Do you have an Instagram, but you’re begging for it to add value to your business? When managed effectively, Instagram can do a great job bringing welcomed attention to your brand and driving traffic back to your website.
By sticking to these 5 tools, Instagram users will be encouraged to click a direct link to your website, copy and paste a link into their browser, Google your business, or reach out to you for more information.
A mobile-friendly website is a must.
First and most importantly, when your goal is to drive users back to your website, you MUST have a mobile friendly website. Instagram is largely a smartphone driven application where engagement tends to take place in the palm of your hand.
A mobile friendly website makes life easier for your audience. The easier your website is to use on a mobile phone, the better!
Unsure if you have a mobile friendly site? Surprise, surprise, Google can help! This “Mobile-Friendly Test” will analyze your URL. Still not confident your website is set up for success? The 11Web digital team is here to help!
Effective and trackable links are worth lovin’ on!
When it comes to links on Instagram, an overwhelming “sigh” can be heard ‘round the world.
Instagram gives you one spot to share a link that is actually clickable. This one spot happens to be in your profile, which is the most reasonable place to put it. That being said, when you create a post and put a link in the caption, users are not able to click the link.
Here are some solutions to a lack of clickable links in Instagram captions:
If you’ve read my blog posts before, you may know I am an advocate for link shortening 95% of the time. When it comes to Instagram, I am an advocate for link shortening every single time. Why? By using a link shortener like Bitly, you can make custom links that are readable, easy to re-type, and trackable.
When someone clicks on the link in your Instagram profile, in your website analytics, it will show as direct traffic. (Direct traffic: A URL that people type in directly) It will not show that someone clicked on the link in your profile to visit your site. If you want to use Instagram to drive visitors to your website, you probably want to track if it’s working.
By creating a Bitly, you can gather detailed information from each link which will help you understand what best drives traffic from Instagram to your website.
Have you seen the posts on Instagram that finish with “Link in bio?” While that may seem like the perfect solution, consider this:
What if someone is scrolling through your Instagram profile and they come across a post that interests them, weeks into your Instagram profile. Within that post it says, “Link in profile.” This IGer then scrolls back up to your profile and clicks on the link that is there. But, unfortunately, because time has passed and a new link has been placed in that very section, this IGer no longer has easy access to the link they were looking for.
I am a devoted supporter for using links in all of your posts, so long as the link is relevant to the content and values the time of the reader. By putting a link in your post, especially a link that is customized on Bitly, your audience can easily re-type the link and access the content they were looking for easily.
Feel free to continue to put an updated link in your profile if you feel it is working for you. And, be sure to get that link into your post. Double exposure to a link certainly can’t hurt!
Be uniquely identifiable.
Instagram is all about sharing quality and captivating images that tell a story about your brand. The reason that Instagram tends to take place on the mobile app is because Instagram’s original goal was to encourage people to creatively share pictures taken on their phone.
Say “no” to clipart and super commercial stock photography images that don’t give off your unique vibe. By depicting your brand in a strong and unique way through Instagram, your audience may be interested to learn more. Interested people will go to your website whether there is a live link or not.
If the image has good space for a small watermark or logo on it, go for it. At 11Web, we opt to put a small logo in the bottom corner of some of our IG posts. The posts that we tend to put our logo on are posts that have more information on the website, a subtle way of saying “go to our website to read more.”
Instagram is a great way to humanize your brand and get people interested in what you’re up to. Creating an Instagram profile that is supportive of your company’s identity, creative and drives traffic to your website is a huge plus for your business.
Don’t forget, “liking,” “commenting” and engaging with your Instagram audience will only help drive traffic back to your site.
Have you found ways to drive traffic from Instagram to your website? If so, let’s here them!
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