When it comes to showcasing your brand and services (or products), Instagram is a powerful tool. But a lot of small businesses I work with simply aren’t using Insta to its full potential when it comes to driving traffic to their websites.
As you know, individual Instagram posts don’t allow for links. You can enter the link in your caption—but, once you hit ‘post’ the links just appear as text.
On the up side, Instagram has always allowed users to have one external link in their bio, which makes it prime social media real estate. It’s the one place where you can funnel your followers directly from Insta to an external location seamlessly.
ENTER: LinkTree (And other ‘link in bio’ platforms).
They solve a very simple (yet very painful) problem for Instagram users: They allow businesses to use their one and only bio link to host a page with a bunch of links! So simple, and yet so effective. LinkTree is in fact SO genius, the humble Melbourne based start-up claim to have over 8 million users. So yeh, you could say it’s a popular idea!
But in solving the one painful problem of only having one link on Instagram, they actually introduce a few more.
This is why you should BRING YOUR LINK IN BIO IN HOUSE.
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CONTROL
Yesterday, LinkTree went down. It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.
I like to be in control in my business (#controlfreak). And there is actually no reason to put your valuable, traffic driving links on a third party platform. Putting your potential Instagram conversions in the hands of a company that could go down at the drop of a hat isn’t very ‘in control.’
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TRAFFIC
Google, a little like Santa, is always watching. It knows when you are sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. And it knows when you’ve got lots of people checking out your website (OK, it’s kind of scary to think all three of those statements are probably true…)
When you send all your Instagram traffic over to a ‘link in bio’ platform first – that helps them get recognized as a very useful resource on the internet (hello front page of google!) But what’s it doing for YOUR websites traffic and subsequent ranking?
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. MAKE IT EASY
The whole idea of using link in bio platforms (and social media platforms) is to get people to your website. If you’re using a platform like Linktree, you’re just adding an extra step. And end user’s DON’T like extra steps.
Apart from making things one step ‘more difficult’ for your users, you’re also opening yourself up to one more point of failure. If a link is broken? Bye-bye traffic.
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BRAND
The link in bio apps have come a long way in terms of your ability to customize colours etc – but they often charge you for the ability to customize fonts, buttons and other ‘look and feel’ aspects of your link in bio page. In addition to the aesthetic issues this causes (which, as a designer I cringe at) you also miss an opportunity for people to see your URL (which, as a strategist I also cringe at). It doesn’t make sense to have your entire business beautifully branded with an ugly, unbranded LinkTree page.
If you’re ready to bring your Link In Bio page in house, but you’re to do list is already chock a block Yes Deer Web Design can do it for you. (Please note we are only offering in house Link In Bio pages for Shopify and WordPress at the moment).
