SEO, which is the basic element of organic growth, is used not only on the web but also on Instagram, one of the social channels.
With Instagram SEO, you can increase your engagement and views. In this way, you can add additional followers to your follower base and bring awareness to your brand. To achieve success and make money on Instagram, you should aim to reach your target audience in the right ways and respond to their requests and needs.
What is Instagram SEO?
Instagram SEO includes optimizations that will enable your business account on Instagram to reach more followers.
It is one of the needs we encounter very often, especially in e-commerce businesses trying to brand on different platforms. The benefits of doing SEO on Instagram with a wide content production network:
- Increases brand awareness.
- Allows you to reach your target audience from wide angles.
- Revitalizes your interaction metrics such as likes and views.
- Increases the number of followers and your audience.
- By allowing you to connect with your website or other social media channels, it positively affects your awareness and interactions.
- If you are a business interested in e-commerce, it allows your products to get in front of more people.
How to do Instagram SEO?
As with the web, SEO processes for your Instagram page are similar to a certain point. The reason for this is that the instagram algorithm and the google algorithm have similar working practices.
In order to make SEO optimizations on Instagram, you need to determine the type of your account well. Because each account serves a different purpose, so you should choose your niche well.
Then we can start optimizing your instagram account.
Select User Name
Choosing a username is the first and most important step. The most important thing here is to choose a name that is catchy, can attract followers, and is suitable for your branding.
The username you choose will increase the likelihood of users showing up in targeted searches. Of course, in order to achieve this, it is valuable to choose a name related to your field and appeal to your own audience!
If you have a website or different social media channels that you have opened before, you can use similar names, and for your brand, you can choose a username that directly includes your site name or brand name.
Add Readable Biography
The biography section is the area where we can get the first information and impression about Instagram accounts. In this area, you can create your biography with an interesting text to properly promote your brand or business and show your professionalism in the field you specialize in.
It is important to enter short, clear and accurate information about yourself in the biography section. Because many users are aware that there are millions of fake accounts on social media platforms and are trying to avoid such accounts. As everywhere, the issue of trust comes up here as well.
Your users or target audience should trust you and you should be sincere to them.
Attractive Profile Picture
Profile photos appear in a small circle on Instagram, but when you click on the profile photo, it grows a little bit. That’s why adding a striking and vibrant image will allow you to attract the attention of users even with small images.
Optimize Images on Your Account
Instagram is very lively due to its structure and is filled with more data every second. As it says in its own guides, it prefers live, optimized, high resolution images.
In addition, research shows that such images and videos get more reactions from users. Therefore, you should optimize the images and videos you will use in your account and offer more vivid and interesting formats.
Pay Attention to Hashtag Usage #
As we mentioned in my article on how to use hashtags on social media, Instagram is a platform that continues to be alive today in terms of tags and can provide positive effects on interactions.
So how to use hashtags on Instagram? Here are a few points you can pay attention to:
- Avoid using hashtags that are irrelevant to the content.
- The number of hashtags should be equivalent and proportional to your content and description.
- Do not use too many because Instagram allows 30 hashtags. Otherwise, it may perceive your content as spam.
- You can use your target keyword as your first tag.
Make Post Descriptions SEO Friendly
The description texts you enter in your Instagram post or reels videos are one of the areas that allow you to reach more people on the platform.
The keywords in the texts you enter in the description field are important for your Instagram SEO efforts. For this reason, I recommend that you edit the descriptions that need to be optimized and consider rewriting them if necessary.
See. How to Write SEO Friendly Caption?
Follow the Trends
Instagram trends change as fast as other platforms. In order to keep up with the change, you need to be a follower of it. Therefore, following Instagram trends (trending voice, trending trend, etc.) is another way to keep your brand up to date and reflect to the algorithm that you are actively producing content on current issues.
Instagram loves active accounts. It is interested in whether we are regular and up-to-date as much as the quality of your posts. Because it knows that the user follows the current one!
Link Stories
Especially if you are aiming for a conversion on your site and want to do this through social media channels, you can prepare stories that describe your content on the web in a small and intriguing way.
You can add links to the stories you have prepared and use the Instagram highlights area for the permanence of the stories.
Share Regular Reels Videos
The importance of reels videos in reaching the target audience is obvious!
Therefore, you can produce more reels videos on topics related to your field and increase your number of interactions by shooting reels videos on trends as mentioned above.
Advertise
You can advertise on the platform to contribute to your Instagram SEO efforts. Of course, I recommend that you first perform the steps above for this.
You can prepare remarkable ads and ad texts for an optimized account to reach more audiences. Another point you should pay attention to when advertising; You should definitely strategize on target keywords related to your own industry.
Things to consider when advertising on Instagram:
- Engaging visual
- Ad text and descriptions suitable for the target audience
- Geographical location
- CTA
- Receiving the message and trying to activate it
Things to Consider While Doing Instagram SEO
SEO can have disadvantages as well as benefits. To avoid the cons and get more engagement, you should pay attention to some points in Instagram SEO.
These are:
- Using follower and likes bots(!)
It is a process that can damage your account and account activity. You may see an increase in the short term, but in the long term, you can deal with penalties.
- Using stolen content.
Your content must always be original, regardless of web or social media. Otherwise it will not be accepted.
- Deleting or shelving shared posts.
You can delete or archive your posts. However, I recommend not doing this for new posts or content shared very recently.
- Following multiple accounts quickly and trying to create interaction.
Again, it is a situation that can be perceived as spam. I recommend creating the right interactions to avoid this situation.
- It does not provide interaction!
If you want engagement, you need to engage! Interactions work live in the algorithm just like in our lives. Having an active account requires not only sharing content but also liking and commenting from time to time.
Contact me for SEO Consultant and Social Media Consultant, let’s grow your business together!
