Mastering Instagram SEO: A Complete Optimization Guide What is Instagram SEO?

One of the biggest drivers of traffic in recent times for businesses has been social media platforms. Of them, Instagram has become a household name.

With more than 2.11 billion monthly users on Instagram, it is an understatement to say that it is at the forefront of every conversation. Instagram SEO can help businesses leverage this platform to improve their numbers.

But just getting on Instagram and firing up a few posts just won't cut it. There is too much competition for that to work. So, the best way to get the most out of your Instagram profile is through Instagram SEO. But first, let's highlight the benefits of doing SEO for your business.

Benefits of Doing Instagram SEO

1) Improved Engagement Rate

Better engagement can be the difference between the success and failure of a brand today.

It comes as no surprise to anyone that the global engagement rates are coming down year on year. But the reason for this is because of competition and companies that keep pushing out mediocre content on their social media handles.

But with focused Instagram SEO, you can get ahead of your competition and improve your audience engagement.

With SEO, you get proven ways to improve the quality of content and the benefit of keywords. Just choosing the right keywords and hashtags can bring you considerable improvement when it comes to reach.

And the best part about all this is that it doesn't cost as much as traditional marketing methods. The added bonus of using Instagram SEO is that you can also closely track the marketing money spent and so get a much more accurate picture of your ROI.

2) Long-Term Content Visibility

There are no two ways about it - creating quality content is time-consuming and expensive. And once it is published, with the high numbers of content from other brands, it just doesn't reach the people it's meant for.

One of the most glaring reasons why is that most campaigns are not 'engineered' for reach. This is exactly what you get when you sign up for SEO.

SEO campaigns focus on several metrics and one of the more important ones is visibility. This is great for businesses because their goal is to ensure that their audience gets to see what they've made for them!

There are several ways Instagram SEO achieves this. Some of the most widely used features of Instagram are hashtags and captions. Adding relevant keywords to these can get you a lot of visibility on the platform. With SEO, you can determine what keywords you should be focusing on to get the best results.

3) Higher ROI on Branded Content

Branded content is an expensive proposition for all sizes of companies. So, it can hurt the finances when a new content is not doing well with its audience.

The solution to diminishing returns for marketing is to partner with a professional SEO agency. They can help you set up important social marketing campaigns like influencer outreach and targeted ads.

These SEO-related pipelines can give you a much better ROI for your marketing dollar. Another impressive aspect of SEO is that it allows detailed metrics so businesses can see exactly where they're losing money and improve their process.

Instagram SEO can also help you choose the right types of posts to publish which can improve your social media performance. Also, you don't waste time with non-performing keywords which saves you time and money.

Step-by-step Process to Optimize Your Instagram Profile

1. Decide on Your Goals with the Campaign

One of the first things you should do is decide what you're looking to achieve with Instagram SEO. There are hundreds of metrics that you can work on with SEO, but without proper direction, your campaign will not produce the results you want.

A few of these favorable outcomes are improved visibility, follower engagement, and improved brand authority. Each of these can offer you a particular set of advantages.

Ideally, the goals you want for your campaign are best confirmed with your SEO agency. They have the insight to help you choose the right ones for your brand.

Discuss with them the pros and cons of each type of metric and what would be best suited to your brand.

A great example of choosing the right path is the team behind The Barbie Movie. They chose visibility and engagement with their The Barbie Selfie Generator on Instagram and it was a huge hit with the audience!

2. Use Instagram Stories and Reels

Short-form videos are one of the best ways to get the attention of your audience. Instagram Stories and Reels are the most highly engaged sub-platforms and show no signs of letting up.

Instagram was one of the first brands to pioneer these and now there are short videos on most of the other social platforms - if you can't beat them, join them! But, with the increased competition in the market, just uploading short videos is never going to be enough.

Businesses need to creatively engineer how they approach this type of content. The first thing to do would be to choose the right subject for reels and stories.

Product features with captions are a great way to create a buzz for your brand along with informing your audience.

Another great way to get people's attention is to post behind-the-scenes videos as short videos. Be sure to use stickers and trending hashtags for your reels!

3. Leverage Geotags for Better Visibility

It is surprising that even today many companies don't understand the importance of geotags and how they can help you get the most out of Instagram. Even though we are catering to a global market, Instagram geotags can help funnel audiences in a particular area towards a specific product or service.

This study shows that posts with geotags see a drastic 79% increase in engagement. In simple terms, that is almost a two-fold increase for just adding a tag!

And it's not just about the local audience, even other influencers and businesses will reach out to you based on your geotags. It can help strike up productive collaborations within your community which can increase your visibility and reach.

Last but not least, geotags have a pronounced effect on your discoverability through the Explore tag on Instagram. This is a huge source of potential leads for your business.

4. Create Contests and Other Campaigns

One-way Instagram SEO can help you set up 'big engagement' posts is through the creation of contests and polls.

It is no secret that people love to win a contest and for this simple reason, it is one of the highest engaged brand content formats out there.

When creating contests, it is important that you generate enough pre-content hype surrounding the event. Getting word about it to your target demographic is as important as the execution itself.

Instagram SEO can help you create compelling social media campaigns that focus not just on Instagram but also on other social media platforms. This results in a more cohesive PR campaign that can bring all the people to your Instagram Contests.

Remember to use branded captions and hashtags so you can get more engagement when shared.

Contests are probably the best way to increase followers organically. Check out this contest from Oris Watches in collaboration with Audi.

5. Collaborate with Niche Influencers

It comes as no surprise that one of the biggest factors for attracting a crowd is influencers, yes, even today. The concept of influencers is not new, they've been around as long as social media has existed. But today, more brands are leveraging their audience and creating content that relates to them.

Influencers today are classified into several categories depending on their follower counts. The one thing that is different today compared to earlier, is that brands don't only choose mega influencers because they have a huge number of followers.

In fact, the reverse is true - businesses are working more with smaller influencers (micro and macro)! The reason is that smaller influencers have a more 'focused' follower group. Their engagement rates are pretty high and this makes them a great candidate for partnering up with.

A good example of this team-up in action is LaCroix Water with news broadcaster Andrea Albers.

6. Ensure Captions Are Creative and SEO-Friendly

The goal of Instagram SEO is to ensure that your posts get boosted through the roof! To achieve this, SEO will help optimize your captions and ensure they're creative as well as SEO-friendly.

Professional SEO is not about stuffing the maximum number of keywords possible into a description. The caption should be short, succinct, and engaging for your audience. While it is good to include a few emojis, don't go overboard with it as it can cause the opposite effect!

Consult your SEO agency for the right hashtags to use on your post. Ensure that you don't add more than 5 hashtags as crowding your post with them can do more harm than good.

Finally, don't forget to add a strong call to action so you can 'tell' people what to do. Instagram has a lot of interactive elements like buttons and links that can help you direct your audience to your website.

7. Add Keyword Variations in Comments

As a business, you need to focus on making your Instagram profile's SEO as strong as possible. One of the standout features of Instagram is that you can also optimize your comments.

Many businesses use keywords in their comments to get more traffic to their profile. This establishes post relevance to not just your followers but to other related communities as well.

Using keyword tags on comments also improves the searchability of your content.

Another benefit to using keywords in comments is you can enhance your SEO profile without having to clutter your main post. Opting for comments leaves your main post clean and brand-friendly. It is vital to understand that you should never force keywords into your comments.

Slipping in a few of them during interactions with your audience can get you the boost you need. Don't keep using the same keywords in your comments, switch them up to target different search queries.

8. Focus on a Memorable Highlights Section

The Highlights section of an Instagram account is one of the best ways to get people's attention. Since it is a relatively new feature compared to the other ones on this platform, let's take a look at what it actually is.

The Highlights section is where you can categorize all your posts on your profile.

Doing this can considerably improve the clutter on your profile and make it seem more professional to people visiting it.

It also has the added benefit of helping people find more information about what exactly they're looking for.

For example, if you were an apparel brand, you could split different posts about sportswear, leisure wear, t-shirts, and shorts into various highlights.

Your audience can browse your profile easier which can lead to better sales. If you want to highlight customer testimonials, the highlights section is a great place to do that.

9. Monitor Keyword Performance

SEO is all about numbers. The key to success in any SEO campaign is to ensure that you always have an eye on the metrics.

A good SEO pipeline is always built on a solid foundation of keywords. Monitoring your Instagram keyword performance becomes an essential part of your SEO process. Ensure that you have third-party systems and tools in place that can help you track engagement metrics on your Instagram.

Analyzing your reach and impressions per post is an important indicator of the health of your Instagram SEO process.

Through detailed reports, understand what your high-performance keywords are and work towards incorporating them into your future posts for the best results. Having real-time information about your SEO metrics available increases your chance of success.

10. Build a Platform for User-Generated Content

Another powerful way to get more engagement from your users is… let them create content themselves! It sounds simple and it really is.

Most big brands today reserve a percentage of their Instagram posts for user-generated content (UGC). Apart from the obvious benefit of easing the strain on your content team to generate posts, user content can help build trust and credibility in your brand.

In the long run, these are worth its weight in gold, especially in a competitive market.

From your end, encourage your audience to share their experiences and highlight them in a post for better visibility. Reposting high-quality customer photos and videos can help generate positive buzz about your brand. When you do this, always remember to credit the creator of the content.

A great example of UGC done right is the masters of marketing, Nike. Their #NikeID campaign got users to share their own customized sneakers generating millions of impressions without a single photo added by their team.

11. Diversify Your Content Portfolio

Sticking to the same type and style of content will do more harm than good for a brand. Instagram is a highly competitive space and brands need to change it up and often to ensure that they're able to maintain customer interest.

Instagram offers several different content options from images to carousels, and videos. Use all of them to create a diverse portfolio for your brand.

It's a great idea to experiment with different avenues and find out what your audience responds to the best. Another important thing to note is not to just focus on promotional posts. Keep in mind that adding value to your customers should be an important part of your Instagram SEO.

12. A/B Test Your Instagram Campaign

The three best pieces of advice that anyone can give you about Instagram SEO is to test, test, and test! Jokes apart, testing is an integral part of any SEO process and Instagram is no different.

There are hundreds of variables with Instagram like post timing, content type, hashtags, and keywords just to name a few. Testing each combination thoroughly is integral to your Instagram success.

There are tools available that can help cut down the overheads when it comes to testing. Instagram Insights is a built-in platform that can help analyze several parts of your SEO. Third-party tools like Icon square and Hootsuite can track everything from engagement numbers to trending hashtags.

Conclusion

• Implement the right Instagram SEO strategies for your brand that can improve engagement, visibility, and credibility.
• Monitor and track various SEO metrics like keyword performance, engagement ratios, and post impressions to get the most out of your pipeline.
• Collaborate with related social influencers to get a huge boost in brand relevance.
• Encourage your audience to post content with branded hashtags and reward the best ones.
• Testing campaigns exhaustively before getting them live can help iron out any kinks.