Just dropping in,

Maybe you’ve heard, maybe you haven’t, but if you use Instagram for your business then listen up! Instagram has added alt text to your images. If you’re SEO savvy then you know what that means, but if not then let me explain. Alt text is like a behind-the-scenes caption. It can sometimes be shown in Google searches so you want to craft a comprehensive but short description. This description is used to help search engine “crawlers” read and interpret your content so they know when to show it in searches. The easier it is to read and interpret the purpose of your content, the better these “crawlers” will rate your website, and it will rank higher in search results. Write it as though you were describing the photo for a person without sight because you are! That’s another positive to including alt text in your past posts. Alt text is how people without sight gain insight into your images. Beyond just giving a solid visual description, you can add in local information to boost your local SEO ranking (like city and state).

So now that you know the benefits of alt text, how do you do it? It’s really simple, just follow these steps:

  1. Log into Instagram
  2. Click any grid post image on your account (exceptions include posts that have been previously promoted and videos)
  3. Click the three dots in the right corner of the post and click “edit”
  4. You’ll see in the right-hand corner there’s an option that says “edit alt text” — -click it and get going!

Thanks for reading!