashtag, our post is listed in this hashtag and people who follow #Marketing or #MarketingConsultants will be able to see all posts under this particular Hashtag. When the users search hashtags in the search box of Instagram they can easily find our post.
When it comes to applying hashtags, you have two options.
- Create a Hashtag for your service or product.
- Use the existing viral Hashtag.
Pro Tip: Prioritise the name of your product or service when creating hashtags for your posts. You can also focus on relative trending hashtags. Capitalization is also an important factor while creating hashtags. For example, with #MarketingConsultants you can see that the first letter of the words Marketing and Consultants are capitalised to make it easy to read and understand.
Account Linking
In Instagram, you have an option to link your other social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook. It is an advantage to promote your account through other social media platforms. It’s good to share your profile page on other social media channels to receive direct visitors. Direct visitors do not impact your SEO score, but it is good at maintaining your CTR.
Call-To-Action Buttons Implementation
Implementing call to action buttons are worthwhile for your profile representation as well as engagement. It is also a great way to encourage audiences to engage with your posts. Given below are a few methods to implement call to action buttons:
- Like your photos
- Tag their Friends
- Comment on pictures
There are a lot of users who like to see pictures only. You can use this feature as an additional tool to drive greater engagement as well.
Instagram Stories
Stories are trending and large social media platforms such as Facebook allow users to add stories. Also the highly-used WhatsApp messaging platform (owned by Facebook) also has the stories feature. Instagram allows users to add stories for 24 hours. But Instagram stories has a few advance features such as:
- Adding Stickers
- Creating Polls
- Tag Locations
- Use emojis
- Send to Button
- Questions and Answers
Every feature has its own value. If you use them wisely, you can drive better engagement on your Instagram profile. For example, you can use the Q&A option to collect user feedback and suggestions. Or, you can tag your location to attract a local audience. You can upload images and videos to create Instagram stories and use its additional features.
Additional Instagram SEO Tips
Given below are a few additional Instagram SEO Tips which you can consider while drafting Marketing Strategies for Instagram Growth:
- Develop posting calendar to manage post.
- Keep the post frequency in mind.
- Experiment with hashtags.
- Create stunning stories.
- Learn to use fonts, emojis, and characters
- Online contests and prizes for product or services promotion
FAQs
Does Instagram Help in SEO?
Instagram is a social media platform and it doesn’t have any direct impact on your website SEO score. You could do well on Instagram by applying good social media methods which are completely different from web search engine optimization.
Is Instagram Searchable on Google?
Your Instagram profile description and username are searchable. But your post can’t make it to search engine result page (SERP). The vast majority of Instagram posts are not indexed in the search results.
How do you rank on Instagram?
Instagram is a social media platform not a search engine. The ranking concept is for search engines only. In Instagram, you can become featured under different categories. For this, you must use multiple sets of keywords and convert them into hashtags. People who are following those hashtags can see your posts and might follow your profile.
What is a good reach rate on Instagram?
Instagram reach rate is the number of people who have seen your post divided by the total number of your page or profile followers. As an industry-standard, an engagement rate on Instagram between 1% and 3% is generally good, and it is the average we see on an influencer’s profile. You could grow your page or profile if you are monitoring the reach rate regularly and working to increase it.
Top Instagram SEO Tips to Increase Your Reach in 2023