Instagram Keywords: How to Show Up in Search [Episode 108]

Hello, my lovelies. Welcome back. Um, this week, it's going to be a very short episode and I'm going to be talking all about keywords on Instagram because this has changed a lot just in the last, I don't know, I would say year. Keywords have been around on Instagram since 2020, but just in the last year or so, they've become a lot more important.

I am not going to talk about hashtags much on today's episode because hashtags are definitely not dead. They are still very much alive and well. But they're almost kind of like doubling as keywords. They can kind of almost be interchanged, but maybe I'll do another episode just on hashtags. But I just want to keep this really short and really actionable so that you can start, you know, like I just said, taking action literally right away on these keywords.

And the reason that keywords are so important is just to make sure that your Instagram account and your posts are being found by people who are searching for services like yours. So, if you think about, you know, Instagram algorithm. If you are trying to plan a beach vacation to Miami, okay, then your algorithm just starts serving you up videos, like, randomly of Miami beach vacation stuff, right?

Or like, for me, for example, I've been trying to learn the, like, credit card hacking points and miles game recently because My family and I would like to take a trip to Europe in the next couple of years. So if you have any tips for that, please let me know. My, one of my biggest hangups is that my daughter is such a picky eater, I'm afraid she'll starve to death.

But yeah, but by the time, like I said, we've saved it because we want to do it like big, we're not going to skimp. So anyway, so now my algorithm has been showing me a lot of like credit card, you know, points and miles stuff. You even have the opportunity to be able to show up in Google search with your Instagram posts, which is really cool now.

So anyway, I just kind of want to talk about all of that. So like I said, this is going to be super short and here we go.

Hey, welcome to holistic marketing simplified. This podcast boils down to the fact that we wholeheartedly believe that more humans need to know about holistic health solutions and you didn't go to school to learn how to be a. Full time content creator and show up on Instagram and do all of this marketing stuff all day every day.

So let's come hang out while we chat all things easy in your marketing. And my goal is that you shift your mindset around your marketing from a quote should to a, I get to more dream patients and clients. Yes, please. Hi, I'm Dr. Amy Forrester and I'm a chiropractor in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And I listen to the Holistic Marketing Simplified podcast.

Okay. So back in the days of yore, the only way that someone could like, the only way to really categorize what a post was about was by hashtags. So if you were an account that, you know, just shared green smoothie recipes, for example, The only way that someone could like search and potentially find your account was by searching a hashtag green smoothie.

Now, with keywords, when people go to the search bar in Instagram, then you have, like, you can still type in hashtag green smoothie, or you can just type in the words without the hashtag green smoothie. and see what comes up. So I, the first homework I would have you to do is just to familiarize yourself with this and to just go to the Instagram app and start searching things that are relative to your niche.

So maybe you're searching like perimenopause or like hormone balancing, or maybe you're searching athletic performance or pediatric chiropractic. So first start with kind of like that overarching niche keywords and just see, just You know, do a little digging, see what comes up, then this is the most important.

Then I want you to go to the search bar and type in your geographical location and see what comes up. If you are an online business only and you're still listening, God bless you. You know, I've really pivoted to really just focusing on local brick and mortar, but I still would do this because I was at this event here in Cincinnati called the beauty boost.

And there were, you know, health coaches. Sound, uh, healing facilitators, breathwork facilitators, and all of them saw people locally, but also online. So, you know, I'm a huge fan. Oh, there was a, um, Ayurvedic coach there. So, like, she sees clients in person, but also online. So, you know, I'm a huge proponent of growing your business locally first, in addition to online.

So. Go search your local area and see what's coming up. When I was prepping for what made me want to record this podcast is I just updated this full training inside of the holistic marketing hub portal. So if you're a HMH student, then you've got a full portal with, you know, actually you'll be able to see the slides and see the graphics explaining all of this in more detail.

And I do go into explaining more in detail about hashtags and for my hub students. But I wanted to, like I said, just do like a little short, actionable version for the podcast too. But when I was doing the research for updating that classroom to grab some screenshots to show you, it was really cool to see that a lot of our clients were ranking in top spots for their specific area.

So if I typed in like example, like Alexandria, Virginia, like one of our clients was ranking in the top spot and she's a chiropractor in Alexandria. So it's just really cool to kind of like look at that content and study it. And one of my students asked, well, if I'm not ranking in my local area, what does that mean?

It doesn't really mean anything. I would say You're just going to have to keep at it and just make sure that you are using local geographical hashtags and keywords in your content. So that's what I'm going to get into now is the four places that you should be using keywords. The first is that name line on your profile.

So when you go to edit. Like tap edit profile from your bio that name line field where you get 45 to 50 characters. I've done countless episodes and Instagram posts on how to format this properly, so I'm not going to spend time talking about this one, but just remember that that's somewhere that keywords you want to have keywords.

That's the only part that's actually searchable in the search field. Everything in your bio is not necessarily searchable. The, uh, you get 150 characters in the bio portion. Yes, you still want to use keywords there, but it's not going to be as highly searchable as that name line. The next place that you want to be using keywords is As the text over your reels.

So, for example, we posted a reel for our, we've done tons of reels like this for our clients, but I'm just going to read one to you to give you an example. So, it's just a B roll reel of one of our pediatric chiropractic clients doing some cranial work on a baby. And the text over the video says, POV, your baby has a flat spot on their head and you find our chiropractic office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Then underneath it says plagiocephaly help starts here. Again, if you are a Holistic Marketing Hub student, you have this exact hook and caption in your content library. Yeah, make sure to grab that there. But instead of just saying something like POV, your baby has a flat spot on their head and you find our office, like, that's probably what we would have.

Used to have done but you see the difference POV your baby has a flat spot on their head and you find our chiropractic Office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and then we also added the like plagiocephaly help starts here So that way if someone's searching flat spot if they're searching plagiocephaly Then we've got the chiropractic keyword and their location.

Sometimes even if we can't weave the city and state into the actual text itself, we'll just do a separate little text box, like up in the corner with the little location emoji with where they're located. So. For example, we have another one that's like, if you don't want to wait six weeks for a massage, try our Hydra Massage Therapy so we can get you in faster, just, you know, instant relief when you need it the most, whatever.

And then we just have like a little text box that says Barron County, Wisconsin, like up in the corner. Text over the video, super important. The next place that you can use keywords or should be using keywords is over if you have like a photo, like a carousel or a graphic. So, for example, I was searching pregnancy pain just to see what came up.

And one of the first posts that came up was a carousel. Uh, this wasn't one of our clients, but the text over the first slide of the carousel says three things I wish all my pregnant patients would do to have less pain during pregnancy. Um, and that's a great hook. So, and this is literally just text over a photo that was turned into a carousel.

Um, another example, I searched the word migraine in the search box and what came up was a graphic that looked like it was made in Canva, supplements for migraine sufferers, and then it had photos of five different supplements. And then there was another graphic that came up, migraine symptoms, signs of high estrogen, and then it had like little, like, you know.

Water retention attacks during premenstrual phase. So anyway, it had like some little graphics here with it. And then the third thing that came up when I searched migraine was a reel that had text over it that said migraine headache triggers. So yeah, so just like I said, that's why I encourage you to, to just go to that search bar and start, you know, playing around with it.

The last place that you want to be using keywords is in the actual caption of your reel or your post. So again, kind of like before how the text over our reel used to be like, and then you find our office or something like that. And whereas now we'd say chiropractic office in city state or like even like, well, I'll give you this example next and it'll make more sense.

So now whenever we are writing captions for clients and then when we're then, you know, putting those captions also in holistic marketing hub for our students to use, we're really infusing as many keywords as we can think of. If your website was designed properly, then you'll already be familiar with this style of writing because your website should be reading the same way.

So before our caption might just be as, as general, you know, one of the sentences might be patients in our clinic report, you know, blah, blah, blah, like insert whatever the thing is. Now, we're really specific patients at our specialized prenatal chiropractic clinic in city, state, report, decreased pregnancy, hip pain, you know what I mean?

Like very specific. So as many keywords as you can think of in those captions. You know, I was still an attempt to keep your captions on the shorter side, but just make sure they're really keyword rich. And then I know I said I wasn't going to talk about hashtags, but I did just get through auditing a bunch of chiropractors accounts and a couple acupuncturists, massage therapists as well.

And really the most important hashtags I would be prioritizing are your local hashtags because again, like, so if someone searches like Alexandria chiropractor. And you've got the Alexandria hashtag and then you've got chiropractor somewhere in your caption or maybe over your reel or whatever. The technology is smart enough to like put those two words together to be like, Oh, she's used the hashtag Alexandria.

She's got the word chiropractor on this video. So let's put her together. Let's you know, serve this account up. So like I said, hashtags almost kind of like double as keywords. Um, and you want to make sure that your hashtags are actually in your caption, not in the first comment, because if they're in the caption, then they're being captured as a potential keyword.

The last thing I would say about this is if you're just like, Oh, well, what do I put in here? I mean, literally just think about this as. If you are giving someone directions to your post, like, think about this is like the Google maps for the algorithm. Like, I don't know, you know, I've got this great content and then the algorithm wants to show it to people, but it doesn't know how, like, you're literally telling it.

It is the road map telling it how to show your content to people. So you're like. Hey, show my content to new moms who are looking for Pong Thai revisions, breastfeeding challenges, and they're located in Nashville, Tennessee. So like I said, all of those keywords need to be integrated somewhere in one of those spots that I just mentioned in the episode.

So I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions about this, feel free to DM me as usual. But like I said, if you are a holistic marketing hub student, then you've got this full training inside your portal. And happy keywording. Thank you for listening to Holistic Marketing Simplified. And hey, you know how every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast?

Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce to bring you free information. So in order for me to be able to continue doing that, we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could, please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day.

To leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly A. Cahill, that's C A H I L L. I would greatly, greatly appreciate your support. I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.