Instagram SEO – 5 Easy Ways to Rank Higher in 2021

Instagram has evolved to be a massive marketing platform that can help you increase your visibility and create brand awareness for your business.

By improving your visibility on social platforms like Instagram, you can build credibility and gain trust amongst your users. When people start trusting you, they won’t mind buying from you. This means you can boost your sales to reach your conversion goals and increase your profit.

But how do you boost your visibility? The best way to do that is to work on improving your Instagram SEO. This will help you rank higher and gain the best results for the success of your business.

But not everyone knows how to improve their Instagram SEO. So here are some of the easy ways to rank higher through Instagram SEO in 2021.

1. Optimize your Profile for Search

Optimizing your profile for search is one of the main steps towards improving your Instagram SEO. Just like you type search terms in different search engines, in Instagram, too, you have a search bar using which you can use search terms to find accounts, hashtags, posts, etc.

Now, whenever you use this field to search for a term, Instagram will display various results depending on the people you follow, who you’re connected to, and what images and videos you like. You’ll notice that Instagram uses your search terms as keywords to filter millions of accounts. It will then display the most relevant results.

So use this concept to optimize your profile. You can do that by incorporating relevant keywords into your display name. This will help you appear in top search results. The best keywords to use in your display name are words or terms that describe your business perfectly.

Similarly, you can optimize your bio too. Many marketers use clickable hashtags in their bios to boost their chances of appearing in search results. You, too, can try out this super-efficient strategy to improve your Instagram SEO.

2. Use Hashtags as your Keywords

You must have seen Instagramers using various hashtags on their post captions. Some people use it to run different marketing campaigns, sourcing UGC(user-generated content), etc. However, the main idea behind using these hashtags is to boost the visibility of your post.

More visibility means more engagement. This can also bring you more followers and more customers for your business.

Just like using relevant keywords can boost the visibility of your posts on Google, using relevant hashtags, too, can increase your visibility on Instagram.

When you use specific hashtags on your posts, it appears along with other corresponding hashtags search results. So it’s important that you learn how to use hashtags efficiently on your posts and make your marketing strategy more effective.

But remember that your profile will show up only if you set the visibility status of your account to public.

3. Be Consistent

Optimizing your Instagram posts is a lot like optimizing your posts for Google. Just like being consistent with your posts can boost your search ranking in Google, on Instagram too, you have to post consistently to boost your visibility.

Social media is a fast-paced platform by nature. So your posts can quickly become obsolete. By posting consistently, you can keep yourself active and remind your followers about your business. This creates a memorable and lasting impact on your followers.

Also, when you have a consistent posting schedule, your followers understand your posting pattern and know what to expect from you. This will build a consistent experience for them, and they will come back to your profile more often. As a result, your engagement rate will also be higher.

When you have more engagement, your posts will become more visible too. This again will help create brand awareness and build trust amongst your audience. However, make sure that you don’t overpost. This will annoy your users, and they might even stop following you. Ideally, you should post once a day and not more than 3 times a day.

4. Write Descriptive Captions

Another brilliant way of optimizing your Instagram account is to write descriptive captions for your post. Instagram being a visual platform, will attract tons of engagement if you post high quality and engaging posts and videos. However, simply attracting engagement won’t help if you can’t convert your audience.

If you want to convert your audience, you need to add a descriptive caption to your post. This will help you give a clear message to your followers, and they will understand what exactly you want to tell them. To help them take action, you can also add a clear CTA(call-to-action) to your captions. This will guide them on where to go next in order to take the action that you want them to take. It’s a great way to encourage your audience to respond to your conversion goal.

5. Use Secondary Keywords in your Posts

Secondary keywords are those keywords that are directly or indirectly related to your primary keyword/keywords. For example, if your primary keyword is ‘Saloon’, your secondary keyword will be anything related to it. So you can use terms like spa, haircut, pedicure, manicure, facial, and other such related terms. Just use them strategically on your posts to boost your visibility.

However, in doing so, make sure not to use random secondary keywords just to make your post visible to more people. They need to be relevant to your posts too. Popping up in irrelevant search results can damage your reputation and hamper your credibility. That’s not something you want to happen to your brand.

So these are some of the easy ways to make your Instagram posts rank higher on search results. Many marketers think that SEO is important only for your website. But you can also use it to boost your visibility on social media. So do your best to take advantage of it.