Link in bio: what a local business should put there

Put the one link that gets a local customer to do the next thing: book, order, call or find you. For a salon that is the booking page, for a cafe the menu or online ordering, for a contractor a short quote request. Instagram lets you add up to five links, but the order matters, and most businesses only need one or two.

Start with what customers do next

Think about the last ten people who found you on Instagram and then became customers. What did they do right after? That action is your link.

If you do not have any of these, a link to your Google Business Profile is a solid fallback: it shows your hours, your address, directions and your reviews in one place.

Up to five links: an order that works

Instagram's help center says you can add up to five websites to your profile, under Edit profile and then Links. Order them by how often a customer needs them:

1. The main action: booking, ordering or a quote request.
2. Your current offer or event, while it runs.
3. Your website or Google profile.
4. A gift card page, if you sell them.
5. Leave it empty rather than filling it with something nobody needs.

Fewer links means fewer decisions. A customer who has to read five options before booking a haircut may simply close the app.

Do you need a link-in-bio tool?

Link-in-bio tools give you a small page with a list of buttons. They are handy when you have no website, or when you genuinely have many places to send people. They also come with trade-offs: the page lives on someone else's address, it is one more account to keep up to date, and the extra step sits between your customer and the booking.

If you already have a website, a simple page on your own site often does the same job better: your own address, your own design, and one tap to the thing that matters. If you are weighing up a website in the first place, we broke down what a small business website costs.

Make the bio point to the link

The link is only half of it. Your bio has up to 150 characters to tell people what you do, where you are and what to tap. End it with a short call to action that matches the first link, such as "Book a chair below" or "Order ahead, link below". We wrote a whole piece on how to write an Instagram bio for a business, with examples.

Check it once a month

Links break quietly. Booking systems change their addresses, last month's offer ends, a menu file gets replaced. Once a month, open your own profile on your phone, tap every link, and fix what is out of date. It takes two minutes and saves the customer who would otherwise land on an error page and give up.

When you want it set up for you

Our Profile Makeover puts one link on each network that sends people to the right place, alongside a clear bio, the right profile picture and cover sizes and matching story highlights. If you have no page worth linking to, our New Website is built around the same idea: a booking button or contact form front and center, click-to-call and directions. If you can do the steps above in an evening, you do not need either. If not, both are with our one-time jobs on the pricing page.