The tricky thing about using Instagram as a marketing tool is that it’s not hugely searchable. Heck, half the time you type in someone’s name and it gives you sixteen completely counterintuitive variations before actually showing the John McPerson you were looking for (not Jonny_boi87 or footy-is-life-john thanks, the one I have 40 mutual followers with). Not super efficient. Add to this the fact that the content is largely image-based, and you’ve got a bit of an SEO nightmare. Hashtags can only do so much.

Luckily, there now appears to be a bit of a loophole.

Alt Text.

What is Alt Text?

Alt Text is a literal description of your image, stored behind the scenes and used to help people who are visually impaired to engage with typically very image-heavy instagram content. It’s also used by instagram itself (in addition to hashtags and captions) to categorise images and decide where to place and promote them.

Traditionally Instagram would scan our images and generate its best guess at our alt text itself, but in recent months the option to add our own descriptions has been added. Not a huge amount of people are aware of this feature yet, which makes this the perfect time to get on board.

What should I write as Alt Text?

First and foremost, respect the fact that this is actually a feature used to help people who are visually impaired, so don’t take the piss. Write an actual description of what is in the image, so that if someone who genuinely needs alt text comes across you they aren’t just getting a bunch of irrelevant marketing keywords.

Secondly, alt text helps Instagram itself to decipher what’s in your image, so vote two for going with genuine descriptors, if morality didn’t quite nail it the first time around.

However, sticking to an ethical approach doesn’t mean you have to completely sacrifice SEO. Be creative with your descriptions. Use vibrant language alongside terms you think people are likely to be searching for. You can still get your keywords in, you just need to tailor them to the specific image you’re uploading. That’s the way all major platforms’ algorithms are heading, including Google, so getting some practice in on mindful SEO is probably for the best if you want to avoid getting penalised down the line

In short, use descriptive language that will actually help someone understand the image, alongside keywords that make it more searchable.

How To Add Alt Text To Your Instagram Posts

To add alt text to a NEW Instagram post, wait til you get to the caption stage and then click ‘Advanced Settings’ right down the bottom. .

Once you’re there, ‘Write Alt Text’ should be an available option and you just click it and caption away.

If you want to go back and add alt text to photos you’ve ALREADY POSTED, that’s cool too.

View the photo you want to add alt text for and click ‘Edit’. In the bottom right hand corner, directly opposite the option to tag people, there should be a new feature that says ‘Add Alt Text’.

Click it and follow the same process as you would for a brand new post. It’s obviously better to do this when you first set a photo live, but there’s no harm in going back and adding keywords to a few of your most recent or high performing posts.

You can go back and change what you’ve written at any point, but it’s quite safe to assume that it’ll probably work best algorithm-wise if you get it done early and stick with what you’ve written.

Let me know if you see any results using alt text, as it’s still quite a new addition and I’m curious myself as to how beneficial it’ll end up being.