Believe it or not, Instagram lacks the feature of adding links to its posts or sharing them in captions. Directly, there is no way for you to insert or copy your website link as a hyperlink to an Instagram post.
However, adding links is imperative if you intend to drive more traffic from Instagram to your website. Luckily, there are ways to add links to your Instagram posts. While there are no direct ways to do so, there are ingenious ways to share links via a profile and posts.
If you’re looking to post a link on Instagram, there are several options you can use. This post aims to reveal five of these possible ways of adding links to different places on Instagram for both personal and business accounts. Keep reading to learn about the different tactics that can help get your link in front of your followers.
Adding a Link to Bio
This is the most basic yet effective way of adding a link. A link in your bio is always a clickable URL that other viewers can see while visiting the profile. If any of them clicks the link, that viewer is directly taken to that webpage, which can be a landing page, product page, etc. With this approach, you can direct people to any outside website or page that you want and update the link whenever necessary.
To add a link to your bio, navigate to the desired Instagram profile, Edit your Profile, add your website link to the Website field, and save it.
This is a cool way for those who intend to share just a single link. The issue crops up when you keep changing this link frequently, as the viewers going through the older posts will be unable to find the link.
Adding a Link to a Post
Here, there are a couple of options for you to choose from.
The easiest one is to use a URL shortener tool online and include the short link in the caption of your post. You can use a tool such as Bitly to generate a memorable link.
Here, you have the hope that the viewers will copy and paste the link into their browser, as the caption links are not hyperlinks. However, this hope may not work well for you, as most viewers are less likely to do so.
Another way to add a link to a post is to pay for a funded post. Those with an Instagram business profile can pay for a funded post with a linked Call-To-Action (CTA) at its bottom. The resulting post ads then become visible even to the non-followers.
You can even try the Instagram checkout option for online shopping. This is how you can tag your posts revealing your products with links related to an external e-commerce platform.
Adding a Link to a Story
Here too, there are a few options for you to choose from. The first option to try is adding a link sticker, a feature previously known as Swipe Up and limited to only those with 10K followers.
To insert a link sticker, add a story by taping your profile photo and holding it, upload a photo from the phone’s gallery, tap the sticker icon on the top and look for the link sticker, add the desired link by tapping the sticker, and tap Done.
Now, you just have to place the sticker on the story and change the color. The link is now seen as a sticker, which is clickable.
Another medium for adding a link to stories is story ads. You can always pay for story ads that you should launch using Ads Manager. For this option to work, just think of a campaign objective that is in line with your goal and then complete all the ad details, followed by selecting the ad location.
Add a Link to a DM
Instagram Direct Messages can be your next favorite spot for adding links. To build good customer relations, keep an eye daily on your inbox for customer service queries, message requests, and stories having your brand name. You may respond or converse by offering help or reacting to a story.
Similarly, direct messaging is also a way to go for building relationships. Because Instagram messages are private, the conversation is personal. If you use DMs to reach your followers, it is wise to handle them as individuals.
While replying to them, you can consider sharing links along with the message. For example, you can set a quick reply that contains a link to your website or shopping site for all new followers. This prevents you from typing the same message every time you get a new follower.
Add a Link to an IGTV Description
Even today, video content is the craziest trend on Instagram. Thus, as an encouragement, this social media platform provides the link feature on IGTV. All IGTV creators know that they can insert a clickable link into the description of each IGTV video post.
To view the description, the viewers need to tap the arrow beside the title of the post. The flip side here is that the viewers may be unable to realize that a link exists until they expand the description to see further.
As the viewers need to expand the post description to get to the link, ensure that you inform them about the link in the video itself. You can even re-use the video to reach a wider audience by posting it to your stories. To do so, open your story camera, tap the link icon on top, select a video, and tap Done.
Finally, your video link is seen as a swipe-up link in the story. When clicked, the IGTV video is opened and played.
Conclusion
Sharing links is a challenge for Instagram users. New ways of doing so are in the pipeline, which is being tested. If you find any new way of adding links on Instagram, do let us know, and we will add them to this list.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned ways of sharing links in Instagram posts, captions, bio, and DM are sure to help. You may not find them in the social media platform's help guide, but they will drive more traffic regardless of which one you select.