In 2023, when the newly installed function of keyword search extended across accounts worldwide, the significance of Instagram optimization, already high, increased even more so. The newfound capabilities will allow for a more comprehensive investigation of Instagram’s search engine optimization and content enhancement features. In this article, you’ll learn the specifics of how to improve your Instagram account’s optimization for discoverability and exposure.
Let me begin by describing Instagram’s new search function, which allows users to look for content using keywords.
By the way, log in and see if you can locate media by searching using terms relevant to your needs.
Instagram’s New Keyword-Based Search Engine
In 2020, Instagram expanded its search features to include not just hashtags, people, and locations but also keywords. Now, Instagram’s search box will provide photo and video results that are relevant to your query. This is essentially how online search engines like Google and Pinterest operate.
Pictures and videos with captions that match the criteria used in the search are included in the results.
Searching Instagram with Keywords
Instagram works similarly to search engines like Google and image sharing sites like Pinterest in that you can input a term and then view images that include that keyword in their captions.
Instagram takes a number of criteria into account when returning search results, including the content type, caption, posting account, and more. The most relevant results are obviously returned using machine learning.
As an Instagram spokesman put it, “The search is limited to general interest themes and phrases that are within Instagram’s community rules.”
Instagram SEO Recommended Practices
Here are a few things to remember from the Instagram blog post on the app’s search algorithm:
Instagram selects what you see based on what you’ve been looking for.
Based on your past searches and how you engage with material, your search results will be prioritised to show you the most relevant information first.
Instagram’s search results are ranked using information from accounts, hashtags, and locations in addition to the text you type into the search bar.
In order of significance, these are the signals used by the search engine to provide results when you input a query:
Your inquiry text. Usernames, biographies, captions, hashtags, and locations are all searched for in an attempt to find an exact match by Instagram.
The accounts you follow, the content you’ve previously watched from those accounts, and your past interactions with those accounts are all factors.
How well-known the account or its contents are. Instagram takes into account the total amount of likes, clicks, shares, and follows when deciding which posts to prioritise when there are too many results for a given search.
Instagram SEO: A Few More Points to Keep in Mind
Instagram has stated their intention to improve Instagram Search so that users may utilise a wider variety of keywords to locate relevant content.
Currently, only English keywords may be used to get search results that aren’t restricted by physical locations, hashtags, or user IDs. Eventually, support for other languages will be added.
With utmost deference to Instagram, we’d like to add two additional suggestions to this:
Make good use of alt text. You may describe the content of your Instagram post in the alt text field. While it was created with the visually challenged in mind, you may use it as a legitimate SEO tool.
Maintain coherence in what you’re writing. We realise that this recommendation seems quite general. But, if your profile is focused on a specific topic, Instagram will be able to tell what you’re about. When you consistently share posts about the same themes, you’re more likely to incorporate related keywords in your descriptions, which is great for your Instagram SEO.
What Does Keyword Search Mean for Instagram SEO?
This change expands the possibilities for optimising Instagram posts and makes the optimization of captions the key method for making posts more easily discoverable. Using the proper hashtags and location tags were previously effective strategies to optimise Instagram material, but we now know that using the right keywords in the description is much more crucial.
Let’s revisit that Instagram blog article and examine the platform’s role in boosting your visibility in search. If you wish to have a greater impact on search engine rankings, consider the following.
The material you upload should reflect the name you use for your handle and/or profile. Although text plays a major role in how Instagram accounts are found, it’s important to choose a handle that reflects the personality of your account.
Enhance your bio with relevant keywords and places. The similarities end here. Your bio should highlight who you are, what you do, and the purpose of your account through the use of descriptive keywords. You should provide your location in your bio if your profile is location-based. With any luck, this will aid locals in locating you.
Optimize your captions using trending hashtags and phrases. Instagram emphasises the importance of using hashtags and keywords in the description rather than the comments.
Instagram won’t index this content in its search results
User content on Instagram must adhere to the platform’s Community Standards. This is why certain material will never show up in SERPs. Instagram posts and hashtags that violate the platform’s recommendations guidelines will be hidden from user searches. In further detail? As it turns out, Instagram can help throw some light on it as well:
Accounts who consistently violate the Community Rules by posting spammy content will be ranked lower in search results. Users need to provide their complete usernames in order to access these profiles.
Potentially dangerous content is also shown lower.
Instagram removes posts and hashtags that violate the Community Guidelines from the app and the search results.