A Guide To Search Engine Optimisation on TikTok & Instagram

40% of gen-z searches on social media as opposed to Google. Both Instagram and TikTok (more TikTok… but that’s a story for another day) are huge search engines, so knowing where and how to add the right keywords is essential to get your content shown to the right people. Without doing so, you can risk a really great piece of content going unnoticed. Keep reading to learn how to optimise both your Instagram and TikTok - for search-engine purposes!

Search Engine Optimisation Basics

Unlike Google, social media is a visual search medium. Users are met with images and/or videos for any topic, hashtag or keyword with every search. Every user’s feed is customised with topics and keywords the algorithm has filtered out based on their watch history, engagement and overall social media behaviours. Learning how to optimise your content for the search engine can help you reach more of the right people, which can be new community members, followers and customers!

This is important because users trust social media more than they trust Google nowadays. Let’s take product reviews as an example. Users are met with a face and a voice, recommending a product, rather than reading text. It’s not only more attention-grabbing, but it feels as if you are listening to a recommendation from a friend on Facetime, rather than reading a random stranger’s review. Social media is a powerful tool when you learn how to harness it!

A Word on “Keyword Stuffing”

Social media experts will often advise their audience to keyword stuffing, branded as “the best SEO practices”. Keyword stuffing is a technique used to manipulate the search engine to appear higher in ranking, however just results in a poor user experience, as well as “confusing” the algorithm and in the worst-case scenario, flagging your account as a “bot”. These are a few things that induce keyword stuffing:

• Excessive Keywords: Repeating the same keywords or phrases unnaturally and excessively throughout the content.

• Hidden Text: Placing keywords in the same colour as the background or using tiny font sizes to hide them from users but still make them visible to search engines.

• Irrelevant Keywords: Including keywords that are not directly related to the content just to attract more traffic.

These are some of the practices we see given as advice often on both TikTok and Instagram that you should avoid at all costs:

• adding 30 hashtags on Instagram and TikTok, with excessive repetition of the same keywords,

• hiding text in tiny fonts on IG Reels and TikTok Videos,

• including short-tailed and long-tailed keywords at the end of your captions on both Instagram and TikTok.

These are all bad practices and bad social media advice. Keep reading to learn more about our holistic approach to SEO!

Profile Optimisation

Making sure keywords are in your profile can make or break whether people find you on each respective app, or not. So many customers who are ready to buy are searching for what they’re looking for in the search bar on both Instagram and TikTok, i.e. “Money Coach”, “Social Media Manager”, “Content Creation Studio in London”, “Eco-Friendly Candles”. You’re loosing out on money if you’re not one of the first options popping up for users, and here’s how you do that:

1) Your Name: the first and most important part of the process, having a searchable name in the “Name” section on your Instagram and TikTok profile, and no, not your ACTUAL name (see examples below).

2) Your Bio: include keywords within your bio that are descriptive of what you provide for your customers. Try to utilise all the space you can.

3) Your Username: bonus points if your username includes the same keywords as your Name!

With all of these examples, you want to make sure that you are using relevant keywords, that match with your content. If the keywords used in your profile are vastly different to the keywords used in your posts and captions — then you most likely won’t be the first person to show up when keywords relevant to your industry are searched. Your goal is to let the algorithm know what you do and who you are with keywords, and if you do this consistently, it will add up!

Both accounts either don’t include their name, or include their name at the END, after mentioning who their account is for. This is the key in being the first person to show up in people’s search bars.

Keywords in Content

When we talk about keywords in content, the first thing people think of is your caption. While your captions do (naturally) hold space for keywords — your content matters too, whether it’s a graphic, image-based carousel or a video, the keywords you include in your content are registered by the algorithm. HOWEVER - they are not registered if you add text from an outside app, which is why it’s so important to always add your text within each respective platform (i.e. TikTok text on TikTok and Instagram text on Instagram). This takes some extra time, but it’s worth it. 

If your piece of content is a video, the words you say are also important and should relate to the overall theme of your account, the text on video and the caption, which we will get into after. There’s a misconception that you have to add as many keywords in your content as possible, and this is simply not true. The key is that you add RELEVANT keywords, so the algorithm can push your content out to the right people.

Keywords in Closed Captions

As mentioned above, if your piece of content is a video, the words said are also registered to the algorithm, even more so when you apply closed captions within each respective platform! Generating closed captions on separate platforms with fancy fonts may look nice, but when you add them in each respective app, the platforms are able to dissect what your content is about more efficiently, and therefore, push it out to users who are already engaging with accounts like yours and who will readily engage with, follow and even buy from you.

Keywords in the Caption

Captions are made for you to be descriptive and it’s your chance to add in your (relevant… we hope you get it by now) keywords! Again, make sure they tie into the keywords added to the piece of content. Keep it simple and include relevant hashtags at the end of each caption. 

In your copy, make sure to include both short and long-tailed keywords. Both are important to include and can help you generate more keywords within each piece of content.

• An example of a short-tailed keyword can be “social media”. These tend to be more competitive but are essential to include to signal the theme of your content to the algorithm.

• An example of a long-tailed keyword can be “best social media marketing strategies for small businesses”. These are highly targeted and specific. They are essential to add context to the short-tailed keywords added, as well as to reach the right people who are ready to buy!

Thinking about short and long-tailed keywords can also help you find the right hashtags.

• The consensus for the number of hashtags to include on Instagram is 5-6. There are a lot of social media experts who recommend 30, but we prefer to follow Instagram’s approved guidelines to avoid keyword stuffing (see below for more on this). Make sure you are using a variety of hashtag sizes (i.e. one large, two medium and three small).

• The consensus for the number of hashtags to include on TikTok is 3 minimum and no more than 4-5. Make sure you are using a variety of hashtag sizes (i.e. one large, one medium and one small).

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