What should a local business put behind its bio link?

What do people want when they tap your bio link?

Somebody who taps the link in a local business's bio has seen your work and may want to act on it. Before they get in touch, they usually have a handful of questions:

• Are you open now, and if not, when?
• Where are you, or do you come to me?
• Roughly what does it cost?
• How do I reach you: can I ring, message or book?
• Are you any good? Is there real work, and are there reviews?

A page that answers those on its first screen, with a button for the next step, does the job. One that makes them open several links before they can ring you asks a lot more of them, and some will give up on the way.

Remember who is tapping. Some of your followers are customers nearby; others follow you for your work and live nowhere near you. The page behind the link is for the first group, so it should make getting in touch easy for somebody who is ready to ask, without getting in the way of the others.

A list of links, or a page?

A link-in-bio page is a list of links, made for the bio on your social accounts. Some now do more: Linktree, for example, takes bookings and contact forms on every plan, its $0 plan included.^3,4 A business page is built the other way round: the answers are on the page itself, with buttons to call, message, book or get directions.

Either can work. A list of links suits somebody whose followers want many different things: a shop, a newsletter, a podcast, a booking page. A local business mostly needs one thing from its bio link, to be reached, and a page that does that well can still link to everything else.

A useful test: open the page as a customer would and ask how many taps it takes to ring you, and how many to find out whether you are open. On a page of links, each answer is usually another link away; on a business page, both should be on the first screen.

If you do use a list, keep it short and put the link that gets people in touch at the top. Ten links of equal size make every one of them harder to choose.

This guide does not choose a product for you. Our comparisons set named products side by side, with their prices and the dates we checked them: see every comparison.

What should the page show?

Whatever you use, check the page behind your bio link has, on a phone:

• a button to call you, and one to message you
• your opening hours, ideally saying whether you are open right now
• where you are, with directions, or the towns you cover
• your prices, or what you offer and from what price
• photos of your own recent work
• your Google reviews, so the trust you have earned elsewhere comes with you
• a way to ask for a booking, if you take bookings
• a short form for anybody who would rather write than ring

Put the buttons first. The first screen is what everybody sees, and the next step should be on it. Keep the words short and plain: people tapping through from a social app are reading on the move.

Prices reassure people, even rough ones. A line such as “Boiler service from [your price]” tells a customer whether to carry on before they ring, and saves you calls from people who were never going to book. Use your own figures, and say what is included.

Photos and reviews do the convincing. Use photos you took of jobs you did, recent ones, rather than pictures from elsewhere, and show reviews from real customers, so somebody who found you through your posts sees the same work, and the same standard, on the page.

How do I keep it up to date?

The page behind a bio link is easy to forget, because you set it up once and rarely look at it. Three habits help:

1. Change your hours on the page the day they change, and again before and after a holiday.
2. Swap in new photos when you finish a job you are proud of, and take down any that no longer show your work.
3. Once a month, open your bio on your own phone, tap the link and try every button on the page.

Watch the busy times in particular. Before a bank holiday, a seasonal rush or a week away, check the page says what customers need to know, such as when you are closed and when you will be back.

If the same details live in several places, such as your Google profile, your website and your bio page, change them everywhere on the same day, or customers will find two different answers.

What should the bio itself say?

The words above the link do half the work. In the space a bio gives you, say what you do, where you do it, and what the link is for, so the tap feels like the obvious next step. For example: “Family plumbers in [your town]. Same week appointments. Call, WhatsApp or book below.” That is an example to change, not a promise to copy: say what is true of your business.

Then make the link look like where it goes. A short, readable address that ends in your business's name tells people they are going somewhere real, and is easier to read out to somebody on the phone.

Can I keep my link page?

Yes. There are two easy ways to use a business page with it. Add the business page as the first link on your link page, or make the business page your bio link and keep the link page for everything else. Instagram's five bio links leave room for both.^1,2

If you keep both, put the business page at the top of your link page, with words that say what it is for, such as “Call, book or find us”. Your other links stay where they are, for the followers who want them.

Whichever you choose, the test is the same: tap your own bio link on your phone, as a customer would, and count the taps it takes to ring you. One is right.