How to Drive Traffic From Instagram to Your Website

Building a thriving online presence takes more than uploading a few posts that resonate with your target audience. In order to drive traffic from your social media platforms such as Instagram to your website, there are a few tips to keep in mind. Driving traffic from one platform to the next requires a deeper understanding of the ethos of your users and their online behavior.

Once you familiarize yourself with various sales funnels and social media marketing tactics, you can begin driving traffic from your Instagram to your company's official website or online store in no time.

Why is it important to drive social media traffic to your website?

According to Global WebIndex, approximately 59% of the world's population uses at least one form of social media to communicate today. This number is staggering, as the average individual spends more than 2 hours and 29 minutes browsing their social media feeds. With social media management, maximizing your reach and increasing the amount of web traffic your website receives is much easier and more attainable.

While it is important to develop your Instagram advertising strategy to increase Instagram followers and your social media following altogether, your main website is just as, if not more important as your social media presence. Your company's official website is the online version of your brand, providing you with a platform to make a positive and lasting impression on prospective customers and/or clients.

The use of an official website goes behind promoting advertisements or garnering clicks. In order to establish a well-known and reputable brand, you will need to do so with a modern and well-designed website along with the social media pages you use to promote and showcase your company's content, products, or services.

Tips increase website traffic through social media

When you want to know how to drive traffic from Instagram to a website, you will need to understand the ins and outs of Instagram as well as all other social media platforms you choose to use to represent and promote your business online.

Add a link to your bio

While Instagram is still one of the leading social media platforms available today, it is not always optimized to ensure the most traffic and/or engagement for users. Whenever you have an Instagram account for a business, brand, or even a high-profile individual, adding a link to the bio section of the Instagram account is essential.

The bio, or the profile/biography section of an Instagram account can be edited from the main profile settings page of any Instagram account. Currently, however, the Instagram bio section is limited to a total of 160 characters, which is why it is important to cultivate a bio that is more likely to encourage engagement and interaction.

Adding a link to your Instagram bio can quickly redirect users to your official website or even to your direct storefront online, depending on your current setup. Be sure to include the full link and to keep your link visible at all times on your Instagram page for SEO, or search engine optimization purposes as well.

Add links to your instagram stories

Another way to help with boosting the search engine optimization of your website is to add links to any Instagram story you create. Because users of Instagram are extremely fond of Instagram stories and scrolling through stories on their feeds, adding links directly into temporary stories can also be a great source of even more web traffic. Additionally, you can also keep track of which links attract more visitors to your website via Instagram by comparing the bio link traffic you are receiving as well as any traffic you receive as a direct result of your Instagram story links.

Use CTAs

Using a CTA, or a call-to-action, is also a way to motivate users to click on links or to learn more about a website, business, or product. CTAs are invaluable, whether you are marketing products locally or using an eCommerce storefront of your own. Without a CTA, users may not know where to go in order to learn more about the products and services you offer. Without the use of CTAs, those who are on the fence about making a purchase are much more likely to go elsewhere for what they need--or to someone more convincing.

If you are unfamiliar with using CTAs, you can get started with multiple CTAs simultaneously, also known as A/B testing. Using A/B testing can help to provide valuable insight into the type of language and messaging your audience is most likely to respond to and interact with whenever they are online or browsing social media platforms such as Instagram.

Invest in Instagram ads

Another way to ensure that you are able to drive as much web traffic to your website from Instagram as possible is to invest in Instagram ads. Similarly to using Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads also offer complete control and flexibility when it comes to creating advertisements and even launching A/B tests for the individual campaigns you create.

Using Instagram Ads can help to significantly expand your online reach within the Instagram app and the community itself. With Instagram Ads, hone in on specific demographics you intend to reach with campaign-specific hashtags that are most relevant to your target audience. Instagram Ads can also provide you with in-depth analytics regarding the overall number of followers and level of engagement your social media pages receive.

Offer something unique

Whether you are selling products, offering services, or providing useful information on your website, it is important to offer something unique to attract visitors and keep them coming back for more.

If you are providing your users with content, be sure to do so regularly, consistently, and with content that is not easy to find with a quick Google search. Providing informative, unique, in-depth content that is evergreen will go a long way when you are attempting to drive traffic to your website from your Instagram or other social media platform.

Ensure your website is designed well

A poorly designed website will quickly turn visitors away, even if they have a genuine interest in getting to know more about what your business has to offer. When a website is designed well, it is much easier to gain the trust of visitors while also helping them to remember your business and its logo as well as any other branding or coloring you use to encompass everything you have to offer.

If you are just getting started with your online presence for the first time, consider using a website builder to help with boosting traffic on Instagram as well as through other social media platforms you are using.

Build a robust social media calendar

When it comes to building a successful online presence with the use of social media, consistency is key. Updating your Instagram sporadically, once a month, or once every few months, will not result in a massive following or in one of your posts going viral. The key to steady and predictable growth when using social media is consistency, which is why it is advisable to build and implement a robust social media calendar of your own.

A social media calendar can include scheduled updates, planned rollouts of campaigns, and even promotions or sponsored ads that you intend to share. Using a digital social media calendar is not only a way to provide yourself with a visual of upcoming dates and reminders, but it is also a way to automatically publish your updates to your preferred social media platforms, including Instagram. Some of the benefits of using an automatic digital social media calendar include:

• Reminders: Use a digital social media calendar to keep up with your own posts, the content you are sharing, and the number of times you have recently promoted a product or service on your social media platforms. You can also set reminders of upcoming posts, contests, giveaways, or sales you are hosting.
• Automatic publishing: With the use of a digital social media calendar, you can schedule your posts to be published automatically once you have successfully linked your digital calendar with your social media page(s).
• Valuable data: Learn more about your social media audience by tracking the stats of your scheduled posts with a digital social media calendar. Keep track of which posts drive the most traffic Instagram to your website and which posts deter users from learning more about your business and brand.

The evolution of social media has come a long way, as social media is now a part of billions of lives each and every day. To better manage your social media presence, online marketing campaigns, and website in one central location, turn to Mailchimp.

With Mailchimp, streamline your social media management with in-depth analytics and reporting available in real time. Getting started with Mailchimp is one of the fastest ways to increase your website traffic through the use of Instagram and other top social media platforms today.