Instagram SEO made easy: Expert tips + a free tool for success – Hootsuite

Learn the basics of Instagram SEO to optimize your profile and content, and help your target audience find you in search results.
With over 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms with a built-in search engine. And these days, users aren’t just scrolling their feeds — they’re actively searching for brands, products, and content using keywords, hashtags, and even the Explore page.
This is where Instagram SEO comes in. By optimizing your content for search, you can increase your visibility, engagement, and followers.
But where do you start, and what actually works in 2025? To find out, we interviewed several social media experts who have mastered the art of Instagram SEO. They shared what to do and not to do to appear in Instagram’s search results. Keep reading on for their tried-and-true tips.
Download a free social SEO checklist and follow pro tips for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn to get your posts seen by more people.
Instagram SEO is the practice of tailoring your Instagram content to achieve maximum discovery in search results on the platform. Instagram search results can include relevant content, accounts, audio, hashtags, places, and Reels.
When a user enters keywords related to your business in the Instagram search box, you want your account or content to appear at the top. And following search engine optimization best practices for Instagram can help you achieve this.
To illustrate the importance of social media SEO, Hootsuite ran an experiment comparing optimized and non-optimized Instagram posts. The main takeaway: SEO-optimized posts can earn 30% more engagement.
Here’s a list of the ways Instagram SEO tactics can benefit you:
Looking to boost your Instagram SEO strategy? Hootsuite’s free Instagram SEO tool can help you increase your visibility, engagement, and followers on the platform.
Using the tool below, you can create SEO-optimized captions for your Instagram posts that will help get them in front of the right audience.
Here’s how to use it:
According to Instagram, four SEO ranking factors help determine what and how content is shown in search results:

A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

In this Reel, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri explains how to ensure your content gets recommended on Instagram in 2025.
One more thing: Your content must follow Instagram’s Recommendation Guidelines to appear in search results, and your account can’t violate any Community Guidelines.
In this search, some accounts rank higher because I follow mutual accounts. If you search the same phrase, your results would look different from mine. Give it a try!
If you’re new to SEO, here are three easy steps to get started with optimizing your content on Instagram.
Before you can tailor your content to appear in the right searches, you need to understand your target audience’s mindset.
Some questions to ask yourself or your team:
Pro tip: You can use social listening tools such as Hootsuite to discover your audience’s preferences, common questions, and frustrations.
Within Hootsuite, you can generate a word cloud to identify related words to add to captions and hashtags.
Once you’ve answered the questions in step one, you’ll have some good starting points to kick off your keyword research.
This research aims to narrow down the phrases, words, and relevant hashtags for your business that your audience uses when searching for things related to your business.
Here are some tools that you can use to do keyword research:
After step two, you should have a good list of keywords and phrases to integrate into your content. We suggest grouping them by theme, product, or whatever makes sense for your business so that you have separate groups of keywords to test and rotate through.
You can add keywords to your content in a few ways:
Note that currently, only captions are searchable, so you should add any SEO keywords and hashtags in your post caption, not comments.

A post shared by Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite)

To get the best insights on what’s working for Instagram SEO in 2025, we interviewed Evelina Milenova, SEO & Growth Manager at Opinion Stage, and Ali Cameron, Disability Advocate & Creator of Seated Perspectives.
When doing keyword research, it may seem simple to guess which search terms your audience is using. However, Cameron strongly warns against this trap:
“Instead of relying on what you would call yourself or your service offerings, think about the words your target audience would use to describe or search for you.”
To streamline the process of incorporating relevant keywords into your content, Milenova recommends these steps:

A post shared by Ashley Lemieux- Wellness Coach (@ashleyklemieux)

Ashley Lemieux posts about motherhood as one of her content pillars and reflects that naturally with many parenting-related keywords in this caption.
Given users’ short attention spans and scrolling behaviors, writing extended captions on Instagram may seem counterintuitive. However, Cameron explains the potential SEO benefits:
“Captions offer great keyword real estate. Try to find a balance in storytelling and introducing keywords that align with your target audience.”
Source: @seated.perspetives
This carousel features a lengthy caption but balances keywords and storytelling to compel viewers to read the whole thing.
As explained in the ranking factors section above, boosting the popularity of your Instagram account and content can help your SEO, especially through high engagement.
Milenova’s tip to increase your popularity: “Lean into the most promoted formats on the Explore page, such as Reels and carousels (with music added).”

A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

Engaging with accounts that already rank for your target keywords helps Instagram understand what niche your account fits into through the user activity ranking signal.
“To appear more often in ‘for you’ and ‘suggested’ results, you need to engage with more accounts. These accounts can include potential customers and related businesses.” shares Milenova
Alt text describes your content for users who use accessibility tools like screen readers. Alt text is essential for SEO because it helps Instagram understand what’s in your content and which search queries to place it in.
While alt text may offer another opportunity to improve your SEO, Cameron advises keeping its intended purpose in mind: “Make sure you’re not compromising the true intent of alt text (accessibility) by injecting it with keywords.”
You can add alt text when publishing a post by tapping Advanced Settings > Write Alt Text.
One pro tip from Milenova: “Adding alt text can feel very time-consuming, especially for carousel posts. One thing I do is bulk-upload all images into ChatGPT and ask it to create alt text under 100 characters.”
For more tips, check out our full guide on Instagram alt text.
Although Instagram hashtags may not be as vital for reach as they used to be, they can still offer valuable benefits for searchability.
“While you don’t need to stuff your caption with hashtags anymore, you can still use 3-5 that feature commonly searched terms. When using hashtags, remember to use camel case to make them accessible.” shares Cameron
Posting at the right time is crucial for gaining early engagement with your content, which is one of the popularity ranking signals. Knowing the best times to post ensures your content gets a search boost while remaining fresh and relevant.
Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature (found under Analytics) tells you the best times to post on Instagram (and other platforms). The recommendations are based on your account’s past performance and tailored to your audience and social media activity patterns.
The Best Time to Publish tool goes one step further and suggests different times based on four key goals:
This feature allows you to match each piece of content to a specific business goal and optimize your posting schedule for maximum effectiveness.
Find out when your audience is online and optimize your posting schedule for maximum engagement. It’s so easy.
If your business has physical stores or operates in specific locations, you should highlight this in your Instagram profile to appear in geographically relevant searches.
You can add a location within the Contact options on your profile (only available for Instagram Business accounts). You can list a country, city, or precise address.
Source: @cocobubbletea.nl
Milenova offers a bonus tip: “Add your location to your handle or profile name, which is more searchable than just adding it in the bio or address field.”
Posts aren’t the only place to optimize for SEO on Instagram. You can also tailor your Instagram profile for maximum searchability:
Source: @seated.perspectives
“I include terms such as ‘brand coach’ ‘disabled women’ ‘branding and mindset guide’ on my profile to make it easier for my target audience to find me.” says Cameron
Pro tip: Here are two free tools for SEO optimization: an Instagram bio generator and an Instagram username generator.
Meta Verified is a paid subscription for businesses that includes search optimization on Instagram and Facebook as one of its benefits.
Source: Facebook
Verified users get the coveted blue check mark beside their username and other features like account support, impersonation protection, and enhanced profile features. Businesses must apply and meet eligibility requirements to get verified.
Meta Verified starts from $14.99 USD per month, which could be worthwhile if more visibility in search results leads to more business.
Read our complete guide on how to get verified on Instagram.
Cameron warns against using overly creative terms to describe your business in your Instagram profile.
“There’s a trend amongst service providers of calling themselves cute names like ‘branding chef’ or ‘messaging magician’, yet that would never be what I would search for to find someone who could help in those areas.”
Cramming your captions with keywords and hashtags might seem like a good way to rank higher, but it can hurt your reach and engagement.
Instagram’s algorithm favors natural, readable content. So, write captions that incorporate keywords naturally and focus on 3-5 highly relevant keywords that accurately reflect your content and audience.
Although creating videos can require a lot of effort for small businesses, Milenova says the benefits are worth it — especially for the SEO benefits.
“Reels give you many opportunities to get discovered: they take double-size real estate on the Explore page and offer SEO keyword opportunities with captions and subtitles.”
Instagram SEO follows the same best practices as SEO elsewhere on the internet. Do audience research to identify keywords you want to rank for, integrate those keywords into your content, captions, and profile, and follow Instagram’s Recommendation and Community Guidelines.
You can check your SEO on Instagram by searching keywords or hashtags related to your brand and seeing how high your content ranks.
Tip: Search for an account that doesn’t follow you and hasn’t interacted with your content.
SEO hashtags are words or phrases optimized for search and discoverability and used within a post caption. Note that you must put hashtags in the caption for the post to be rankable in search results.

A post shared by Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite)

In the above example, some SEO-friendly keywords would be “viral,” “engagements,” “audience,” and “social,” which would help the post appear to users searching for information about social media marketing and how to go viral.
Use Hootsuite to schedule Instagram posts at the best time, respond to comments, track competitors, and measure performance—all from the same dashboard you use to manage your other social networks. Start your free trial today.
Easily create, analyze, and schedule Instagram posts, Stories, Reels, and Threads with Hootsuite. Save time and get results.
Laura Wong is a Canadian social media strategist based in Amsterdam. She is the founder of SchoolofSocial.io, an online platform that helps anyone land their dream social media job. Besides social media, Laura is passionate about travel, photography, entrepreneurship, and finding the best bubble tea in every city she visits.
Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.
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Top AI SEO Tools to Automate Your Organic Performance in 2025 – Influencer Marketing Hub

You are here: Influencer Marketing Hub » AI Marketing » Top AI SEO Tools to Automate Your Organic Performance in 2025
The best AI search engine optimization (SEO) tools are crucial to the success of your digital content. In a nutshell, SEO and SEO specialists enable your website or social pages to be the source of valuable content. Once visitors check out your website, SEO keeps them staying longer on each page, retaining their attention as they learn more about your meaningful solutions. 
The thing about SEO is it can take time to set it up correctly. Online content creation won’t be successful if you do not perform the proper analytics and audits. It would help if you explored several tools to compare which works best. There are numerous free and premium tools available out there. Finding which one has the features and insights that can deliver the ranking and visibility your website needs is a matter of testing them out and checking expert recommendations about the latest tools.
Gaining valuable leads and boosting engagement in your site is a constant battle for eCommerce businesses and marketers. SEO tools abound, and free SEO and paid options are available for every business size. Here are our top-rated AI SEO tools to help drive your traffic and automate your SEO efforts.
Price: 14-day free trial is offered / Paid version costs $117.33 per month. 
Best for: Agencies and businesses of all sizes
Semrush delivers a vast assortment of AI-driven SEO tools, skillfully designed to support marketing professionals in maximizing their success in organic search rankings. By leveraging the power of  Semrush’s 50+ tools encompassing SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC, and social media marketing, marketing professionals can attract and grow their audience online with greater efficiency. 
With access to millions of national and local keywords, Semrush enables users to uncover the most relevant and high-performing keywords for their content. The Keyword Magic Tool uses AI to help you find the most relevant and high-performing keywords for your content, providing dozens of long-tail keywords, search volume data, and keyword difficulty scores. To audit the website, the platform’s AI-driven site audit feature identifies technical SEO issues and provides actionable recommendations for improvement, ensuring optimal site health and search visibility. 
Content marketing is another specialty of Semrush, as the platform’s Writing Assistant helps users create SEO-friendly content by providing suggestions on readability, keyword usage, and content length. 
The AI capabilities of Semrush extend to market research, enabling users to unveil competitors’ marketing strategies, analyze website traffic, and discover keyword and backlink gaps. All this data is presented in its database thanks to machine learning algorithms and quality data providers, which further empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions to increase market share.  
In the realm of advertising, Semrush’s AI tools assist users in optimizing their ad spend, monitoring competitor ad copies and landing pages, and analyzing Google Shopping ad campaigns.  
Price: Comes with a free version / Paid tiers start at $69 per month 
Best for: small bloggers, organizations with multiple websites, and large agencies
Surfer SEO is a popular AI SEO tool for increasing your organic traffic, making your site more visible, and boosting your rankings. It simplifies the SEO process by helping you gather information, create content, optimize, and conduct audits. This tool has the features you need to develop a content strategy that works. Surfer SEO is trusted by leading companies around the world, including Lenovo, ClickUp, Thomson Reuters, Shopify, and Opera.
With Surfer SEO’s Grow Flow, a growth management tool, you can get SEO insights on a weekly basis. It lets you identify high-ranking keywords, research niche topics, discover relevant internal links, generate fresh content ideas, and more. 
Its Keyword Research tool allows you to find dozens of related topics using your primary keyword. Using it, you can determine your target audience’s search intent and assess the difficulty of keywords and searches per month instantly. 
Meanwhile, its SEO Audit tool helps you identify errors in your SEO. Some of the insights you can get from this tool include page speed, keyword density, missing backlinks, and NLP sentiment. It also helps you keep a close eye on your competitors to help you improve your own website content.
Price: Starts at $299 per month; comes with a 10-day free trial 
Best for: small teams, eCommerce stores, and tech hubs
Alli AI can help companies automate their SEO efforts easily, enabling SEO teams of agencies to optimize their site in minutes. It allows teams to manage SEO campaigns quickly without the need for developers or coding know-how. Moreover, it can be integrated into any content management system, such as Shopify and WordPress.  
This AI SEO tool allows for custom automation, letting you and your team tweak changes for every page with ease. Another great advantage that Alli AI offers is that its algorithms are self-adjusting, which means that its automated processes change according to SEO best practices. 
With Alli AI, you can efficiently perform SEO tasks that are time-consuming and costly, such as automating meta tags, link descriptions, alts for images, and more. As a result, you can reduce fulfillment costs and team overhead and scale your agency at the same time. The AI SEO tool’s live editor lets you modify and optimize any page content immediately. By using this tool, you can instantly make changes to your website and publish them immediately.  
Meanwhile, its link-building tool provides recommendations for links by examining the largest websites online and in your industry. It provides all the information you need to easily and quickly build links. Finally, its AI reports offer all the valuable insights that you and your team need to further improve your SEO strategy. Some of the reports you can generate with this feature include keyword ranking reports, recommendation exports, and site sales reports.
Check out the Top 8 SEO Services to Boost Your Search Rank in 2025
Price: Starts at $49
Best for: bloggers and small businesses
RankIQ’s ease of use and quality customer support make it easy for bloggers and businesses to automate their SEO strategies. It can help you increase your website’s organic search traffic. This AI SEO tool suggests titles and content for your posts, allowing you to write optimized content faster. The software includes a list of carefully selected, high-traffic, low-competition keywords. 
With RankIQ, you can create a blog post outline quickly. It generates content briefs based on the topics you should cover, so the outline is ready in minutes. It allows you to produce high-quality content, capable of ranking on the first page of Google.
To use the software, simply type your target keyword into RankIQ. It then uses AI to find the best results on Google. Keywords are critical to the success of your content, and RankIQ makes sure you have the correct keywords in your arsenal. Additionally, RankIQ prepares a detailed AI SEO report based on Google search results.
Overall, RankIQ has an easy-to-use interface. The platform has an intuitive design. Plus, it provides video clips showing users how to use the product properly.
Price: Starts at $15 per month
Best for: content marketers and marketing agencies
Optimizing your content for SEO can be tricky and time-consuming. The people behind Frase know this, which is why they’ve developed a tool to make the process as hassle-free as possible. Trusted by 30,000 clients—such as Coursera, Merkle, and Digitas—this AI SEO tool makes SEO content research and optimization easy.
It helps users create thorough content briefs in just a few minutes. Rather than spending hours researching SERPs, this tool saves you time by compiling, analyzing, and consolidating the best content. Through it, you can research the keywords, headings, and concepts used by your competitors. Plus, you can customize brief templates to make your workflow more efficient. For content optimization, Frase offers an easy-to-use text editor for comparing your content to those of your competitors. It will generate a topic list to assist you in publishing Google-friendly content.
The software’s dashboard analyzes content opportunities and categorizes them. It uses data from Google Search Console to display useful insights into what you need to do next. Frase’s analytics capabilities also allow you to spot pages that are losing rank and need to be updated, so you can stay on top of your SEO game. 
Frase has a Crash Course section to help you start using the software immediately and leveraging it for your SEO needs. The lessons are short yet comprehensive, and there are even quick clips that serve as a demo.
Price: Comes with a free plan; Pro plan is at $14.99 per month 
Best for: individuals and owners of multiple websites
Diib is an AI SEO tool that you can use to get SEO and traffic insights for further growing your business. With Diib, not only can you automate SEO without any difficulty, but you can also compare your performance against your competitors. 
Diib provides you with a growth plan, which includes customized growth objectives and alerts to assist you with SEO, social, mobile, and visitor experience. The tool allows you to monitor your SEO keywords and backlinks, track competitor rankings and changes, and come up with new keywords and content ideas. 
It also automates website monitoring to let you know if we detect any issues. It keeps track of any issues regarding speed and security, deliverability of emails, changes in rankings, and the activity of your competitors.
Another great feature of Diib is that it provides users with a daily health score to check the health of your website. The software uses an advanced algorithm and takes into account 12 metrics to measure the performance of your website.
Price: Starts at $19 per month
Best for: SMEs or solo freelance content creators
Outranking is an AI SEO tool that can help address your issues with organic traffic and engagement. The tool makes automatic content creation simple and hassle-free while at the same time targeting organic content through SERP analysis. That means that the tool scrutinizes top-ranking sites and uses the data to find opportunities that can help you rank higher. By simply using SERP data, Outranking can provide you with an automatic draft right away. You can then do further edits, fact-checks, and rewrites where necessary.
Outranking makes SEO a priority in every content generated for your site, such as blog outlines, briefs, and titles, and omnichannel campaigns. Aside from the Concepts feature, the tool has a comprehensive SEO Content Editor you can use to improve your SEO. You can easily generate meta titles and meta descriptions, optimize H2 and H3 tags, and answer ‘People Also Ask’ questions. Aside from using the SEO Content Editor when you’re writing a new piece, you can also leverage it to refresh old or published articles. 
Whether you need an article, a social media post, a press release, or website page content, Outranking does the job efficiently. It is a low-cost option that may prove to be one of the best tools for solo content creators or companies with smaller teams. 
Check out the Top 10 AI Writing Tools for Busy Content Marketers
Price: Starts at $14 monthly up to $70
Best for: marketers and agencies
NeuronWriter is an AI-powered content optimization tool that helps content writers hash out excellent articles and social media posts that will rank on search engines. One of the key strengths of this tool is its AI Writer, which can generate AI-written content for more efficient writing and SEO optimization.
NeuronWriter works by leveraging data on Google SERPs, competition insights, and natural language processing (NLP) to create effective content related to your target keyword. Aside from the AI Writer feature, there is Internal Linking, where you are given recommendations for related sites, making link-building and internal linking effortless. Another awesome capability is Competitor Analysis, where the tool analyzes the successful content of your competitor to check what drives their rankings per content. 
NeuronWriter supports over 170 languages, has a Document Management system, and comes with a content planner function for well-organized SEO content campaigns.
These AI SEO tools can make the difference between you missing out on traffic and being on the first page results on Google and being viewed by the right people. There are free and paid SEO software tools, and each one enables you to get more traffic, sustain engagement, and improve what type of content you could offer your niche audience.
Nowadays, content is still highly critical in making your eCommerce, influencer brand, or company an authority online. Knowing how to leverage SEO can help you become a more effective brand and resonate with what audiences are looking for without getting too bogged down with tedious research and content editing tasks.
AI based SEO is a form of search engine optimization that utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help improve a website’s organic performance. AI based SEO tools can analyze a website or online content and offer insights into areas of improvement. These insights may include keyword research, content optimization, meta tags, link building and more. With the right AI-based SEO tools, businesses can optimize their websites for better organic results in search engines such as Google and Bing.
There are a variety of AI SEO tools available to help with improving organic performance. Some of the best options include Outranking, a low-cost option for solo content creators or companies with smaller teams; NeuronWriter, which uses data on Google SERPs, competition insights and natural language processing (NLP) to create effective content; and Surfer SEO, a powerful suite that is trusted by companies such as Lenovo, ClickUp, and others.. Other popular choices include Frase, AlliAI, RankIQ and Diib. Each tool brings a unique set of features that can be used to improve website rankings so you should review and compare them closely before selecting the one that’s right for your needs. 
AI SEO tools can help you improve your organic performance by providing automated SERP analysis, spotting trending topics and content gaps, optimizing content for SEO, and generating AI-written content that is optimized to rank higher in search engine results pages. These tools also make it easier to build internal links and analyze the successful content of competitors for a better understanding of what drives their rankings. Additionally, AI SEO tools can be used to create well-organized campaigns, generate meta titles and descriptions, optimize H2 and H3 tags, answer ‘People Also Ask’ questions when writing new or refreshing old pieces of content. By using these powerful AI SEO tools you will be able to maximize traffic potential from organic sources.
Yes, Alli AI offers a 10-day free trial period during which you have full access to the platform and features. This will give you a chance to evaluate the services before deciding to purchase a subscription.
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Marriott's Mid-Market Push, Apple's Travel Updates and Google's AI Tools – Skift

Photo Credit: A guest room at the first StudioRes hotel from Marriott.  Marriott
On today’s pod we look at Marriott’s cheaper room push, Apple’s new tools for travelers, and Google’s rapidly changing marketing landscape.
Select a question above or ask something else
Skift Travel Podcasts
Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, June 10. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Marriott recently opened its first mid-market extended-stay hotel, a milestone in its push to attract budget-conscious travelers seeking apartment-style accommodations, writes Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill.
The StudioRes property in Fort Myers, Florida — which includes studio-style rooms, full kitchens, and designated work areas — will pit Marriott against established players like Extended Stay America and Choice Hotels. StudioRes targets a $100-per-night point for guests staying multiple nights. 
Marriott has plans for 40 more StudioRes properties through 2027. O’Neill notes extended stay hotels represent one of hospitality’s fastest-growing categories, driven in part by hybrid work trends and the rising consumer preference for home-like accommodations. 
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Youtube | RSS
Next, Apple unveiled several travel-related upgrades — most notably digital U.S. passports and live translation for messages and calls — during its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday, writes Travel Technology Reporter Justin Dawes.
Apple announced that the digital passport would be coming to the iPhone’s digital Wallet starting this fall. An Apple executive said that while not a replacement for a physical passport, the digital ID can be used for domestic travel at supported TSA checkpoints and in person where age and identity verification are required. 
Apple is also integrating live translation into the apps for Messages, FaceTime, and Phone. The company said AI can generate spoken translation between two people speaking different languages during calls on the Phone app — even if one of the people isn’t using an iPhone.  
Finally, Skift Research’s latest research report examines how Google’s use of AI tools in its search platform is disrupting travel marketing. 
Head of Research Seth Borko writes Skift Research had predicted in 2023 that AI would have its biggest impact on travel in search, but take the longest to arrive. In the past six months, “AI visibility” — the frequency with which travel-related searches return AI-generated results — has quadrupled. 
Borko adds that Gemini has launched on Google’s search engine results page in the form of AI-generated summaries that help answer queries in a contextual manner and with a conversational tone, a significant shift away from the traditional keyword approach.
Tags: ai, apple, google, marriott, skift daily briefing, travel marketing
Marriott has entered the mid-market extended-stay hotel sector with its new StudioRes brand, aiming to attract budget-conscious travelers with apartment-style amenities and plans for rapid expansion. Apple unveiled travel-related updates, including digital U.S. passports for iPhone Wallet and live translation features for calls and messages. Meanwhile, Skift Research reports that Google’s AI tools, especially Gemini, are transforming travel marketing by increasing the prominence of AI-generated content in search results.

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TikTok SEO made easy: Expert tips + a free tool for success – Hootsuite

Hashtags aren’t the only way to get on the For You Page. Conquer TikTok SEO and get your content in front of more people, more often.
There’s a time and place for being mysterious and y’all, TikTok isn’t it — at least, not if you’re using digital marketing strategies to grow your audience and your business.
A great TikTok SEO strategy will tell everyone (other users, the TikTok algorithm, the platform’s search engine technology) exactly who you are and what you’re doing. Good SEO ensures that your TikTok videos are categorized correctly, can be easily searched for, and show up organically for your intended audience.
For expert advice, we talked to Sara Nielsen, head of social strategy at We Make Footballers and Project Footballer. Read on to find actionable, easy steps to take to optimize your TikTok content creation for search and increase video views.
Forget being subtle: SEO is for the bold.
TikTok SEO (search engine optimization) is a strategic way to get your TikTok account and videos to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes TikTok’s search results as well as third-party platforms like Google search.
Improving your TikTok SEO can help you get more reach, followers, and engagement, which will ultimately grow your presence on the app. By aligning your content with the right keywords, you can ensure that you show up in search queries that matter to your audience.
For example, when you search “Calgary pizza” on TikTok, the first TikTok videos that come up have the best SEO — these videos are optimized to appear in TikTok search engine results for pizza in Calgary.
TikTok SEO matters because:
Source: TikTok
TikTok SEO matters because:
Psst: We ran a full experiment on social media SEO that includes 9 tips for social SEO success — watch the video here.
Note: While good SEO is important for your social media strategy, it’s not everything. TikTok user @Mainlysocials points out that the content, editing, and quality of your video still matter.
To understand TikTok SEO, you first need to understand what TikTok looks for when ranking content. There are several core ranking factors for the TikTok algorithm. These are:
User interactions include videos you’ve liked, videos you’ve hidden, videos you’ve added to your favorites, and videos you watch all the way to the end. TikTok takes note of all of this data and uses it to determine which videos to show you.
PSA: What time a video is posted can affect how many user interactions you get, and Hootsuite can tell you exactly when your audience is most active online.
Find out when your audience is online and optimize your posting schedule for maximum engagement. It’s so easy.
All of the information contained in a video can affect its ranking on TikTok. This includes captions, hashtags, sound effects and music.
TikTok looks for videos that contain relevant keywords in their titles and descriptions, as well as videos that cover trending topics or TikTok trends.
Need help optimizing captions for your audience? Try out our free AI caption generator tool.
These are settings TikTok uses to optimize performance. They include language preference, country setting (you may be more likely to see content from people in your own country), the type of mobile device you use and categories of interest you selected as a new user.
While account settings do factor into your TikTok SEO ranking, they receive a lower weight than video info and user interactions.
You’ll be happy to hear that TikTok does not factor follower count into its SEO ranking algorithm (though, if you do want to get more followers, we have you covered).
This means that if you create great content that speaks directly to your target audience, you have as much chance of landing at the top of search as the biggest TikTok influencers.
This is what sets TikTok apart from other platforms like Instagram. And honestly? We’re here for it.

Psst: Here’s our little secret for getting great SEO on TikTok every time.

Hootsuite’s free TikTok SEO tool will recommend optimized captions based on your video description, keywords and tone (choose from styles like “cheeky” or “formal” or “emo teenager”).
If you’re already active on TikTok, you may have a good idea of what your audience likes. If not, consider taking some time to get to know them better.
Look at the videos they’re engaging with and the relevant hashtags they’re using. Analyze the comments and messages they’re sending you, too. This can help you understand their demographics and interests so that you can create content tailored to them and what they might search for.
Understanding your audience can help you craft better titles and descriptions for videos, making them easier to find in TikTok searches. This can give you a leg up when it comes to being discovered by new audiences, too.
Keyword research is an essential part of traditional SEO, so it makes sense to use it on TikTok, too. Find out what words or phrases your target audience is using when searching for types of content like yours.
Remember to consider different ways of phrasing a topic, as well as related keywords. You can do this through tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs and more.
Source: SEMrush
TikTok user @businesswithsab offers some great advice for using TikTok’s search to find the best keywords for your niche.
Once you have your TikTok keyword research completed, start adding them to your content in the titles, descriptions, and captions of your videos. This includes any on-screen text, such as lyrics or explanations.
Also, be sure to say the keywords out loud. That’s right, TikTok’s algorithms prioritize videos where the keywords are actually spoken.
Remember the “Calgary pizza” search from earlier? The video above from @freshdaily ranks highest in TikTok’s search because it incorporates keywords in the caption, on-screen text, hashtags, and in the video’s audio.
You’ll want to include your keywords in any hashtags you use, as this will help people find your posts more easily. Use both your main keyword and any variations of your keyword that make sense, but don’t overdo it. Make sure you know the optimal number of hashtags to use on each platform.
TikTok user @juliabroome suggests using keywords in your video’s comments, as well. So don’t forget about keywords once you post: you can still get some good ol’ SEO when replying to comments.
Every savvy SEO marketing strategy requires continuous monitoring and tweaking. Sure, you put all the best practices in place, but how will you know if your efforts are successful?
Tracking your TikTok analytics is the best way to see if your SEO strategy is paying off. This will give you insights into which videos are performing well, what kind of engagement they’re getting, and more. It can also help you identify areas where you can improve, such as topics or keywords that don’t seem to be resonating with your audience.
Hootsuite Analytics can show you exactly how many views are coming from search, as opposed to the For You page or from existing followers.
According to Nielsen, an effective TikTok SEO strategy will make use of both general and specific hashtags.
Nielsen, who handles social media for a football (the non-American kind) training organization, keeps this in mind when choosing hashtags. “For example, I might use #football as a broader hashtag, and #footballtrainingdrills as a more specific hashtag,” she explains.
Using both broad and niche hashtags works in two ways: broad hashtags expand your reach, and niche hashtags help you show up in search. That way, TikTok users looking for your specific content can find you more easily.
The above TikTok uses broad hashtags like #youthfootball and more niche hashtags like #FunFlairEvents (the name of the tournament organizer).
Thanks to this SEO-friendly hashtag strategy, the video is likely to turn up both organically and in search results for the brand’s target audience.
FYI: For a guide to gaining traction, engaging new followers, and blowing up on TikTok, download Hootsuite’s TikTok growth checklist.
Nielsen chooses keywords based on what her audience is searching for. TikTok’s autocomplete function is a secret weapon: when you start typing in a search term, the platform will predict what word (or words) you’ll type next based on what others are searching for.
For example, the below popular results come up when “bike trails Banff” is typed into the search bar. This gives you a good idea of what TikTok users are searching for.
Source: TikTok
When you’re using the search tool to find relevant keywords, TikTok will often suggest other terms that users search.
When I searched “party appetizers,” for example, the platform suggested “small bites appetizers party,” “finger food for parties,” and more. These are all results that users look for, and would be good long-tail keywords to include.
Source: TikTok
Nielsen offers an example for her particular niche. “I might type in ‘football drills’ and then see that people are searching for ‘football drills for kids,’ ‘football drills by yourself,’ ‘football drills u8,’ etc.,” she explains.
“Experiment with different variations to see which ones yield the best reach.”
Once you’ve determined which keywords will give you optimal TikTok SEO, you should aim to use them as naturally as possible — don’t just throw them together in your caption.
Because while the TikTok robots can interpret a jumble of words, most humans can’t… and that will ultimately hurt your SEO. Remember the “User interaction” ranking factor we noted earlier? If users aren’t interacting with your videos because your content and captions are confusing, all that keyword work will be for nothing.
Write short and engaging captions that naturally incorporate some of your top keywords,” Nielsen recommends.
Source: @rowenhomes
The above TikTok incorporates keywords like “DIY” and “wall feature” in a natural, clear way. The caption makes the video topic obvious without needing to tap “more,” which Nielsen gives the thumbs-up.
She suggests front-loading your captions as a best practice — in other words, using keywords and a hook at the very beginning. “TikTok only shows a small amount of text, so make it count!”
Good TikTok SEO starts at the very beginning — your username can have a colossal impact on how often your account comes up in search.
“Try to choose a username that is either an exact match for your brand name or as close to it as you can come in case users are searching for your brand,” Nielsen suggests.
“For anyone starting a new business, choosing a company name that reflects what you do can help your TikTok SEO.”
Source: @mirandaandersonphoto
This wedding photographer has the word “photo” in her username, and “wedding photography” in her bio.
Plus, her bio lists the locations she works in. That way, anyone searching for a wedding photographer in Calgary is likely to come across her content (that’s how I found it just now).
If your brand already has a name (and it’s not SEO-friendly), don’t sweat it. You can change your TikTok username to be better for SEO.
Note: you can only change your TikTok username every 30 days, and it’s best to keep it as consistent as possible so you don’t confuse your audience.
It’s not just your captions and hashtags that have an impact on your TikTok’s SEO. The platform can also interpret your on-screen text.
Nielsen recommends using keywords in an on-screen headline to tell your audience (and TikTok’s ranking technology) exactly what your video is about.
Source: @kimladbeauty
TikTok user @kimladbeauty does this very well — at a glance, it’s very easy for a human to understand what their videos are about, and it’s equally easy for TikTok to do the same.
“A strong, ‘share-worthy’ on-screen hook can also encourage viewers to share your video with other people they think would enjoy it,” Nielsen adds. “And it will better enable TikTok to push your video out to people likely to engage.”
Not every strategy is going to work perfectly for every brand, so it’s important to try new things and keep track of the results.
“Test out different content, different SEO strategies, different captions, and never stop testing,” says Nielsen. “Monitor metrics closely to see what’s working and what isn’t.”
Using Hootsuite, you can test and determine the best time to post for your business according to when your audience is most active online. You can also keep track of your engagement, reach and more.
When it comes to trying new SEO strategies, Nielsen recommends testing one thing at a time and doing it consistently for at least a few weeks. “Then, review your metrics and see if it’s moved the needle. Keep repeating this process and find what works for your company.”
“Don’t overdo it on the hashtags!” advises Nielsen. Everything in moderation, right? While using strategic hashtags can be great for your TikTok SEO, you still want to be as concise and direct as possible — Nielsen recommends three to five hashtags as a “sweet spot.
In fact, overuse can actually negatively impact your algorithm ranking. “Using too many hashtags can not only make your caption look cluttered, but more importantly, it can confuse TikTok about your post’s focus,” Nielsen explains.
Nielsen explains that some social media managers might not use TikTok’s auto-generated captions because they can make videos look more cluttered. But, those captions are a valuable SEO tool: they help TikTok understand your content.
“Even if you drag the captions off-screen for aesthetic purposes, having them on your video is an easy way to let TikTok know what you’re talking about,” says Nielsen.
That said, keeping the captions on-screen makes your videos more accessible — either way, don’t count out those auto-captions.
A consistent posting schedule is important on all platforms (see how often you should post on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more here), but it’s especially important on TikTok.
Posting consistently will help you get more accurate analytics and give you a better idea of what works and what doesn’t.
Nielsen points out that posting inconsistently will reduce your account’s visibility from an SEO perspective, too. “The more consistently you post, the easier it will be for TikTok to understand what your page is about and push it to the right audience,” she says.

Grow your TikTok presence alongside your other social channels using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish posts for the best times, engage your audience, and measure performance — all from one easy-to-use dashboard. Try it free today.
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Alyssa is a freelance writer, editor and illustrator based in Vancouver, BC. Her portfolio ranges from lifestyle articles to travel journalism to restaurant reviews to technical writing to editing annual reports for non-profits—she wears a lot of hats (metaphorically… in real life, she rarely wears hats).
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MLC 2025: Monank Patel’s 93, Bracewell’s blistering fifty, and vintage Pollard guide MI NY to victory over SEO – Revsportz

Stay informed with RevSportz, your one-stop destination for the latest sports articles and news sports articles. We are a sports news portal that covers a wide range of sports, including cricket, football, and more.
MI New York registered their first win in the ongoing Major League Cricket (MLC) 2025 season, defeating Seattle Orcas (SEO) by seven wickets. While chasing a target of 201, Monank Patel set the tone with a superb 93-run knock off 50 balls. Michael Bracewell followed with an unbeaten 50 off 35, and a vintage cameo from Kieron Pollard—an unbeaten 26 off just 10 balls—sealed the win. MI NY chased down the target with one over to spare.
Earlier in the match, Kyle Mayers starred for the Orcas, smashing 88 off 46 deliveries to help SEO post a competitive 200/5 in 20 overs. However, the total wasn’t enough to stop MI NY.
After this result, SEO remain winless in the tournament, sitting in fifth place with zero points from three games and a net run rate of -2.869. MI NY, meanwhile, move up to fourth with two points from three games and a net run rate of -0.074.
Monank Patel was named Player of the Match for his match-winning 93. During the post-match presentation, he said: “Really happy with the way we played, we fought till the end. These two points are really crucial to start our journey. We have been watching games in the past 2-3 days. In the second innings, when you try to hit too many shots, it is tough.”
“Wanted to spend time, get set and then play some shots. When there was some extra pace, just wanted to use my pace (and pick boundary options). We have been talking with our coach and batting coach. Everyone has a different template. I have a particular template, wanted to believe in it and glad that I am getting success. This is a special ground. Playing an international game here will be wonderful,” he concluded.
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AI SEO: How To Use AI for Search Engine Optimization – Shopify

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AI has always been a part of search engine optimization (SEO). Google uses AI to inform its algorithms. Marketers use AI to analyze, optimize, and create their content. Today, as AI rapidly improves, it’s a bigger part of SEO than ever. Here’s what you need to know about using AI for your business’s SEO.
AI SEO, or artificial intelligence search engine optimization, is the use of AI to improve web page ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). AI can support SEO strategies with technologies such as machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and large language models (LLMs).
When SEO tools leverage AI to create new outputs such as text or images, the tools are referred to as generative AI—which can be a useful starting point for creating new SEO content.
AI has a variety of applications in SEO. For example, search engine algorithms use a version of AI to determine search engine rankings. Generative AI tools can help summarize research, suggest edits, and draft copy.

You can use AI for several SEO purposes:
Search engines such as Google and Bing use machine learning AI to determine page rankings. Every time someone performs a search, algorithms analyze a vast number of factors to determine which websites are shown and in what order. The ranking factors in Google’s algorithm include the relevance, quality, and usability of a page’s content.
Marketers can’t directly influence these algorithms, but by understanding how they work, they can create better-informed SEO strategies.
AI tools can analyze a website’s content and compare it to top-ranked sites. They can then use this information to provide recommendations on how to improve your website’s performance.
Some tools, like Surfer SEO, focus on content opportunities, such as phrases to include in copy or content ideas to write about. Other tools, like Screpy, use AI to recommend technical upgrades to your site, such as improvements to help your website load faster.
In SEO, keyword research is the practice of identifying search terms your website could rank for and then prioritizing them for your site based on their search volume, difficulty to rank, and fit for your business. Typically, this is a manual process that involves looking up keywords one by one (or in bulk searches) in a keyword tool like Ahrefs.
AI can simplify this task. For example, ask a generative AI tool like ChatGPT to “recommend the best SEO-relevant keywords for my website and tell me why you think they’re best.”
Of course, an AI tool will never know your business as well as you do, so be sure to vet the AI’s recommendations to see if they make sense for your target audience and your brand.
Part of SEO’s job is to write helpful, comprehensive content that answers your target audience’s questions. The best content for SEO is well-researched and written by a subject matter expert. But even a subject matter expert won’t know everything about a topic.
Generative AI tools can help speed up an expert’s research by taking in prompts like “summarize the latest research on what caused the US financial crisis” and condensing many research papers down to a few bullet points or paragraphs.
However, when using AI for research, it’s important to understand its limitations. Most models are trained up to a certain cut-off date, meaning they won’t know about topics beyond that date. AI tools can also “hallucinate,” meaning they can misrepresent a fact or statement or make things up entirely. Just like if you were working with a real research assistant, you can ask AI tools to cite their sources and verify them.
Content generation has become one of the most popular use cases for generative AI tools like ChatGPT because they can write hundreds of words in a matter of seconds, drastically reducing the time writers need to create a first draft of an article, product description, meta title/meta description, or website copy.
That said, be aware of Google’s policy on AI-generated content. Google does not ban AI-generated or AI-assisted content, instead favoring “high quality content, however it’s produced.” But it considers content created entirely by AI with the intention to “manipulate ranking in search results” to be a violation of its spam policies. This can result in a loss of organic traffic for your site. In general, it’s usually best to avoid writing SEO content entirely with AI, and instead use AI tools for research and first drafts.
Additionally, mass-market generative AI tools are trained on public internet content, so if you have a new or niche brand, the tool likely won’t have a strong understanding of your industry or product. New, more focused generative AI tools, such as Shopify Magic, can help remedy this shortcoming and create product descriptions, images, and emails that fit your store.
AI SEO tools are best understood by their overall use cases:
ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is one of the most accessible AI tools on the market. It positions itself as a place to find creative answers and inspiration. With its simple text entry interface, it works like a powerful virtual assistant.
Copilot is Microsoft’s latest iteration of its general-purpose AI assistant, originally branded Bing AI. It has similar functionality to ChatGPT, and in the future, Microsoft has said it will integrate directly into Microsoft tools like Word and Excel for advanced functionality.
Shopify Magic
Shopify Magic makes it easier to start, run, and grow your business. Our groundbreaking commerce-focused AI empowers entrepreneurs like you to be more creative, productive, and successful than ever before.
AI designed for commerce
Shopify Magic is the AI assistant for Shopify stores. It is built by Shopify and integrated directly into the Shopify interface. It provides support for product image background editing, product description drafting, FAQ generation, email planning, and live chat.
Jasper, launched in 2021, was one of the first tools to offer AI-based copywriting. Today, Jasper offers a variety of marketing-specific AI generation tools, including blog writing, headline copy, SEO strategy, and more. Although it has affordable entry points, its focus is on large, enterprise businesses.
Ink is an AI-based content marketing tool. It offers AI-generated content with a focus on precise SEO optimization and guardrails against having content perceived as violating Google’s spam rules.
Surfer SEO uses natural language processing (NLP) to make content optimization recommendations. The company uses a proprietary Surfer Score to evaluate your content and provides a roadmap to improving your score. Recently, it has expanded its offering to include AI-supported writing and keyword research.
Alli AI offers a suite of AI-based SEO features with a focus on bulk on-page optimization. It can write content and deploy technical edits, such as automatically implementing canonical tags across the site.

Yes, there is a wide range of AI use cases in SEO, including content creation, research, and optimization.
Google does not explicitly block content generated with AI. However, it aims to block content that is entirely generated by AI with the express purpose of ranking in Google, a small but important distinction.
There are a variety of tools for writing SEO content with AI, including ChatGPT, Jasper, and Shopify Magic.
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Social SEO: Guide to more reach on social media + free tool – Hootsuite

Find out what social SEO means, why it matters, and — most importantly — how it can help you grow your business accounts on all social media platforms.
Social SEO is the practice of optimizing your social content to help people find you when they search on social media platforms.
SEO stands for search engine optimization. Social networks may not technically be search engines — but people are increasingly using them the way they used to use Google.
There has been a seismic shift in search behaviors, especially among younger people.
Recent research from Forbes Advisor and Talker Research found that Generation Z is 30% less likely to use search engines for brand discovery than Baby Boomers are. Nearly a quarter of people of all ages (24%) said they only or primarily use social media for online search. Among Gen Z, that number rises to 46%.
Even more important, 21% of Gen Z starts their brand searches on social media. 44% of Gen Z finds new brands on social media every single day.
People are actively using social platforms to look for information. Social SEO helps your content rise to the top of the results.
Download a free social SEO checklist and follow pro tips for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn to get your posts seen by more people.
We just said that social SEO helps you reach people who are actively searching for content or products like yours on social platforms. They have typed a query into a search bar in hopes of surfacing something specific.
On the other hand, social algorithms serve up content to people who are passively scrolling through their social feed.
Understanding the algorithms and optimizing for social search are both ways to improve brand visibility and discoverability on social platforms. But SEO is particularly useful because it connects you with people at the exact moment that they want to hear from brands like yours.
A quick heads-up here. This post focuses on how to improve your search results on social platforms. The main benefit is, like we said, reaching the growing audience that uses social search. But optimizing your social profiles with SEO best practices has an added off-platform benefit.
Consistent, credible, and SEO-optimized social profiles rank highly in traditional search engines like Google, too. When you create your profiles with SEO in mind, you boost your content visibility in two ways. First, to people who search on the social platforms (mainly Millenials and Gen Z) but also to people who search elsewhere.
For instance, look at the first two Google search engine result pages (SERPs) for Smitten Kitchen. After their own website content, it’s all social profiles and social media posts.
Source: Google search results for “Smitten Kitchen”
Social SEO helps you connect with audiences across the generations, no matter where they start their brand search. Here’s how to optimize your profile.
Use all the available fields in every social profile to your advantage:
For more details, check out or post on how to optimize your social profiles.
The prevailing wisdom used to suggest that it was a good idea to switch up your “link in bio” pretty regularly. The idea was that this allowed you to drive traffic through to your latest blog post or campaign, keeping things fresh.
However, this is not a great strategy if your focus is on social SEO. As you’ll see below, consistency is critical in helping platforms (both social platforms and regular search engines) understand what your account is all about. Keeping your bio link consistent helps search engines understand the connection between your social profiles, your brand, and your other web content.
A good way to get around this while still being able to link to new content or campaigns is to use a custom link hub with a tool like Hootbio.
Good cover and profile photos help establish your social account’s credibility and quality. These are important ranking factors for both social platforms and traditional search engines.
Your profile photo also appears next to your account in the social search results. So, it helps signal credibility to users, too, making them more likely to click.
Always remember that ranking high in the search results is only useful if people actually click on the result! A good, easily identifiable profile photo makes this more likely to happen.
Search engines love consistency. It helps their ranking engines understand what’s happening on a social page, and how that page is related to other content across the web. That’s all important information for the search algorithms as they work to match content to search intent.
This means you’ll have better luck with social SEO if you stick to consistent themes and content pillars on your social accounts. We’ll get into the details of how to set this up later in this post. But for now, just remember that you’ll have better social SEO (as well as more loyal followers) if your account has a clear purpose. Stick to content that resonates with that theme.
As you’ll see below, Meta specifically says that buying into their Meta Verified program includes the benefit of search optimization on Facebook and Instagram.
But that’s not the only reason to pursue a verification badge.
A verification badge is an important social signal of credibility and legitimacy, both to users and to search engines.
“Our Facebook verification unexpectedly proved most valuable for local SEO,” said Matt Harrison, VP of Global Operations & Marketing at Authority Builders. “Our local search visibility improved notably because the verified status helped establish our business as a legitimate entity across the digital ecosystem.”
Now that you’ve got the profiles on your social media accounts sorted, let’s look at how to create a valuable content strategy for SEO.
Any social media SEO strategy must begin with a solid foundation of keyword research. But don’t simply choose keywords based on how you think people will search for your content. Instead, you need to understand how people actually search for content like yours.
Some good tools to get you started are:
Going down the keyword rabbit hole can sometimes provide more results than you know what to do with. To keep you focused, it’s a good idea to create content pillars. These are key themes, topics, or content clusters. You should be able to map all the content you create back to one of your content pillars.
In the context of social SEO, think of your content pillars as keyword buckets. Take that big list of keywords and try to group or categorize them in a meaningful way. What themes emerge? How can you map those back to your larger social media marketing strategy?
You don’t need to ditch a promising keyword just because it doesn’t fit into one of your content pillars. In fact, this situation might suggest your content pillars need revisiting. However, in general, staying true to your content pillars helps search engines recognize the topics where you are a credible source and worthy of a higher rank.
The point is just to make sure you keep your keywords focused and tie them back to your social strategy rather than running away with a term that doesn’t serve you just because it has high search volume.
Tip: If Gen Z is your target audience, think about ways to link your content pillars to some of their most-search topics on TikTok and Instagram.
Source: Forbes Advisor
When you decide to focus on social SEO, there needs to be a shift in the way you think about content creation. Rather than choosing keywords and hashtags that fit your content, create content designed to fit the keywords surfaced in your research.
Then, make sure to use all aspects of your post to focus on one keyword cluster.
You might want to include both a general keyword (like “pet products”) for general reach as well as a more niche one (like “poodle shampoo”) to be more targeted. But your caption, image, hashtags, voiceover, and text overlays all work together to help the search robots understand what your post is about. Keep them focused on variations of a single keyword theme.
But don’t get carried away here. Stuffing too many keywords or hashtags into your content annoys both social media users and search robots. Use keywords in a natural way. Incorporate them into sentences that sound like they could be spoken by a real human. And keep the hashtags to a minimum – aim for 3 to 5.
For a couple of bonus ways to include target keywords in your social content, try text-based images (like infographics) and text overlays on videos. And be sure to say your primary keyword out loud in any social videos.
Tip: Hootsuite has a free hashtag generator tool that will show you the best hashtags for each platform based on your content description and keywords.
Just pick a language, describe your content, add keywords, and you’ll get 10 AI-generated hashtags to use in your post.
Please note: This tool may display inaccurate or offensive material that doesn’t represent Hootsuite’s views. You’re solely responsible for use of any content generated using this tool, including its compliance with applicable laws and third-party rights.
Alt text and subtitles are primarily accessibility features that help make your content more useful for a larger range of people. But they are also great tools for helping the social platforms understand what your content is about.
The platforms auto-generate alt text for you using image recognition software, but it is often very generic. Edit the alt text under the accessibility options when creating a post. Include your primary keyword, but make sure what you write still accurately describes what’s in the photo. This needs to be a clear image description rather than a bonus caption.
Source: @ckjnewberry
For video, turn on subtitles, and make sure to say your primary keyword out loud during your voiceover.
About a year ago, Google added a Short Videos tab to its search results, joining the Videos tab that’s been available for years.
Here’s why this is extremely important for marketers focused on social SEO. The Videos tab contains some content from Instagram, Facebook, and other sources but it’s quite heavily populated with YouTube Videos.
Source: Google search results (Videos tab)
However, the Short Videos tab serves up loads of videos from Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook in addition to YouTube shorts.
Source: Google search results (Short Videos tab)
That means creating SEO-optimized short-form videos like TikToks and Reels is another good way to get your content into traditional search results, as well as social search.
In addition to the overarching tips listed above, here are some platform-specific tactics to include in your social SEO strategy.
For more, check out our complete guide to Facebook SEO.
For more in-depth Instagram SEO strategies, check out our full blog post on Instagram SEO.
We’ve got even more on TikTok SEO in our complete guide.
Optimizing your business Page? Check out our LinkedIn SEO guide for even more info.
Pinterest itself is a powerful visual search engine, so if it’s your primary social channel, check out our top 10 tips to Pinterest SEO.
YouTube is definitely the social platform that functions most like a search engine. This is no surprise, since it’s a Google product.
Find more details (and useful tools!) in our full post on YouTube SEO.
As you saw in the Smitten Kitchen example above, Google indexes public X posts, and they can appear quite high in the search rankings.
Learn more in our top tips for managing Twitter SEO.
The most common form of cross-promotion on social media happens when a brand collaborates with an influencer. Both accounts can then share content from the partnership on their accounts.
This results in an expanded audience for both accounts. But it also benefits SEO by helping to establish credibility and build trust through association with a recognized expert in your niche. This helps the search algorithms better understand what your account is about and what topic areas you should rank for.
Cross-promotion also helps increase the number of backlinks to your accounts, posts, and web content. Link building is especially valuable for off-platform SEO.
Repurposing content into different formats across social media channels and surfaces makes sense for any digital marketing strategy. On the SEO side, it gives you the chance to break a larger piece of content into more specific short pieces that target different keyword sets.
Tip: Use your long-tail keywords as the subheads in a blog post or whitepaper. Then use each of those chapters or subheads as its own social post.
Monitoring your results helps you understand how your SEO efforts are working, and when you might need to switch things up.
This looks a little different for social SEO than for SEO on the web. On the web, you’d be tracking where your content places on the SERPs for your targeted keywords.
On social platforms, that’s essentially impossible to do, since social SEO ties so closely in with personalized algorithms.
However, there are several social metrics that can help you understand whether your social SEO is working. Here are some key ones to track:
For more details, check out our post on the top social media metrics to track.
Demand research is all about understanding how many people are interested in specific topic areas, so that you can create content optimized with keywords that they’re searching for.
Social listening is an important strategy here. Social listening tools help you see in real time how many people are talking about a subject, as well as how they feel about that topic. You only want to create content targeting topics and keywords that lead to positive social sentiment.
In fact, Hootsuite Listening can even help you predict demand and conversation volumes months in advance.
Nearly a third of Internet users globally (31.5%) now use voice assistants every week. Within the Google App, 20% of searches are now by voice. TikTok has already been testing native voice search, and Meta allows users to speak out loud to its built-in Meta AI.
Preparing for more voice search requires leaning into long-form keywords. Voice searches tend to be more conversational. When speaking out loud, even to machines, we still like to ask questions rather than saying a few keywords.
When developing your content marketing strategy, look for questions in your demand and keyword research. Create content that answers specific questions. Really build out your conversational, long-tail keyword targeting to ride this emerging search trend.
AI is especially useful for keyword analysis and prediction. Rather than combing through keyword reports manually, you can lean on AI-powered tools like Hootsuite Listening to get insights about what keywords you should be targeting in the next week, month, or quarter.
AI is also useful for creating captions and alt text optimized with your relevant keywords, and finding optimized hashtags. Hootsuite has a free SEO caption generator and Hashtag generator to get you started.
AI is also very useful for your content repurposing strategy. Hootsuite’s OwlyWriter AI can identify and repurpose your top-performing posts. It can even generate post ideas based on a keyword or topic, and then write posts expanding on the ideas you like best.
Ecommerce brands using social media storefronts can improve product search results by incorporating keywords into product names. Rather than giving your products unique names that don’t mean much, try to base them around your keywords.
Say you sell embroidery patterns for cute animals. Rather than giving those animals names, use your keywords. Be specific. Mirror the terms potential customers use in their search queries to improve product match results.
Use this free social SEO tool to generate captions optimized for better visibility in search results on social platforms.
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Christina Newberry has been writing about digital marketing since the prehistoric days of 2002, when email opt-ins were every marketer’s biggest goal. With a deep understanding of how to connect to online audiences, she shifted her focus to social media and has been contributing to the Hootsuite blog since 2016.
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