Why I launched an Instagram account for SEO

Welcome to a new edition of my bi-weekly newsletter.

This time, I want to share my experience launching Instagram for SEO and why I think social media is becoming an important part of building a brand entity.

As always, you'll also find the biggest SEO updates from the past two weeks in this email.

Let's dive in.

I'll be honest: I've never been someone who enjoyed creating Instagram content.

For the past six years, I've focused almost entirely on writing. That's what helped me grow my Medium account to more than 21,000 followers and build a website that gets thousands of readers every month.

But those days when a website alone could drive steady traffic from Google are slowly coming to an end.

AI search results are taking more organic clicks, and more people (including myself) are turning to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other LLMs instead of Google for answers. I wrote about the future of SEO and how this shift changes what it means to build visibility online

Since Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are powered by Gemini Flash-Lite (more about it below), I've been trying to better understand how LLMs decide which brands to recommend.

From everything I've learned so far, they don't rely on just one source.

They pull information from everywhere they can find it: your website, LinkedIn, Reddit, social media profiles, your About page, and many other places.

That's why it's becoming more important than ever to keep your brand information consistent across the web. Your brand name, who you are, what you do, and your key messaging should all match.

But what if your brand is new? Or someone else is already using a similar name?

The best thing you can do is strengthen your online presence and give Google and LLMs as many signals as possible that your brand is the one they should recognize and show.

That's exactly what I've been doing with Behind Rankings.

The brand officially launched in May 2026 after I rebranded my old website, even though the original domain has existed since 2021 under a different name. Here's what I've been building.

Behind Rankings on LinkedIn

Even with just 50 followers, I've already seen AI Overviews pull information from the company LinkedIn page.

Behind Rankings on Reddit

I mainly use Reddit to repurpose my existing content, reach new readers, and strengthen my brand presence.

And finally... Behind Rankings on Instagram

For years, I've kept Instagram private. A couple of weeks ago, I made two big decisions. First, I made my personal Instagram account public. Second, I created a dedicated Instagram account for Behind Rankings.

Here’s why:

The Behind Rankings Instagram account went live on July 17th, 2026.

Here's what happened.

I published seven regular posts and three Reels. The posts didn't get much attention, but the Reels reached 391 views as of 26 July. For a brand-new account, I think that's a solid start.

During the first two weeks, the profile received 816 profile views.

On 24 July, two SEO news posts took off and brought 110 visits to my website. I definitely wasn't expecting that.

Most importantly, Google has already started showing my Instagram profile when someone searches for "Behind Rankings."

This whole Instagram experiment is completely new to me, so I'm still figuring out what these numbers actually mean. But I'm happy with the results so far.

One thing I've already noticed is that Reels with a location tag perform much better for reach and brand awareness.

As organic traffic continues to change because of AI search, I don't think relying only on one channel is enough.

Building your brand across multiple platforms is becoming just as important as publishing great content.

Now, have you started using social media to support your SEO strategy? What's your experience been like? 🤩

P.S. If you'd like to follow along with my AI SEO experiments and keep up with the latest SEO news, I'd love to see you on the Behind Rankings Instagram account.

Every two weeks, I round up and share the biggest updates from the AI SEO world so you can stay on top of the latest changes and what's coming next. 👇

An audit of 71 businesses covered by Search Engine Land found the average business resolves only about 15.6% of what AI systems need to trust and cite it, meaning roughly 84% of its identity signal is invisible to AI search. The biggest issues were inconsistent name/address/phone data across directories, split domains, and unverifiable claims like "best in town" that AI tools ignore.

Why it matters: This is a concrete measurement of a GEO problem. Scattered or unverifiable business info doesn't just hurt rankings, it structurally excludes a business from AI answers regardless of content quality.

Yelp signed a licensing deal giving OpenAI access to about 330 million reviews and 8 million business listings. ChatGPT will surface Yelp branding and links in local queries and will also carry Yelp's Request a Quote flow for local service leads.

Why it matters: For local SEO and any site that competes to be cited as a local authority, this consolidates Yelp's foothold inside ChatGPT and shrinks the citation surface area for competing local directories and review sites.

Google will be rolling out AI Overviews, AI Mode, Search Live, and a redesigned search box in France.

The launch includes a Search Console control letting site owners choose whether their content can be used in AI-generated features. This follows a period where French users had flagged a gap in AI Overviews availability compared to other markets.

Why it matters: If you have French traffic or are watching AI Overviews rollout patterns to predict what's coming to other markets, this is a data point worth tracking.

Google confirmed Search is using the newly released Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite model, part of a batch of three Gemini releases (3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and a government-restricted 3.5 Flash Cyber variant) that shipped July 21. The Flash-Lite model is being used for agentic search experiences and is also believed to power AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Why it matters: A model swap under AI Overviews can shift what gets summarized, cited, or skipped without any public announcement about ranking changes. Worth watching your AI Overviews visibility and citation rate over the next couple of weeks for any drift.

I was invited to test Seobility in March 2026, and after using it for a few months, I finally feel like I have enough experience with the platform to share my thoughts.

Seobility has been around since 2011 and is based in Nuremberg, Germany.

One thing I noticed right away is that Seobility’s free plan is more generous than many alternatives. For example, with Screaming Frog, you can only crawl up to 500 pages. However, Seobility lets you crawl one website with up to 1,000 pages at no cost.

Beyond technical SEO, Seobility covers most of the SEO tasks I regularly need:

If interested, I’ve also published an in-depth Seobility review on my website, Behind Rankings, where I test every major feature and compare Seobility to Semrush and Ubersuggest.

For $9.99, my ebook shows you how to create content that aligns with Google's E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authority, Trust) and gets cited — your biggest edge in the AI era.

Inside, you'll learn:

If you want your content to perform over the long term, not just exist, this is for you.

That’s all for now!

Talk soon,
Victoria

P.S. To learn more, check my full collection of newsletters for free: Behind Rankings.