Written by
Abbie Mason
Instagram Keywords vs Hashtags: Should You Replace #Hashtags With Keyword Lists?
Keyword lists are popping up everywhere. And there is a reason for it.
Introduction
If you’ve noticed Instagram captions ending with something like:
Social media strategy | Instagram marketing | content creation | small business marketing | London agency
…instead of the familiar sea of #hashtags, you’re not imagining it.
Keyword lists are popping up everywhere. And there is a reason for it.
Instagram is becoming increasingly search-led, hashtags have lost much of their former power, and the words you actually use in your content are becoming more important for discoverability.
But does simply replacing 20 hashtags with 20 keywords work?
Not quite.
First: what happened to hashtags?
The days of copying and pasting 20 or 30 hashtags underneath every Instagram post are over.
Instagram began reducing its hashtag limit in December 2025 and now allows a maximum of five hashtags on posts and Reels. More importantly, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri has repeatedly said hashtags are no longer a primary way to increase reach. They can help Instagram understand and categorise a post, but they aren’t the reach hack they were once believed to be. (later.com)
In other words:
Hashtags haven’t disappeared. Their job has changed.
Think of them as labels rather than a distribution strategy.
And that leaves brands asking: what takes their place?
Enter Instagram SEO
Instagram increasingly behaves like a search engine.
People aren’t only opening the app to scroll through posts from accounts they already follow. They’re searching things like:
“Best restaurants in Manchester”
“Summer wedding guest dresses”
“London interior designer”
“Social media tips for small businesses”
Instagram needs to understand what your content is about to decide whether it is relevant to those searches.
That’s where keywords come in.
Search-friendly wording in captions, profiles and other content signals helps give Instagram context around a post. Current social SEO guidance increasingly recommends using relevant phrases naturally in captions rather than relying on hashtag volume. (blog.hootsuite.com)
And there’s another reason this matters.
Back in 2025, we wrote about Instagram allowing eligible public Business and Creator content to appear in Google Search. That made Instagram content part of a much bigger search ecosystem, rather than something that lived solely inside the app. (lalacommunications.com)
In 2026, Google went another step further by adding support for measuring how content from platforms including Instagram performs in Google Search and Discover. (developers.google.com)
Social SEO is no longer a nice extra.
It’s increasingly part of your wider search strategy.
So, do keyword lists actually work on Instagram?
Here’s the important bit.
Keywords work. That doesn’t automatically mean keyword lists work better.
There’s a difference.
Instagram can use the language in your caption to understand what your content is about. But there is no convincing evidence that dumping a block of disconnected search terms at the bottom of your caption gives you a special algorithmic boost.
For example:
London restaurant, Italian restaurant London, best pasta London, date night London, places to eat London
might communicate plenty of relevant terms.
But it’s also… not particularly nice to read.
A stronger caption could say:
Looking for an Italian restaurant in London for your next date night? Here are five spots serving some of the best pasta we’ve tried this year.
Same topic.
Same important search language.
Much better content.
The goal shouldn’t be to replace hashtag stuffing with keyword stuffing.
Write for humans. Optimise for search.
This is the sweet spot.
Your Instagram caption still needs to make someone stop, read, watch, save, send or comment.
So rather than adding a huge keyword bank underneath every caption, weave your priority search phrases naturally into what you’re already saying.
Instead of:
New campaign is live ✨
social media campaign, fashion marketing, influencer marketing, fashion PR, London PR agency, digital marketing agency
Try:
Our latest fashion social media campaign is live ✨
For this launch, our London team combined influencer marketing, digital PR and social content to introduce the collection to a new audience.
Much more natural.
And Instagram still gets plenty of context about exactly what that post is about.
What should brands be doing now?
1. Choose one primary search phrase
Ask yourself:
What would somebody actually type into Instagram or Google if they were looking for this?
Not just “fashion”.
Perhaps:
“Luxury fashion PR agency”
“Independent restaurants in London”
“Family days out in Surrey”
“Christmas party venues Manchester”
That phrase should guide the post.
2. Use related terms naturally
You don’t have to repeat the same keyword six times.
Instagram has become sophisticated enough to understand context.
If your main topic is “London wedding venue”, your caption might naturally also mention:
Weddings
Central London
Wedding reception
Ceremony
Private events
Wedding planning
It creates a clear semantic picture without turning your caption into SEO soup.
3. Be specific
Generic terms rarely help anyone.
“Food. Restaurant. London. Dinner.”
tells us very little.
“Modern British restaurant in Shoreditch serving seasonal small plates”
is significantly more useful to both the person reading and the systems trying to understand the content.
Products, services, locations, categories and problems your business solves are all useful things to mention.
4. Keep your hashtags, just rethink them
We wouldn’t bin hashtags entirely.
With Instagram now limiting posts to five, use those spaces strategically.
A combination might include:
One brand hashtag + one location + two niche/topic hashtags + one highly relevant community or campaign hashtag.
Forget #love, #instagood and #photooftheday.
Think relevance rather than reach.
5. Don’t forget the rest of your Instagram SEO
Your caption isn’t working alone.
Think about:
Your account name and bio
Clear product and service terminology
Locations
Alt text
Video captions and subtitles
On-screen messaging
Consistent topics across your content
The clearer you are about what your business does, the easier it is for platforms and potential customers to understand where you fit.
Keyword lists: trend or strategy?
Probably a bit of both.
The rise of the Instagram keyword list is based on something very real: social search is becoming increasingly important.
But, as often happens on social media, a sensible strategic idea has quickly turned into a copy-and-paste “hack”.
Replacing this:
#marketing #socialmedia #content #digitalmarketing #socialmediamarketing
with this:
marketing, social media, content, digital marketing, social media marketing
isn’t much of a strategy.
You’ve effectively just deleted the # symbols.
The opportunity is much bigger than that.
Conclusion
The Lala POV
Instagram SEO is absolutely worth paying attention to. But brands shouldn’t suddenly start writing robotic captions for an algorithm. The winners will be the brands that understand how their audience searches and then create genuinely useful, engaging content using that language naturally. Think: Keywords first. Keyword lists second. Hashtags third. Good content always, and test it. One particularly interesting development for brands in 2026 is Google’s ability to report which search terms are leading people to content on platforms including Instagram. That means social SEO can increasingly move from guesswork towards something measurable. (developers.google.com) So rather than asking, “What keywords can we cram underneath this post?” Ask: “What would our customer search for, and have we created the best possible answer?” That’s a much stronger Instagram strategy. And unlike the latest algorithm hack, it’s unlikely to become obsolete next Tuesday. Ready to Rethink Your Instagram Strategy? From social SEO and content planning to community management and campaigns, we help brands build social strategies around how people actually discover, engage with and buy from businesses today. If your Instagram strategy is still operating on a 2023 hashtag playbook, let’s talk.