As a business owner, driving traffic from Instagram to your website is key for turning those leads into customers. Your website is your opportunity to tell your leads more about who you are, what you do and what services you offer. Therefore, you want to jump at all the ways to promote your website and drive more traffic to it through Instagram.
You can of course skip the organic route and go straight into paid advertising, but without an audience already there, this will be more costly, you won’t be building as strong of a connection with the leads (and therefore they won’t necessarily buy anything from you, just grab the freebies), but it is faster to set up and you’ll most likely get quicker results.
Some people think that just diving straight into paid ads and throwing a load of money at them will guarantee results, but actually this method will lose you more money because you don’t have any of the warm audience already there which means you’ll have to spend much more on the ads than if you were to already have the foundations.
Organic marketing, however, does take more time and effort BUT once you’ve nailed the strategy, you’ll be building greater relationships with your followers, you’ll feel more connected to them, and therefore you’ll feel you’ve achieved much more than just getting leads.
And this is what I’m going to focus on today. How to drive organic traffic from your Instagram to your website.
Before you read on…Here’s something you NEED to do to your website first!
A little tip before we get into the good stuff is to make sure your website is fully mobile optimised. The majority of Instagram users will be using their mobile. So when they click on any web link on Instagram, they will be looking at the mobile version of your website. If it isn’t mobile optimised, people will quickly come out of it because it’s not user friendly, which makes it a poor customer journey. Make sure you do this first to avoid any further issues.
How to drive organic traffic from your Instagram to your website
Link in your bio
The most popular and common one is to add a link in your bio. You have the option to add any link in your bio, so why wouldn’t it be to your website? Ideally if you’re launching, have a recent blog you want to share, or a new freebie you want people to land on, then this is what you want to be included in the link. Or you can create a page on your website pulling in links to various places on your website so people can choose where to go. Just be careful not to put too many links in otherwise people won’t know where to go. Ideally I’d choose between 4 – 6 links. And make sure you update them as and when to match what you’re promoting at the time.
When you’ve chosen the link to add into your bio, make sure you draw attention to it. The best way to do this is by adding a direction in your actual profile bio. So if you’re promoting your latest lead magnet, add a couple words stating what it is and where to grab it. You want to make it super easy for people to find it.
Utilise your highlights
Ideally you want to have a set of highlights to share your services, recent blog posts, client wins & testimonials (and others that are relevant to your business). Therefore, this is a great place to share links directly to your website. You don’t want to overwhelm people by constantly sharing links in your stories, so whenever you do, just add them to the relevant highlight and your audience will find the links they want to visit. You can direct them to the highlights every now and then to tell them that’s where they can easily find resources you’ve shared previously.
Use strong hooks in your content
To get the attention of your audience in a particular post where you may be sharing your latest blog post or a new lead magnet, make sure you’re using a strong hook that will encourage them to stay and read more. If you’re just sharing a mockup of the freebie and nothing else, this won’t necessarily attract the numbers you’re wanting (unless you’ve nailed the freebie name ofc… sometimes that works!)
Calls to action on images & captions
I can’t repeat this enough so I will continue to do so. Make sure you’re using calls to actions in every piece of content you’re sharing. If it is a promotional piece of content then add the call to action into the caption, and you could even add it onto the image/carousel/reel if you wish. I’d encourage you to do this whenever possible as people don’t always read the captions.
Why are calls to actions important? Because they encourage your audience to follow a journey which will lead them to getting the awesome content that you’re providing them. Sometimes it’s not so obvious how people can get hold of whatever it is you’re sharing so make it super obvious. Just make sure this journey to them getting the end result is as simple as possible. You don’t want to lose them half way!
Link button in stories
In 2021, Instagram finally announced the link sticker for everyone on the platform. This was good and bad news. Good news because it makes selling via stories so much easier (and you can see how many people are clicking through), but also bad news because it means everyone started using it and link sticker fatigue became a real thing!
I do think you need to be utlising this link sticker in your stories whenever you’re selling something or promoting a piece of content. Just be careful not to overuse it and spam people with links everywhere. This will quickly put people off. Stories are for sharing pieces of your life that wouldn’t necessarily go into a post, for example behind the scenes of running a business, about your personal life, etc, so just selling constantly isn’t helping you build the know, like and trust factor with your audience.
I tend to share links for myself and my clients a couple times a week, in between a mixture of connection & personal content. My biggest tip for when you sell via stories is making sure it’s super clear what it is you’re sharing in the link.
Through DM conversations
If you’re having a conversation with someone and they’re having an issue that you’re able to help with, why not point them in the right direction on your website. This may be a blog post, a specific service they could benefit from, or just your homepage so they can take themselves to the correct place.
What you don’t want to do is go in with a pitch with no conversation or connection leading up to it. Make sure you have their attention and send them to the right & necessary place.
Want to increase the amount of organic traffic driven to your website from your Instagram? Have a look at your past content and find out what you’re doing wrong or missing. To help you, why not conduct a content audit of your most recent posts to find out if your content plan is working and achieving these goals. It helps you understand if your current content plan is spot on, or if it needs some work, and I show you how you can fix any issues.
