Instagram SEO Tips: 3 Proven Strategies to Boost IG Visibility and Engagement

As a software widely used by users around the world, Instagram has become an important channel for many cross-border e-commerce companies to conduct marketing and promotion. Through a reasonable Instagram SEO strategy, companies can effectively increase brand exposure, accurately reach target customers, and thus stand out in the fierce market competition.

This article will introduce in detail how to comprehensively improve the visibility of a company's products or content on Instagram through keyword layout, Alt text optimization and Hashtag use, helping companies achieve their marketing goals.

What is Instagram SEO?

Instagram SEO is a strategy to increase visibility by optimizing account information and content. Through this process, your products or posts can be seen by more users on Instagram, thereby increasing the possibility of being purchased.

Importance of Instagram SEO

1. Improve account visibility

It is not enough to post wonderful content on Instagram. Only users who already follow your account may see it. For businesses or creators who want to expand their influence, it is a more critical step to let more target audiences discover and follow their accounts. By implementing Instagram SEO strategies, you can effectively increase the visibility of products and content, thereby bringing more attention and traffic to the brand.

2. Connect with your target customers

Consumers often search for products or services they are interested in on social media, rather than just relying on search engines. By optimizing account information and content on Instagram, users can more easily pay attention to companies when searching. Such optimization can establish a closer connection between potential customers and brands, helping companies to accurately reach target customers.

Three Instagram SEO tips to help you increase your visibility

1. Keyword usage

(1) Set the user name of the enterprise account

If the company is not well-known, it is recommended to add product keywords to the user name. The naming formula can be [brand + product keywords]. For example, if your company is engaged in jewelry, you can set the Instagram account name to [brand name + jewelry] to facilitate potential users to search for the company account through keywords. We can also see by searching [jewelry] on Instagram that many users with a large number of fans also use this simple naming method so that users can understand the direction of the company's products at a glance.

(2) Use your primary and secondary keywords in your profile

The primary keywords refer to the core business of the enterprise, and the secondary keywords are extended words surrounding the primary keywords.

For example, if the primary keyword is "jewelry", the secondary keywords can be "gold", "silver", "manual", "necklace", "Crystal", etc. The role of secondary keywords is to cover a wider range of searches. For example, if a user wants to buy a ring, they may directly search for "ring" instead of "jewelry". By incorporating "ring" as a secondary keyword in the personal profile or post content, the company's Instagram account has a better chance of being searched.

(3) Place keywords in your posts

Similar to Google SEO, keyword placement in Instagram posts is also an important strategy. You can mention keywords in the title, beginning, and end, and naturally embed keywords in the middle to increase the chances of your content being retrieved, but make sure that the keywords are used smoothly and do not affect the logic of the entire article.

2. Optimize the Alt text of Instagram photos

（1）What is Alt text?

The Instagram Alt text feature is to add a more accurate and concise description to the image to explain the content of the image. When the image cannot be loaded, Instagram will prioritize the Alt text content. In addition, because the platform cannot crawl the image, but can read the Alt text, setting accurate Alt text can improve the ranking of posts on Instagram.

It is worth mentioning that if the Alt text is added properly, the post will have a chance to be crawled by Google and displayed on the Google search results page.

(2) How to add Alt text to photos

Before you publish your post, scroll down to [Advanced Settings] - [Enter Alternative Text] - [Enter Alt text] to describe the image using alternative text.

(3) How to add Alt text more accurately

If you don’t know what Alt text to use, you can use Google Images to find it.

Click the camera on the right side of the search box - Click [upload a file] to upload the picture you want to post on Instagram

After uploading the image, check the keywords displayed in the Released search, which can be used as a reference for Alt Tex alternative text.

3. Use Hashtags in your posts

Hashtags are the common language of Instagram users. Creators will use hashtags to increase the natural exposure of their posts, and users will browse more posts that they are interested in through hashtags. Under normal circumstances, an Instagram post can be set with 30 hashtags, but in actual operation, it is not recommended to use up all 30 tags. If you blindly add a lot of tags, not only will you not be able to increase exposure, but you may also be limited. It is recommended to allocate tags to "2 popular tags + 6 related tags + 2 brand tags" (the specific number can be adjusted flexibly)

(1) Use popular hashtags

You can use one or two popular tags and use the huge traffic of popular tags to attract initial browsing. But there is also a problem with popular hashtags. Many users will use the same tags, and your post will be easily squeezed out under this tag, leaving you with little exposure time, so you should use it in combination with other tags.

(2) Use hashtags related to the post

You can use some alternative tags with mid- and bottom-level traffic to improve the ranking of posts in specific tags. It is a good practice to use tags related to the post. On the one hand, such tags are strongly related to the content. If users see the tweet through the tag, they will be attracted by the content of the post. On the other hand, such tags belong to mid-level traffic tags, and the competition is relatively small. The company's posts can be ranked in the top positions in these tags. For example, the tag related to "jewelry" can be "minimalist design".

(3) Use your labels

Self-made tags generally use brand tags, such as "#salesmartly “. It should be noted that in addition to brand tags, self-made tags are generally not recommended, because newly created tags have lower traffic and may weaken the search-matching effect of the content.

How to know if Instagram SEO is working?

If you are using Instagram SEO strategy for the first time, it is especially important to track the results. Through data analysis, you can more accurately understand the execution of SEO strategy and optimize it.

1. Analyze your post data (using Instagram Insights )

Instagram Insights is a built-in data analysis function of Instagram. After converting Instagram to a professional account, you can view the account data of the past 7 days, 14 days, and 21 days, including:

Account coverage: How many users have read your post?
Number of interactive accounts: How many users like, comment, and forward your posts
Total number of followers: The total number of followers of the account

By analyzing the data of accounts and posts, companies can evaluate the effectiveness of SEO strategies. It is recommended that companies regularly record, analyze and summarize account data to form long-term operating strategies to optimize account content.

2. Analyze customer data (using the SaleSmartly data analysis function)

Compared to the basic account analysis functions provided by Instagram Insights, SaleSmartly focuses more on analyzing Instagram sales leads and customer interaction data, which are crucial for companies to increase profits and optimize customer service. SaleSmartly 's channel analysis function provides the following services:

Customer profile: How many users initiate conversations or inquiries through Instagram
New trends: Through trend charts and type distribution charts, you can intuitively understand the new trends and type distribution of customers
Statistical customer allocation: Displays the customer data and customer service reception status of each account in detail, helping to reasonably allocate reception tasks to team members.

Based on the customer behavior data provided by SaleSmartly and the post data analyzed by Instagram Insights, companies can analyze what visual content and copy posted in the past time can best stimulate the interest of target customers, allowing target customers to initiate conversations and learn about the company's products, thereby better selling in future discount activities, product displays and marketing promotions.