Ever since Instagram was launched in 2010, its popularity has grown amazingly all over the world. This platform alone have over 50 billion photos and videos posted on it and the number is growing by millions every single day. Many brands, influencers, business have been taking huge benefits from this platform by posting photos and videos. However, there’s one feature that is not given much attention by people but offers many great benefits to the users of Instagram. This feature is Instagram Alt Text.
Wondering what is Instagram Alt Text and why is it important for your success, how to add it on your post, what is the use of it and how is it relevant to your success? Read on, as here we’ll be sharing everything related to Instagram Alt text along with many insightful tips about this hidden gem that’ll help you to get success on Instagram.
What is ALT Text?
Alt Text also known as “Alternative Text”, “Alt Tags” is the written copy which appears in place of an image. In reality, almost everything that we see on internet has alt texts. You might not see it yourself but it is everywhere and now it’s available on Instagram too. Instagram has launched this feature in 2018 as one of its powerful features that has been launched in a while. If you are familiar with SEO then you must have heard about alt texts and to make Instagram SEO friendly in some way, this alt text can help you to a great level.
Alt Texts, basically appears in place of an image if web page due to any reasons fails to fully load. There could be few situations when these alt text is shown:
- When your Internet is too slow to load something.
- When you use browser for visually impaired or as a special screen reading tools to descible what’s on the image.
If you want to be in control and wants to get the most out of Instagram, take full advantage of Instagram Alt text feature.
Why Instagram Alt Text For Your Posts?
Below I am sharing few points on why you should use Instagram alt text feature and not miss out on it:
- Instagram is a visual platform where people posts multiple photos and videos every day, hour, week, etc. In many pictures we do not describe the photo with caption. And this could make it harder for people who can’t see very hard to relate to your story. But if you will write what’s in your photo using the alt text, people will understand easily what’s on your photo. Thanks to the screen reader feature, their phones will read the alt text for them. So using the alt text in your photos, you can help people who can’t see “see” your photo.
- Instagram keeps on changing its algorithm and now its using image recognition technology to see what’s on your photo that you post. This technology helps the Instagram to show your post to more number of people who likes the kind of content you post. So, using this feature of alt text you can even naturally grow your account by getting your post accessible to more and more people as per their choice.
- Instagram SEO is here now. SEO means search engine optimization that people use to grow their website online. Now the same is happening with Instagram. One can grow their profile using Instagram SEO with the help of Instagram Alt text. All you need are good Instagram alt texts for your posts and add it your picture and see the magic. Your picture can go viral on Instagram if you use the right alt texts.
So, these are just few points on why you should not miss out on adding alt texts to your posts. There are many more benefits that you can get after you start using it on all your posts.
When to Add Alt Text On Instagram?
Instagram keeps on adding new features to make it widely accessible to people. One of its many feature is Alt Text that offers many benefits to people including wider reach. Alt text is automatically added to every Instagram pictures. It uses object recognition technology & AI to simply determine what’s in the post and provide generic description of the Instagram post.
As we know, the descriptions won’t be illustrative, they also lack context and there won’t be branding components as well to them. And to have all these well-formatted descriptions with proper keywords, you will need to add your own alt text to your posts.
Ideally, all of us should add proper alt text to our Instagram posts as a regular post upload process. If one wants, they can add alt text in their old posts as well. Especially, one should definitely add alt text to those posts that they want to appear in search results. Also, if you are working with any brand or influencer, you can also tell them to add the alt text in their post for your brand. There are many influencers who write their own caption, adding alt text in their post won’t affect their content branding.
Having you, influencers or anyone including your alt text would provide more exposure. So the answer to the question “When to add alt text on Instagram” is, add it in every posts of yours to get the exposure without affecting your brand and using the best of Instagram features.
How To Add Alt Text to New Pictures On Instagram?
Below we’ve shared the simple steps to add alt text to new posts on Instagram:
Step 1- To add the alt text, first of all you need a photo. Use “+” icon given on Instagram to add new picture.
Step 2- Now manipulate the photo using any of your favorite filters given there. If you like the original picture then keep it as it is and click next.
Step 3- In the next page, you can add description, location, different hashtags, etc. Here you have to select the option “Advanced Settings”.
Step 4- Now add your Alt Text by simply clicking on option “Write Alt Text”. Remember it is recommended that the alt text should not be more than 100 characters long.
Step 5- Once you’ve written the alt text, now select “Done” to finally complete your photo editing.
So, these are the easy and simple steps using which you can easily add the alt text to your new pictures or posts on Instagram.
How to Add Alt Text To Already Posted Picture on Instagram?
In case you forgot to add the alt text to the picture that you recently posted then also it is not too late to add the alt text in this already posted pic of yours. Here’s how you can do it in simple steps:
Step 1- Select the photo from your profile.
Step 2- Now locate the (…) sign on the picture and click on it.
Step 3- Once you’ve clicked on it, you will see a pop-up with few options like “Archive”, “Turn Off Commenting”, “Edit”, “Copy Link”, “Share”, and “Delete”.
Step 4- Click on “Edit” and now you will see 2 icons between your photo. You have to choose “Edit Alt Text” option, that will be on the right side of the picture.
Step 5- Now a box will appear on your screen where you can write the Alt text. Again I am telling you to not write an alt text more than 100-120 characters despite the limit is 125 long.
What to Write in Instagram Alt Text?
Now that you know so much about Instagram Alt Text, the most important question that comes in our mind is: What to Write in Instagram Alt Text?
What exactly should you write that can make sure its serving quite well to both the Instagram algorithms and the users? As per the algorithm, you have to keep your Instagram alt text short, simple, sweet and to the point. Also, it is limited to 120 characters only, out of which its recommended to write 100 characters only. Below I am sharing few best tips that can help you in writing the best Instagram Alt Text for your posts:
- Do not copy paste your post caption. Don’t write alt text for the sake of writing only but use it in the way that will benefit your posts on Instagram by writing proper alt texts.
- While writing the alt texts focus more on those things that you want people to remember about your picture or brand and then write down what’s important, special and meaningful.
- Try to describe your image as specifically as you can. Like suppose if it’s an image of a cat, write there’s a cat” and if there are two people laughing, simply write “Two people laughing”. You do not need to like reinvent the whole wheel to write the alt text.
- One of the important thing that you should do especially if you are a business, is to include a keyword. Like if you are running a shoe account, include the word “Affordable Shoe” or anything related to shoe, wherever applicable. This will extend your reach to your target audience as well.
- If there is some important text on your picture, you can use that in your alt text.
- If colors are what that makes your content different, you can write the name of colors as well in the alt text.
So, these are few tips that can help or guide you in writing the best Alt text for Instagram posts.
Conclusion
So, this is all about the Instagram alt text. These alt text basically demonstrate the value of visual content & also SEO for social media which could be great for many people or brands, if they are using it correctly. It also helps the Instagram to get better idea about what your content is and so it ensures that your followers don’t miss out your content just because of accessibility issues.
Another best thing about Alt text for Instagram posts is that it is just the beginning of them trying to make this platform more SEO friendly. And with time when their algorithm becomes more smarter, all the searches using alt text will become very powerful and accurate. So without doing any ado, use this feature and get the most out of Instagram Alt Texts for you.
Hope you liked this article and get to learn something from it. In case you have further questions related to this topic, you can ask us via the comment section given below. We will try to answer as soon as possible.
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