Out of the different forms of social media out there that tend to be the most popular, Instagram is perhaps one of the most powerful for business owners. Its high engagement rates, strong visual layout, and natural interaction tools make it fantastic for selling and promoting your products or services.

But your ultimate goal may well be to get as many people through to your website as possible. Here, they can place orders and send money your way, which is hugely important when it comes to your bottom line. So, how do you use Instagram to make those followers click through and visit your site? Here are some top tips for utilising Instagram as part of your website strategy.

Set your bio link

At the top of your brand’s Instagram page, you will see a short bio above your images. Here, you also have the opportunity to add a website link.

Make sure that you take the time to add a link to your homepage. Here, you will find more organic clicks coming even if you don’t take any other actions. Instagram users are used to the fact that the link in your bio will contain more information about your business. If they want to know more or start shopping, they will know where to do so.

Use product tags

If you have a Facebook Business page set up, you can link it to your Instagram account – it’s great because it allows Facebook to use data from both sources to make sure that the right people discover your business.

You can then add products to your Facebook store, setting the price, a description, an image, and where customers can go to purchase them. Bear in mind that these items can also represent services – you don’t need to restrict yourself to material objects only.

Once you have done this, you can now add posts to your Instagram page with an added bit of magic. You can tag your products, allowing people to go ahead and purchase them by tapping on the tag directly; it will send them through to your site and enable them to buy what they want on impulse.

Swipe up on Stories

If you have more than 10,000 followers on Instagram, you will unlock a powerful new feature in your Stories. Here, you will now be able to add a link that people can visit directly without having to go to your profile.

If you’ve ever seen a Story which had the instructions to ‘swipe up’ to learn more or try something out, now you know how to turn that option on for yourself, once you qualify for the right amount of followers, you can add any link. It’s easy to add a direct link to a product you are showcasing, a new landing page, or just your general home page.

Make sure that the Story is compelling enough to convince people to visit. After all, you want as many people to swipe as possible. Monitor your results and consider posting it again later with different wording or images to see if your statistics improve.

Sneak Peeks

If you share everything on Instagram, then customers might not feel like they have any reason to go to your website. If you don’t share anything at all, however, then they won’t know that they are missing out.

The solution is to provide sneak peeks. These will be teasers and small glimpses of content that you have on your website. Along with your caption, you can add a call to action that compels the viewer to head to your site. Add text that says something similar to this:

“For more images from our stunning photoshoot, head to our website via the link in our bio”.

This directs your followers on what they can expect, how to find it, and also how easy it will be to get there. Give them the least amount of effort possible. If you want to direct traffic to a particular page for a short while, change your bio link to reflect this.

Instagram is such a powerful tool for getting your message across. It can easily drive traffic to your website in a variety of ways.