How long can Instagram alt text be?

An alt text should be concise and short. Thus, we recommend keeping it under 125 characters. Preferably, 100 characters is better.

Can people see my alt text?

Alt texts are invisible texts that are used by screen reader applications. They can read your alt text from the picture itself. So, your alt text is not visible to everyone.

Does alt text help SEO?

Yes! Alt texts can increase your relevance and gain you more organic traffic in the SERPs. So, writing a related one and emphasizing your brand is crucial for better SEO efforts.

What Is Alt Text on Instagram?

If you have a business that you are trying to grow, the first social media platform that comes to your mind should be Instagram. With its 1 billion active users, Instagram provides a great base and bazaar for most entrepreneurs and business owners. No matter what you do, whether you sell a necklace or run a cosmetic company, it is certain that your customers will be using Instagram. With its hundreds of opportunities, Instagram comes with a property that not everyone knows how to benefit from. Instagram provides ‘alt text’ for the pictures, generally for visually impaired users.

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However, this is not the only benefit of alt text on Instagram. In today’s article, we will talk about what Instagram alt text is and how to write one so that you can enhance your SEO efforts and marketing strategies.

What Is Alt Text on Instagram?

Alt text on Instagram, or ‘alternative text,’ describes your picture, video, or post with words for visually impaired users. Writing a concise and accurate alternate text on Instagram can increase your chances of getting detected and caught by the Instagram algorithm. If you have a business account, writing alt text can help you to reach your target audience. You can buy Instagram views for your video posts to boost engagement!

Why Is Instagram Alt Text Important?

As we said earlier, alt text is crucial for the Instagram algorithm. It can help you to display what is going on when a picture is too slow to load or if you use a screen reader to tell you what is on the picture. Until today, if you have not written any alt text in Instagram, don’t worry about it! Instagram automatically generates alternative texts for the posts on the platform. However, that does not mean it creates a 100% accurate picture description. Thus, you may want to write your alt text on Instagram.

Did you know you can also use alt text for your SEO endeavors? Alt text on Instagram not only does not help your visually impaired users have a better experience, but it also affects your rankings on SERPs. Search engines can analyze your alt texts and suggest your target audience to your posts or pictures if their search is related. To be seen in those searches more, you can add alt text on Instagram posts so that search engines can go through your posts effectively. As a result, you can enhance your SEO efforts to gain higher organic traffic. You can also learn how to use AI for Instagram marketing and create your alt text with AI!

How to Add Alt Text to Your Instagram Posts

If you are convinced to add alt text on Instagram posts and wondering how to add them, here’s our step-by-step guide to add alt text in Instagram.

First things first, you need to share a post or picture on your Instagram so that you can add alt text while sharing.
When you choose your picture to share, click Next to see the options or settings before posting it. You will see ‘Advanced Settings’ at the bottom of the list.
Once you click advanced settings, there you will see a section given for ‘Accessibility’. Under there, you will see the ‘Write Alt Text’ button. Click on that.
Once you click, a caption bar will open so that you can describe your image with any words you like.
When you are finished with writing alt text on Instagram, you can click on ‘Done’ at the right above to save your text. Then, it is done! You have done it!

How Do You Write SEO-Optimized Alt Text?

Instagram can write automatic alt texts to your posts. However, we cannot definitely say that they are SEO-friendly alternate texts, as we mentioned above. To make your posts more SEO-friendly, and to increase your visibility on SERPs and Instagram, here are some significant strategies to apply. You can also buy Instagram Reels views for your Reels posts to boost! To be able to write SEO-optimized alt text on Instagram, you need to follow these rules or strategies:

how do you write SEO-friendly optimized alt text

You should not use ‘keyword stuff’ but use non-branded words. That means you can use descriptive, non-branded words that express your picture. However, when doing that, avoid turning the alternate text on Instagram into keyword stuff. That would lose all the meaning and relatability of your brand.
Please keep your alt text short and concise. Since the logic behind alt text is to help visually impaired users, their applications do not read after the 125 characters. Hence, keeping it short and between 125 characters is for your benefit and your users. Moreover, long alt text on Instagram can be considered over-optimized and hinder your SEO efforts.
You should include your brand name as well. I know. We said that you should use non-branded words. Nonetheless, you should also add your brand in a meaningful way so that your post can be seen in the searches that are related to your brand as well.
You do not need to use the image-based terminology. Most people start their alt text on Instagram with the phrase ‘’It is a photo of…’’ However, this is unnecessary since tools that help visually impaired users already mention that it is a picture or image before reading the text. In other words, you would be only wasting your valuable 125 characters by saying the same thing twice. Thus, you should refrain from using image-based terms in your Instagram alt text.

Instagram Alt Text Examples

You might be wondering how to write a perfect Instagram alt text based on the strategies we mentioned earlier. In this section, we collected some alt text examples so that you understand what we are talking about.

‘’A group of girlfriends having a drink on the table in a bar, celebrating a birthday.’’ – This alt text is a great example because it is short and summarizes the situation. We can understand the number of people in the picture, what they are doing, where they are, and their purpose.
‘’A close-up of a hamburger, cheddar melting on the meat burger with lettuce and slices of tomato, on a wooden table.’’ – This time, since it is a close-up picture, the alt text gives details of the picture. These details can help users to imagine the picture better.
‘’Woman in a red dress crying on a bench in the streets of London with her umbrella.’’ – This time, the alt text not only describes the main subject but also details its surroundings. It also mentions her action so that users can picture it in their minds.
‘’A meme of Pitbull saying ‘Been there done that’ in front of a world picture.’’ – Be careful; if an image you shared has a text on it, it should be reflected in the alt text as well.

Don’t forget to check the Instagram Reels algorithm for more. Also, for your questions about the platform rules, check the Instagram Help Center.

Using the Power of Words with Instagram Alt Texts

Instagram alt text functions as a written explanation of a post’s visual components, offering a story that puts words and photos into context. This improves accessibility while expanding the content’s reach and increasing search engine optimization (SEO) visibility. By including relevant keywords in your alt text, you can enhance the chance of your posts appearing in SERPs, enlarging your audience beyond your current followers.