Among all the social media networks that are available to digital marketers, Instagram is arguably the most powerful with its one billion-plus monthly active users and the highest rate of engagement, according to blog.hootsuite.com. It, therefore, follows that the Instagram account has to be promoted well for the desired benefits of a multichannel digital marketing strategy to accrue. Unfortunately, Instagram accounts can be very difficult to index and rank in search results. This is because apart from the general reluctance of Instagram users to promote them, Instagram actually prevents search engines from indexing the Instagram images, though the profiles are indexed. While this makes marketers’life difficult, the obstacles to optimization are not insurmountable. Some tips from expert marketers:
Ensure That Your Instagram Profile Is Public
By default, Instagram profiles are set to public, which means that everybody can see your profile and contents of your Instagram account. While this is the best possible situation for marketers, it is a good idea to confirm that the account privacy settings are indeed public and not been inadvertently changed.
Ensure That the Instagram Profile Name Includes the Most Important Keyword
The Instagram page title tag is automatically generated by the app using the information in the profile. The only way of including you most vital keyword in your Instagram title tags is by inserting it in your profile name. While keyword stuffing here is strongly discouraged, you also need to take care to see that your brand name gets included.
Optimize Your Bio
Optimize your bio by ensuring that the narration is specific, crisp, and accurate so that real Instagram followers immediately are able to figure out what you do. Even though the bio is restricted to a maximum of 150 characters, with a little ingenuity, you can include all the important keywords that will then be indexed by Google, though it is still not a good idea to stuff keywords randomly. Since the bio is the only text that Google can crawl on your account, you need to conduct proper keyword research and also provide some context to help Google boost your SEO. Do not forget to include the URL of your website in the bio and ensure that there are no ‘nofollow’ tags included by mistake that will prevent it from generating organic traffic to your website.
Link Instagram Posts Directly from Other Channels
Since Google cannot check the individual links of your Instagram posts, it cannot index them for the purpose of displaying them on the search results page. It is not possible to promote individual posts on Instagram by promoting your profile; however, if you link them directly from the other channels you are present on; there is a chance that Google will be able to discover the links and point users to the posts. Generating as many links as possible from multiple channels can help to get your posts indexed.
Conclusion
By itself, Instagram is not particularly SEO-friendly but by resorting to some of the above hacks, you can promote your account better and boost your online visibility.
