How To Use Instagram Search For Your Small Business

Move aside, hashtags, Instagram’s got a new favorite child in town.

You might’ve noticed by now that hashtag reach on your Instagram business account has gotten smaller. No worries, you’re not imagining it…it’s all an intentional part of Instagram’s strategy to weave in a more comprehensive search algorithm. Instead of primarily using hashtags to decide what content gets shown and where, Instagram is now prioritizing overall content context and SEO to recommend content (and accounts) to their users.

What this means for your social media marketing strategy:

As a small business owner, social media marketing is probably an important part of your overall marketing strategy. With Instagram now bolstering its new search function, now is the time to get ahead and start implementing search engine optimization (SEO) into your social media content. 

The advent of Instagram Search likely means that chronology will become less important and evergreen content that is optimized to show for specific keywords will become more important. That is, rather than the most recent post being the most highly ranked, the most relevant post will be. (Though we suspect that chronology will still more or less have some sort of impact.)

So, get ahead of this trend and optimize your small business’s Instagram account with these SEO tips for increased exposure.

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1. Identify and Prioritize Your Keywords

Before you can optimize your content for the search engine, you need to figure out what you want to rank for. For example, if you are a yoga instructor in the US, you might want to look into keywords associated with specific yoga classes, styles, studios, or accounts. You can use keyword research tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs to brainstorm content keywords that you can include in your Instagram content.

2. Optimize Your Instagram Bio

Make your account (and content) more discoverable by optimizing your Instagram bio so that when new visitors land on your page, they know what to expect.

• Make your username searchable by simplifying the handle and omitting the use of any confusing characters or numbers
• Include essential keywords in your business name when possible. If this isn’t possible, make sure to at least include them in the rest of your bio description
• Use keywords to explain to your audience what it is that your small business’s product or service does

3. Optimize Individual Posts via Captions and Hashtags

Remember that list of keywords that we came up with in step number 1? This is the perfect opportunity to pull that up. When you’re creating content for your small business, you need to make sure that it’s relevant and optimized for your brand. Whatever it is that you’re posting about should at least use one of these keywords and discuss the topic naturally and in depth (no keyword stuffing please). The caption should be readable but still prioritize these search keywords. Make sure that you top the post off with 3-5 relevant hashtags as this is important for Instagram’s search engine indexing and future exposure.

4. Add Alt Tags To Your Images

Instagram is obviously image (and video) heavy but did you know that you can help the platform better understand your content and make it more accessible for blind users? When you’re about to post, simply hit “Advanced Settings” at the bottom of the caption screen and add a description of your image that will help Instagram better categorize it.

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There you have it–four tips to optimize your Instagram content for Instagram search. Which of these SEO tips have you already implemented? Which ones have made the biggest difference for your account? Whare with us down below!