So you’ve done all 👏 the 👏 things 👏 the internet’s told you to do when it comes to growing an Instagram account — but now you’re wondering, “How do I show up on Instagram search?” so that people who could benefit from my services can actually find you. Lucky for you — we’re throwing down alllllllll the tips (directly from Instagram!) to help you make sure your account shows up on Instagram search.

Have a relevant handle and profile name to show up in Instagram Search.

Because we know that search results are matched by text — if your handle and/or profile names are related to WHAT YOU DO — people are more likely to find you. 

In the image below — the handle is @carterhousecopy. We made that our handle because it’s our brand name — but before we even named our business, we thought about including the keyword “copy” in our brand so that we could bake it into all of our social channels for this very purpose. 

Similarly, the profile name is “Copywriting + Brand Messaging.” Because this is the bread and butter of our business — it makes sense for us to include these two blanket services as our profile name instead of using the field to repeat our brand name of Carter House Copy.

People already know who we are and know our name — so using our profile name field wisely helps us give them a quick insight into what we can offer them.

Include relevant keywords and locations in your bio.

Using the same logic of keywords and relevant information — we included our Value Proposition (VP) in our bio:

We write knockout words for knockout brands + make sure everything you do packs a punch.

If we’re being honest, for purposes of searching — we could really change our phrasing here to, “We write knockout copy for knockout brands + make sure your brand messaging packs a punch,” or something close to it — but for right now, this VP is consistent across all our channels.

The point is — we’ve worked hard to include keywords in our bio that may be terms our ideal clients are searching for on Instagram.

Additionally, by including our location in our bio — we’re automatically positioning ourselves as copywriters/brand experts within the Charlotte area.

To “Wow!” Instagram Search — use relevant keywords and hashtags in your captions.

Perhaps the biggest update to making sure your Instagram account comes up in search is Instagram’s recent change to their hashtag feature. 

Instagram announced, “For a post to be found in Search, put keywords and hashtags in the caption, not the comments.”

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that putting your hashtags in your captions will maximize post reach, but given that it will maximize your findability opportunities in search — it makes the most sense (even if it makes your captions a little ugly).

That said — putting your hashtags in your first comment also doesn’t mean your tagged post won’t aggregate under the hashtag — it just means the post won’t be findable when someone searches that hashtag or keyword.

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