Instagram SEO | Keywords VS. Hashtags | What really matters for 2024?
You want your content to be found on Instagram. You're not spending all this time creating it for nothing. So let's go through what's actually going to make a difference when you're posting so that more people will see your content. Both hashtags and keywords serve unique purposes on Instagram. Hashtags mainly excel in community engagement and content organization, keywords contribute to context searchability and detailed descriptions. So I'm going to walk us through all of that and how it'll affect your content. My my name is Megan and I help business owners go from confused to confident on social media. I help my clients build a loyal community, get quality clients, and make their business more profitable.
Let's start with hashtag pros. The main benefit of hashtags in my opinion is community engagement. Hashtags create communities of Interest when users follow or search for a specific hashtag. They're actively seeking content related to a particular theme or topic so this fosters a sense of community a sense of engagement and these users can really go and discover and interact with your content. I find that whenever I'm searching for something local to me, I will type in my city and whatever service I want and look through hashtags I would also do this if I'm looking for a client in my area I would search for what their industry is in the city I'm looking for. Which leads me into the second pro of hashtags which is discoverability. Instagram users frequently explore content by searching or clicking on hashtags. So this discoverability aspect is powerful for businesses aiming to reach a broader audience beyond their existing followers. If you use hashtags the right way you're going to be shown to more users who aren't following you but are interested in the topics you're posting about. So again, if I was looking for someone who could give me a massage in the area I would be typing in my city and massage so if they're making posts and putting their city and massage they're going to be attracting all these people who are already interested in massages that most likely aren't following them yet. Hashtags are also really good for trending content. There are trending hashtags that provide an opportunity to align your content with popular conversations and current events that are already happening. I recommend doing this cautiously because you don't want to put something that is currently trending that has nothing to do with what you actually are doing with your business. So a certain meme is trending but it absolutely has nothing to do with what you sell or what services you provide I don't recommend using that just for people to click on your content. Leveraging trends with caution will allow you to be part of that discussion and increase your visibility. Last but not least, hashtags can serve as a branding tool. So creating a unique and memorable branded hashtag encourages user generated content. So if you have a brand where you've created a specific hashtag that goes along with either your product or your service then people who use your product or service will then be prompted to post a review of your product or their experience working with you. And they use your branded hashtag in their content this will not only boost your brand exposure but also build a sense of community around your products and services kind of like what we talked about earlier, And lastly about hashtags, something that I don't think people talk about that much are that it actually helps Instagram categorize and organize your content. So even if people aren't necessarily finding your profile through the hashtags you're using you're literally telling Instagram exactly where you fit in the algorithm. If you're using hashtags that properly represent what you do you are training Instagram to put you in the category that you want to be in.
While the maximum amount of hashtags you can use on Instagram is 30 there is a huge debate whether people should be using 12 to 15 or 3 to 5.
Next we're going to go over keyword pros. So keywords really help within your captions they provide valuable context to your content right. They contribute to the overall narrative and they help Instagram's algorithm understand the essence of your post so potentially improving its visibility to users who might not be actively searching for hashtags. This is really awesome because Instagram used to actually not have this SEO feature. It used to only be hashtag related so having this keyword functionality is really helpful when creating your content because you can pack your caption full of keywords without having to solely rely on hashtags. But I do think that using them hand in hand is the most beneficial. Going more into seo, seo is search engine optimization and this is Instagram search algorithm that considers keywords and captions and comments when displaying results for people. So if you're making a caption you want to incorporate relevant keywords in your content and this will optimize your profile's searchability. This makes it a little bit easier for users who are interested in topics to find your account. Again I do recommend using hashtags alongside with the keywords because by using them both hand in hand, you're giving Instagram an alternate way for people to actually discover your profile and having more than one method ensures that your content is accessible to a broader audience. So it would be most strategic of you to come up with a list of hashtags and a list of keywords that you have researched thoroughly and put them in your notes app or a Google doc, whatever you can copy and paste from to make it the easiest for you to maximize your business's presence on Instagram. I personally put my lists in my notes app because I can access that on my phone and my computer and it makes it really easy for me to copy and paste. I hope this was helpful when it comes to knowing the difference between hashtags and keywords when you go and create your content on Instagram. If you're struggling to come up with ideas for Instagram posts I do have a FREE 40 content ideas available now so be sure to grab yours today.
