Search has quietly moved off of Google for a huge chunk of the people your business is trying to reach. Nearly half of US consumers now use TikTok as a search engine, typing in questions the same way they would type them into Google, and Instagram is not far behind for anyone searching visually for products, places, or ideas. If your content strategy still treats these platforms as pure entertainment feeds, you are leaving visibility on the table.
TikTok just made this shift official. The platform now lets creators and brands manage the keyword metadata attached to their videos, meaning you can remove keywords that do not match your content and suggest ones that do, instead of leaving it entirely up to TikTok’s automated systems. Our team at NetLZ has been watching this shift for a while, and this update confirms what we have been telling clients: TikTok SEO and Instagram SEO are not optional extras anymore. They are part of the same search strategy as your website.
What Is TikTok SEO
TikTok SEO is the practice of optimizing your videos, captions, and profile so they show up when someone searches for something related to your business directly inside the TikTok app. This includes the words you say out loud in a video, the on-screen text, your captions, and now, the keyword metadata you can manage directly.
TikTok will still review any keyword suggestions before they go live, which keeps the system from being flooded with spam or misleading tags. But the fact that creators have a say at all is a meaningful shift. It means a video that was previously miscategorized, or one that never had the right keywords attached in the first place, can now be corrected instead of quietly underperforming in search results.
For local and service-based businesses especially, this counts. A plumber posting a quick video about fixing a running toilet, or a personal injury attorney explaining what to do after a car accident, now has a clearer path to showing up when someone searches for exactly that topic on TikTok.
What Is Instagram SEO
Instagram SEO works on similar principles but leans more heavily on written elements: your bio, your alt text, your captions, and the keywords built into your profile name and username. Instagram’s search and Explore algorithms increasingly favor content that is easy to categorize, meaning vague captions and generic hashtags do less work than they used to.
A strong Instagram SEO strategy means treating your captions the way you would treat a meta description: specific, keyword-rich, and written for a real person searching for a real answer, not stuffed with hashtags hoping something sticks. Alt text is especially underused here. Writing a clear, descriptive alt text for every image gives Instagram’s system more to work with when deciding who to show your content to, and it is one of the easiest Instagram SEO tips to implement immediately with almost no extra effort.
Why This Signals a Bigger Shift Than a Platform Update
It is tempting to read a TikTok feature update and move on. But this one signals something bigger: social platforms are actively building the infrastructure of search engines, and they are asking creators and brands to help train that infrastructure with better data.
This connects directly to how AI search works too. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is about making sure AI systems like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews can understand and cite your content clearly, and the same principle applies here. Clean, accurate metadata on TikTok and well-written alt text and captions on Instagram give these platforms exactly what they need to understand your content and match it to the right searches. Confusing or generic content does the opposite, on social platforms and in AI search results alike.
We wrote about this shift when we first asked whether TikTok was becoming a search engine, and this update is the clearest evidence yet that the answer is yes.
How to Optimize for TikTok and Instagram Search
Getting found on social search is not about chasing a viral moment. It comes down to a few consistent habits.
Say your keywords out loud in your videos, since TikTok’s system can process spoken audio, not just captions and text overlays. Use specific on-screen text instead of generic phrases, because “5 tips” tells the algorithm far less than “5 tips for first-time home buyers in New Jersey.” Go back through your top-performing older videos and check the keyword metadata TikTok has assigned to them, removing anything inaccurate and suggesting better alternatives now that you have that control.
On Instagram, write real captions instead of a single emoji or a wall of hashtags, fill out alt text on every post, and make sure your bio describes what you do in plain, searchable language rather than clever wordplay that means nothing to a search algorithm.
None of this is difficult work. It is consistent work, which is exactly why most businesses are not doing it yet, and exactly why the ones who start now will have an advantage before it becomes standard practice.
What This Means for Your Broader SEO Strategy
Social search and traditional search are no longer separate conversations. Keyword research you already do for your website, the terms your customers type when they are looking for what you offer, applies just as directly to TikTok SEO and Instagram SEO as it does to your blog and service pages.
This is part of why we build social content strategy alongside traditional SEO for our clients rather than treating them as two different departments. Our TikTok marketing services and Instagram marketing services are built around this overlap. A law firm’s most valuable Google keywords are often the exact phrases their audience is also searching for on TikTok and Instagram, just phrased a little more conversationally. Missing that overlap means doing the keyword research once and only using it half as effectively as you could.
If you want a deeper look at how search fundamentals apply across platforms, our ultimate guide to SEO is a good place to start before layering in social-specific tactics.
Getting Ahead of the Shift
TikTok’s keyword metadata update and Instagram’s continued push toward searchable, categorized content are early signals of where social platforms are headed, not the finish line. The businesses that treat their TikTok marketing and Instagram marketing as extensions of their SEO strategy now, rather than an afterthought, are the ones that will be easiest to find as social search keeps growing.
If you want help building out a TikTok and Instagram SEO strategy that connects to your broader search visibility, our team would be glad to take a look at what you are working with and show you where the opportunity is.