Optimizing Your Language School's Link in The Bio for Instagram Success
Running an Instagram account may help you boost your sales, but to maximize the results you need to think about how and where you want to direct people from your profile. A good idea is to use a link in your profile’s bio. But instead of linking to your home page, you should consider a typical landing page or a special ‘link in bio’ landing page.
Today we’ll show you some benefits of using a link in your bio and how to optimize it to squeeze the maximum value out of your Instagram traffic! 💪
Introduction: Linking in a Bio on Instagram - What Is It, and How Does It Work?
On every Instagram profile, you have the possibility to attach a link in your bio in the „Website” field. If you were to go for the minimum effort version, you could use that to link to the home page of your language school and hope that people would be interested enough to look through it to find courses.
However – this minimum effort version usually doesn’t pay off – especially with the audience from Instagram, who tends to be searching for “quick and easy”, instant answers – that’s just the way this platform was designed (in contrast to, for example, LinkedIn, where people expect longer form and more comprehensive information).
Why is it important to give your link in bio a bit more love? This is the only place where you can add clickable links on Instagram for free. And unless you’re *actually* selling on Instagram (meaning: one click redirecting to checkout, which is rarely the case for language schools), you need to direct people elsewhere to finish their journey through your sales & marketing funnel. This is why it’s important to think about how you can optimize this one Instagram click to get as much conversion as possible.
How To Optimize Your Instagram Bio with Links for Additional Profits & Leads
There are some great solutions for the link in bio optimization for Instagram. Since you can only have one link, and very often you will have many things you would like to link to, you can combine them into one page. The optimized link in bio should be a specially created link, directing to a landing page with many other links to choose from.
At the top of the page, you can have a clearly described link or button directing to your offer and lower you can add more links or buttons depending on what your strategy with Instagram is.
Example: if many of your posts are images and videos related to a particular blog post on your website, you may want to display posts with links directing to their related articles.
We recommend using a grid layout. It makes it much easier for viewers to click through. You can use Smart.bio from TailWind to do that. It’s a free tool and it works well.
Now, there is no solid data (yet!) about the claim we’re about to make, but according to our experience, and the experience of many other marketers – the clickthrough rate (so the number of people that click on the link) is much higher through pictures rather than buttons on your Instagram linked page.
There are many theories as to why that’s happening, but we can make a fair assumption that, yet again, due to the typical behavior of Instagram users they would rather click on the picture they associate with the link than read the button and decide on the one they wanted to see.
Well, if you have a graphic promoting your next courses and you have a button in your “link in bio” that says “our offer” or “our courses” – it would be best to add that graphic into a grid layout below as well – double linking does cost you more time, but it increases your chances of that person going to the page you want them to go 😉
Check out a recording of our optimized ‘link in bio’ page we’ve attached next to this paragraph to see what we’re talking about!
Such an optimized page is the best solution for a link in the Instagram bio.
But – if the majority of your clients are coming through Instagram or maintaining and updating a designated link-in-bio page is not an option for you - another good option is to link to a landing page.
It can be a lead generation or a sales page. Landing pages are aimed to limit distractions and viewers clicking off. Instead, they are:
focused on marketing a lead magnet (such as free learning materials, newsletters, quizzes, etc.) to encourage someone to leave their contact info (a ‘lead’), preferably an email address,
or optimized to generate sales, so they’re centered around your offer, trying to show its advantages and persuade the viewer to sign-up or purchase.
The focal point of every landing page is the call-to-action button such as ‘Purchase’ or ‘Sign up for a newsletter’. To learn more about how to optimize your landing pages to have high conversion rates, read our guide.
Get access to our library of free marketing guides, trackers, and templates for language schools:
6 Tips for Creating a Compelling Bio that Gets the Right Attention
Now – this article is all about optimizing the link in your Instagram bio.
But what you do with the rest of the available space on your profile is also crucial, so we’ve decided to add a few short & sweet tips to make your entire bio shiny – so that people will WANT to learn more about your school and click on that new, beautifully optimized link of yours 😉
Bios on Instagram can be very versatile.
But what is the best Instagram bio for a language school? One that represents who you are and encourages the viewers to learn more about your school and the courses you offer.
Here are six tips on how to write a good bio for your Instagram profile:
Introduce yourself – pretty obvious! Tell people who you are and what you do. Doesn’t need to be very formal, but you need to include at least the basic information about your business.
Add contact info and location – those can be added separately and it’s crucial to let people know where they can find you.
Add hashtags –may help you to attract more people to your profile IF they search for language learning information on Instagram. You can also switch up the name of your profile with your keywords (watch a quick tutorial on how to do it). However - keep in mind that Instagram isn’t how most people will find your school!
Keep the text short – use bullet points, very short sentences, or lists even. You want it to be minimal with only the necessary info. Keep it short and sweet!
Use emojis to make a list or to differentiate sentences. They add personality and color to your bio, make it easier to read and make your school look overall friendlier. Keep a healthy balance though – not too many emojis, not too much text!
Add a Call to Action (CTA) or showcase your current main CTA – you can add one item that is sales-related, so try to choose something relevant. If you’re just starting new courses with a discount or free trial, definitely add that and encourage people to sign up. You can also direct people to your lead magnet or an event you’re organizing. You can switch out those CTA’s whenever needed!
Conclusion: Get More Exposure on Instagram by Using Links
Using links on Instagram helps you direct people from your profile to your paid offer, blog posts, and other relevant pages. This gives you an opportunity to familiarize them more with your brand, offer them a lead magnet in exchange for an email address or show them your offer and make a sale. In all cases, you’re increasing your chances of getting new students.
The best solution is to create a special ‘link in bio’ page that shows multiple links in a form of buttons and posts so that you have multiple options for people coming for different reasons. Another good idea is to link to a conversion-optimized landing page to gather email addresses and/or make sales. Like your offer page where people can sign up for the courses or a landing page for your free downloadable resource (a pdf, a free lesson, a workbook, etc.).
As much as here in ELC we do not believe that Instagram is a necessary or most profitable platform for a lot of schools – if you are putting in the effort to create and post content over there – make sure that you’re using your most valuable linking real estate properly. Posting on Instagram without an optimized link in the bio is simply a lost opportunity to potentially increase your revenue.
