My Linktree page
If you use Instagram to promote new posts and drive traffic to your blog, then you’re probably as frustrated as I am about your bio being limited to only one link. The obvious/easiest way to get around this is to use a service like Linktree or Leadpages to promote several different links in your bio, some within your site and some external. I was a huge advocate of Linktree myself. But, as a friend and I were going over some analytics, it hit me – I was actually missing a huge opportunity to capture more data about my followers with a branded landing page that I wouldn’t have to pay extra for by using this service.
WHY WE USE THESE SERVICES
There are two major reasons services like Linktree have taken off. First, it allows you to provide multiple links in one nice, mobile-responsive format that makes it easy for people to navigate directly to the content you want. You could direct them straight to your blog, but what if you also wanted to link up your shop? Or your Facebook page? Or a previous blog post from a different photo? You would either (a) put only one direct link in your bio and lose traffic from people interested in previous posts or (b) assume a reader could navigate from your blog home page to the other places you wanted to direct them. An aggregated landing page solves for this.
Second, they provide us with some data about what people are interested in. You can see how many people clicked on each link in the free version of Linktree.
THE DOWNSIDE USING LINKTREE
While these link aggregators are easy to use, they come with three major downfalls:
First, they send an inconsistent brand image unless you pay a subscription fee. Yes, I can match my overall color scheme, but I’ve lost the font type and other stylistic elements that build my brand image.
Second, you forfeit page views. The aggregator gets that first hit, not your site. Assuming you get even a few dozen clicks each day, you’ve lost a lot of traffic!
Lastly, you lose data about where your traffic is coming from. The traffic will appear in Google Analytics as coming from “Referral” rather than “Social / Instagram”. The only way to resolve this, in most cases, is to embed UTM parameters so Google sees the traffic as from Instagram, which you can do – with a paid version of Linktree. There are other ways to do this, but they’re messy and require more advanced Google Analytics code.
THE ALTERNATIVE
Y’all, it was right in front of me the whole time. I don’t know why it took me this long to think of it – just make your own mobile-responsive landing page! It is so easy to do, gives you full control over the brand image, and increases your hits while also giving you more data on where those hits come from.
- Remove sidebars. These can make it harder to read on mobile, so opt for a full page layout instead.
- Swap the page title for a logo. The plugin, ‘Title Remover’ lets you toggle off the default page titles if you’d like, which I’ve done on mine. A logo uploaded at the top of the body text can then take the place of the title. The logo conforms to my brand image and is much more pleasing to the eye.
- Center align and add your links. Use header fonts so the links stand out and are easy to read on mobile devices.
- Add horizontal lines between each link, in case they wrap on multiple lines. This makes it easier to read and click on each link from a mobile device.
- Publish the page. Check it from your mobile device to see how it looks, and make any needed adjustments from there!
Now hop over into your Google Analytics to see (a) how many people hit that landing page first and (b) where they go from there. More page views and more data on your readers using resources you’re already paying for!
