Instagram is one of the most popular apps nowadays. People use it to talk to their friends and family, share photos and videos, look at memes and gain recognition by gaining followers. When it comes to Instagram, as we have previously stated, its primary purpose is to share photos and videos. Since we are talking about pictures, we must mention alt text which is the text of the image. Why does it matter and how to use it?
Why Instagram Alt Text Matters?
Alt text can be essentially described as a text tag. With that tag, a certain image can be more easily found in search engines and be more discoverable.
Adding alt text along with meta description will help it to be more found through the search engines. If you can be found more easily, this means that more people will come across your profile, and in that way, it will gain you traffic and popularity. It can boost your follower status with ease! Not only this but it also means that Instagram will recognize your brand and what your content is about and therefore associate you with a certain niche and find your audience easier. You might also start showing up in the “Suggested for you” and therefore gain popularity.
You must be asking yourself why haven’t I heard of this before. It is not accessible through regular post-publication, you must go to Advanced Settings to be able to find it.
How to use it?
1) New post
If it’s a new post – the process is very simple. You add your post as per usual. You upload the photo from your gallery, and go through the editing process of filters, enhancing features, and also tagging and captions. Once you have all of that settled, you can move on to alt text. You click on Advanced Settings at the bottom of the screen and then click on “Write Alt Text”. It is very easy to find once you know where to look for it!
2) Already published post
Now when you have discovered the power of alt text, you might want to add it to all of your posts. If you have already published something, it doesn’t have to be deleted for alt text to work. You can just edit it and in the editing process find “Edit Alt Text” and then just add it. Very simple and effective!
Keep in mind that if you want your alt text to be helpful it needs to be relevant to your post, brief, and desirably with a keyword. This will take your posts to a next level!
To conclude:
In this article, we have talked about Instagram alt text and concluded that it is important to use because it improves discoverability. Adding it to a new post or an already published one is fairly simple and takes only a few minutes of your time. Start using alt text today and get an A+ on your Instagram skills!