Time and time again I hear people complaining that there is no easy way to convert Instagram followers to customers and loyal blog readers and Instgram is a wasted platform for bloggers and sellers alike. I’m here to tell you that just isn’t true. Instagram is an incredibly valuable tool in not only building relationships with your readers / audience but in turn converting them to customers who use and love your products and devour your content.

But first, let’s take a step back on how you can build a strong loyal audience that is interested in what it is you have to say and provide. Because if your audience isn’t engaged then it doesn’t matter WHAT you’re doing, they aren’t going to click over. The secret doesn’t lie in following and unfollowing as many accounts as possible in one day. What a waste of time! You could be creating great content in that time. And it certainly doesn’t lie in leaving obscure comments and emojis on as many accounts as possible or purchasing followers. At the time of this writing I have approximately 36,000 followers and counting. I’m no Kim. K or Bieber (thank God), but it’s a sizable enough audience. I didn’t attract that number of followers by utilizing sleezy click-bait methods. I put out valuable content that helps my followers and I engage with them. I took note and found other accounts that were n the same niche as I and left thoughtful comments. I took a genuine interest (and still do) in what others are doing and saying. I’ve also built strong relationships with other bloggers, Instagrammers, and brands that have reposted and shouted out my content. Reach out to them, ask what they’re doing to be so successful. Share their content to your audience. Despite what other blog groups will tell you, there’s no way around the hard, SMART, work in order to build a quality audience that will ever trust and like you enough to buy what you are selling, click over to your link etc. Time and time again I hear from more and more brands that they don’t care as much about the quality of ones readership but the quality. They’re on to all of the behind the scenes nonsense that goes on in blogger circles, linky parties (seriously, who came up with that term?) and fluff. Brands and readers alike are looking for quality. So make it happen.

Ok, we’ve got that out of the way. So now what? You’ve built an audience that loves you and you love them. How can we EASILY get them over to your site? As things currently stand, the only way to create a clickable link in Instagram is through the one STATIC link they provide you in the bio. The problem with that is you have lots of articles, lots of products and lots to share that just one link can’t provide the means to get to all of those places. I used to just have my main site in that bio link and tell people to “Click the link in my profile and search _____, it will pop right up for you.” But the truth of the matter is that people are lazy and cell phone (what most people use these days) interfaces for most sites are a bit clunky. So by the time they click over and can’t find your tiny search feature you’ve lost them. And if you keep changing that link to reflect every post, you severely limit people getting to your earlier posts.

Until now. Link in Profile is an interface that let’s you create one static link on your main Instagram bio page that will drive people to a landing page that hosts all of your Instagram posts and their corresponding link. You can see the example HERE on my own Instagram account, make sure to click that link through to see just how it works. From there, they can click directly on the image that they are interested in and head straight to that page. In two taps Instagram users can now go straight to the post or product that you want them too. No more hunting around, no more changing that link to reflect each post. You simply add the link that you want to direct readers / followers to into the body of your post as illustrated in the second screen cap. I typically do it at the very end of my post. Link in Profile will then pull that link and use that to drive your traffic.

Once you understand how it works, it amazingly simple. Like I said, give it a try on my own page and see how it works.

You’re able to try Link in Profile at no cost for 30 days to see if it’s something you find valuable. They don’t even require a credit card to start your trial period, which is quite refreshing! After that it’s $10 per month, which has more than paid for itself. To give it a try simply head over HERE to sign up. I’ll be forever grateful if you choose to use my affiliate link! Or don’t! I’d recommend this service to anyone whether I got a small bonus from it or not.

I began my trial of Link in Profile back in January 2016 and found a huge jump in my traffic coming from Instgram. Because I was putting a direct link in each post, there’s no way I can weed out which was from Instagram other sources as it all fell under “direct”.  I’m fairly certain most came from IG, but there’s no way to tell. Even so, let’s just say all of them were from IG, I had 2,986 sessions for the month of December 2015 prior to using Link in Profile. After implementing Link in Profile sometime in January, my stats show 8,510 sessions directed from Link in Profile. (You will now see them as a direct referral source thus able to accurately measure your IG traffic.) A huge jump. Some may think I had such a spike because I have a clean eating blog in January, a prime time for people to be searching for clean recipes… However for the month of April I had 6,621 sessions driven from Link in Profile. That number has been steady, roughly double from my 2,986 sessions back in December prior to Link in Profile.

Now that I’ve implemented Link in Profile I also find that I can post several recipes in the same day without having to compromise the earlier posts’  links since we can now have multiple links to drive people to.

It truly kills me when bloggers say Instagram doesn’t drive customers or traffic as if done correctly it can be your biggest source and new best friend.

If you have any questions below, please feel free to ask away!