SEO and Instagram

In three years’ time, Instagram has become a staple not only amongst social networking sites but also a dominating platform for e-commerce on a global scale. Listed as the 21st most popular website in the U.S. and 41st globally, it has a community of 80 million users and continues to grow daily. Let’s just let that sink in for a moment. Knowing what we do now, try to process how such a mainstream and versatile website can contribute to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts of a company or business trying to grow online.

To capitalize your business efforts on a social media platform can be tricky unless you play it smart. The imagery published along with the information attached to that image via hashtags, captions and even locations can make or break your social media campaigns. Instagram is not only a platform, but an asset to your overall optimization process, and most importantly, the way in which people discover your website.

A Brand that Sticks Helps Your Domain Authority

When your brand sticks, search volume increases. Every business owner knows that a brand is essential to selling, however, the way you market it to stick in the minds of Instagram and web users is what will push your over the virtual edge to a status of ‘instafame’ To be considered instafamous is to have a guaranteed 1k of users looking at your posts with particularly close attention to subject matter.

You’re your brand is instafamous, you matter and this translates to people going out of their way to visit your website. High quality imagery that frequently posted and highlighting a certain aspect of your product or service can promote a higher rate of traffic on your Instagram page and in turn more visitors to your website.

A catchy slogan that sticks and clever captions that appeal to your target audience will set the finishing touches to your social media campaigns. Less is always more in terms of content.

Hashtags Help your Relevancy and Keyword Density

Playing with trending hashtags that compliment your business as well as banking on what is deemed ‘instaworthy’ (something worth talking or posting about) can make your product or service relevant to the entire Instagram population. Also, using hashtags that are relevant to your keywords helps you increase content density of that social media page.

This in turn brings more users to your site and allows you to be perceived by Google and other search engines as a relevant business, putting your brand on a higher stature of ranking.

Hashtags in excess have the ability to defeat the purpose of making your brand stand out, so it is important to use highly searched ones and those relevant to your targeted SEO keywords. In turn, this will directly affect your ranking on Google and contribute to making your website SEO efficient.

Linking Account Means Maximum Exposure

By linking your other social media accounts (such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), you will be able to share the pictures you post on Instagram to those pages too with added text. Linking your accounts not only widens the scope of your followers and exposure, but whatever you post on your Instagram page will then post to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

This means that the likes you gain on your Instagram posts will link to the posts on Facebook and register in Google’s algorithm as Facebook likes and engagement, which in turn effects your SEO rank. In linking accounts you not only disseminate information on a wider scale, but you also increase your relevance in respect to SEO; two birds with one stone.

Get Others to Endorse Your Brand

What you need to understand is simple; people like to be ‘trendy’. Everyone wants to be first to discover or own something trendy and post about it online. As a business owner it is in your best interest to pick up on trending topics, ways to post and ways to appeal to the general public on Instagram, but especially those deemed instafamous.

The purpose behind this is to get the platform buzzing about you’re your product or service will do to change their lives for the better. If something is considered trendy, you can almost guarantee a prominent person on Instagram will get hold of it and promote it themselves. You want this, because if that happens a rippling effect follows. Foot traffic to your online store or website will increase as it becomes hype.

Asking these people to promote your product or service for a free sample as compensation will give you an invaluable referral. This will not only boost your online presence but go full circle and dramatically enhance your SEO rank on Google with the increase of clicks and conversions that follow.

Link Your Website in Your Bio

One catch to Instagram that limits your SEO enhancing experience is the inability to ad links to posts. However, this obstacle can work in your favor, by putting the link of your website in the bio of your Instagram page. This not only acts as a form of back linking, but promotes consumers to actually look you up on Google, all the while enabling you to gain a higher search volume and influence your SEO rank as a result.

Most companies or small time business owners that strive to rank on the first page of Google overlook the power of social media marketing. However, the influence a platform as popular as Instagram has on its members has the ability to revolutionize the success of a particular business, and allow it to dominate an entire industry if executed correctly. Social media serves its purpose by connecting millions of people the world and in the world of business, it’s all about who you know.