What You Need to Know About Instagram SEO in 2023: 3 Simple Steps to Get Discovered
You spend hours, week after week creating content for your business.
You brainstorm ideas, design graphics, and craft the *perfect* caption. You take a big breath, click that blue “share” button, cross your fingers, and go about your day.
But later, when you open up Instagram to see how your post performed, you’re sucker punched to find it received just a handful of likes and *GASP* it only reached…25 people?!?!!
Does this sob story sound familiar to you? If so, I promise you’re not alone.
Instagram Reach (the metric that tells you the number of people who have seen your post) has been on a steady decline for the last 3-4 years.
Despite how personal it might feel, it’s not because Instagram is punishing you. And it’s not (necessarily) because your content sucks.
This change is due largely to updates made to how the algorithm works. If you were an Instagram user prior to 2016, you know that long gone are the days of a chronological feed. And in its place now lives the highly controversial algorithmic feed.
People like to make the algorithm out to be the bad guy, but the truth is that it plays an irreplaceable role with how we discover and interact with content on Instagram.
The algorithm's entire job is to gather information needed to process every single piece of content on the app, to determine what the post is about and who is most likely to find it interesting.
But how exactly does the algorithm gather this information?
It looks to a variety of signals about both your account and your content to decide whose feed to deliver it to. And while we don’t know all the nitty gritty tech-y details on how the algorithm works, there are a few key steps you can take to optimize both your account and your content to increase your reach and your chance of being discovered.
So let’s dive in!
What is Instagram SEO?
With over 2 billion monthly active users and more than 95 million photos and videos posted each day, the Instagram algorithm is tasked with a pretty big job. This is where a little something called Instagram SEO, or search engine optimization, comes into play.
Even though “SEO” sounds intimidating, the term really just refers to the process of improving (i.e. optimizing) your account and your content to increase its visibility. Instagram SEO plays a huge role in both reach and discovery, which is why knowing how to use it strategically can be such a game-changer for small business owners.
How should you be using SEO on Instagram?
The most effective way to improve your SEO ranking (and therefore reach more people on Instagram) is to help the algorithm accurately identify your content. Instagram does the hard part. You just give it an extra nudge in the right direction.
Here are 3 simple steps you can take to improve your ranking and boost your discoverability on Instagram.
Use Keywords in Your Name & Bio
Before you worry about perfecting your content, you need to take a good hard look at your Instagram name and bio. Why? Because the text you use in these two fields will inform how and if your account shows up in search results. This isn’t just a rumored recommendation, it’s a best practice outlined specifically by Instagram itself,
“Search results are matched by text. Using an Instagram handle or profile name that’s related to the content of your posts is your best bet for showing up in relevant searches.”
Make the most of your valuable account real estate by including strategic keywords (the terms your ideal client or customer is most likely to be searching for) in both your name and your bio text.
Every business and account is different, so there’s no one “perfect” formula to follow, but a few elements I advise my clients to consider when trying to create a searchable profile are:
Your job title
The problem you help solve
Your solutions and offers
The type of content you share
Your location
Once you’ve ensured that your Instagram name and bio are clear and contain relevant keywords, you’re ready to move on to step two.
Include Keywords in Your Captions
At the end of 2020, Instagram introduced keyword searching to the platform. Meaning it was no longer required for users to search only by hashtags or handles. This change is what allows us (and your ideal client!) to now use the search bar as an actual search engine.
This is why descriptive and relevant keywords are SO crucial to incorporate not only in your bio, but within your captions as well! If you haven’t already, set aside some time this month to research some of the keywords and key phrases your ideal client or customer is using.
There are a number of online tools for keyword research, but my favorite technique for keyword research is engaging in conversation with your clients. What terms or questions do you find them repeating? Jot these down and then spend some time researching them on Instagram, Google, Pinterest, and Youtube.
Once you’ve compiled a good list, make it a point to incorporate those same words and phrases back into your caption copy to help get more eyes on your content.
Use Strategic Hashtags (and include them in your captions!)
Despite what you may have heard, hashtags are definitely not dead. (In fact, 90% of one of my clients’ reach for last month was due to high-performing hashtags!) The key is knowing how to use the right ones in the right way.
If you haven’t already, I recommend creating a few categorized lists or collections of specific and niche hashtags related to your account and content. Don’t use irrelevant hashtags and avoid generic ones like #smallbusiness or #happyfriday that are overused.
You can do hashtag research manually, or save time by using an automated smart tool like Flick (affiliate link) which I use personally for myself and all my clients. But the MOST important thing to remember about hashtags? Where you place them matters!
Once again, the following comes straight from Instagram…
“For a post to be found in Search, put keywords and hashtags in the caption, not the comments.”
So resist the aesthetic temptation to hide your hashtags within the comments section and be sure to include them right within your caption. If you’re worried about your content being too visually cluttered, just use a few line breaks to separate the body of your caption from your hashtags.
So to sum it all up…
Instagram SEO is an often overlooked but crucial part of ensuring that all your hard work creating content doesn’t go to waste. This understanding + these 3 simple steps will help you lay the foundation of a successful Instagram strategy for 2023.
If you found this post helpful, be sure to share it with your best biz pal!
