To drive traffic from Instagram to a website or blog, use the five routes that Instagram's and Meta's own pages cover: up to 5 links in your profile, a link sticker in Stories, links sent in messages (Instagram's page on this covers link safety, not traffic), a boosted post or reel, and an ad built with the Traffic objective in Meta Ads Manager. Instagram's Insights then show some of the taps that follow. The same routes work for a blog, because a blog post is just a web address.
Way 1: Add up to 5 links to your profile
Your profile is where a link can stay in place until you remove it. Instagram's Help Center says you can add up to 5 websites to your Instagram profile, and that anyone, on or off Instagram, can see them.
To add them on iPhone or Android:
- Tap your profile picture in the bottom right to open your profile.
- Tap Edit profile at the top of the screen.
- Tap Links, then tap Add external link (iPhone) or Add link (Android) and enter the URL of your website or blog.
- Tap Done.
Instagram's page adds that you can remove a link by tapping it and tapping Remove link. If you add more than one, you can reorder them: in Edit profile tap Links, tap Options, tap Reorder links, then tap and hold a link to drag it up or down the list.
With five slots you can point to different places. Our suggestion: use them for your blog home page and one post you want people to read this week. For more on the link in bio spot, see UpGrow's guide to link in bio options.
Way 2: Use the link sticker in Stories
Instagram's Help Center says you can use a sticker to include a link in your Instagram stories. When people tap the link sticker in your story, they are redirected to the linked website.
Instagram's page on using stickers describes the steps. When you share a photo or video to your story, tap Stickers at the top and select the Link sticker. Enter the URL you want the sticker to link to. Tap See Preview below the link to see what the link will look like when someone opens it. The page says that anyone who can see your story can tap the sticker to visit the link.
A few limits come from the same pages:
- The stickers page opens with a notice that this feature may be unavailable in Japan and for countries located in Europe.
- The link sticker page says these stickers can only be used in organic Instagram Stories. Stories ads support a default call-to-action sticker instead, which Instagram says it is gradually introducing and may not be available to you yet. The same page says you can't create partnership ads from Stories with organic link stickers.
- The stickers page says that not all stickers are available to everyone or available for reels. It does not say whether the link sticker is available for reels, so check the sticker tray in your own app.
- Stories disappear after 24 hours unless you add them to your profile as story highlights, according to Instagram's page on sharing to your story. Instagram's page on highlights says stories you add stay visible as highlights until you remove them. Whether the link sticker keeps working inside a highlight is not stated on the pages we read.
If you want a story to stay on your profile, see UpGrow's guide to Instagram Stories highlights.
Way 3: Send a link in a message
Instagram Direct is the third route. Instagram's page on safe website browsing describes people clicking links in messages on Instagram Direct, and says a safe website browsing feature warns them if they click a suspicious link in an end-to-end encrypted message. The same page says that non-encrypted messages are automatically scanned for unsafe links and that people can report a conversation that contains a suspicious link.
One point follows for a site owner: Instagram's page tells people to use caution when clicking suspicious links, especially from people they do not know, so, as our own advice, send a link only to someone who expects it. The pages we read give no figure for link clicks from messages, so this guide cannot say where to see one.
Way 4: Boost a post or reel that carries your message
Boosting turns an organic post into an ad. Instagram's Help Center says that if you have a professional Instagram account, you can boost a post to reach new audiences, and that boosted posts appear in Explore, Home Feed, profile feed and Stories. Its page on boosting reels says boosted reels appear in the Reels tab, Explore, Feed and Stories.
The steps on iPhone or Android:
- Go to your profile and tap the post you want to boost.
- Tap Boost below the post.
- Set the Goal (what you want people to do when they see your ad), Audience, Budget and Duration, then tap Next.
- Tap Preview ad to check the placements, then tap Boost post.
Instagram says the ad is submitted for review and starts running after it has been reviewed and approved. To boost, you need a professional account. The page does not list the goals you can pick, so open the Goal screen in your own app to see which ones it offers for a website.
The same page carries three warnings. On the Instagram iOS app you pay for a boost with available funds, and in most regions an Apple service fee of 30% of your total ad payment, before taxes and local fees, may apply when you add funds there; Instagram suggests boosting from instagram.com to avoid it. If you are based in or target audiences in the US and your ad relates to credit, employment, housing, social issues or politics, you must choose a Special Ad Category. For people in the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, the ability to advertise is limited if the account is in an Accounts Center with a subscription to use Meta Products without ads or a less-personalized ad experience.
A reel has extra conditions. Instagram's page says an eligible reel must be 90 seconds or less and in a full-screen (9:16) vertical format, can't use licensed music, shouldn't have been published before October 15th, 2021, and can't contain face or camera effects, GIFs, product tags, interactive stickers or camera filters from a third party. Reels already shared to Facebook can't be boosted.
Way 5: Run an ad with the Traffic objective
For more control, Instagram's Help Center says you can run ads from Meta Ads Manager, which lets you create campaigns across Instagram and Facebook. Meta's Business Help Center page on the traffic objective says it sends people from your ad to a destination you choose, such as your website, app, Messenger, WhatsApp or business phone. It lists "Send people to your website or app" as the first reason to choose it, and gives the example of a web page that describes your services.
That page describes the objective, not a result. It does not say how many visits an ad will bring, and this post makes no promise about that either.
What Instagram does not state about links
Some of the questions people ask have no answer in the Instagram pages we read:
- Instagram's pages do not say whether a link typed into a post caption or a comment is clickable. The documented routes are the ones above, which is why they are the ones listed here.
- Instagram's page on channels says a channel is a way to share messages like announcements, behind-the-scenes content and event details, and that you can invite people through an invite link or by adding the channel to your stories. The same page says channels are slowly being released and aren't available to everyone, and that a channel can be started by a public account with more than 1,000 followers. It does not describe a link-out feature, so a channel is a way to reach followers, not a documented route to a website.
- The pages we read do not list a "website taps" figure under that name.
See how many people tapped
Insights show part of the picture. Instagram's Help Center says you need a public account, personal or professional, to view insights, and that you can look at any period within the past 90 days. If you switch back to a private account, the same page says you lose access to insights. Instagram's story, post and reel insights pages also carry a notice that certain messaging-related metrics, ad campaigns and organic messaging features for businesses and ads delivered to and from Europe and Japan will be unavailable.
To open them on iPhone or Android, tap your profile picture, then tap Professional dashboard if you have a professional account, or Your dashboard if you have a personal account. If you do not see the dashboard on your profile, tap More to go to Settings and activity, then tap Insights below For professionals or Your dashboard below Your insights and tools.
For Stories, Instagram's page lists Interactions, which includes actions like replies, shares, sticker taps and link taps, and Profile activity, which includes profile visits, follows and website clicks. To see them, open your story, tap Activity, then tap Insights. Story insights stay available for up to two years, although the stories themselves expire.
For posts, the page lists Profile activity as the number of actions people take when they visit your profile after engaging with your post. To see it, open a post and tap View Insights. The reels page we read lists views, watch time, viewers, average watch time and follows, with no link figure.
For a full count of visits and what people do after they arrive, you would need analytics on your own website (our note), because Instagram's pages describe taps inside the app, not what happens on your site.
Check the account people land on
People who tap your link may look at your profile before anything else, so it is worth checking the account behind the link. UpGrow's free Instagram audit takes a public username. If you want help building the audience that sees your links, UpGrow's Instagram growth service targets people you choose and does not need your Instagram password.
FAQ
How many links can I put in my Instagram bio?
Instagram's Help Center says you can add up to 5 websites to your profile. Tap Edit profile, then Links, then Add external link on iPhone or Add link on Android.
How do I add a link to an Instagram Story?
Instagram's page on stickers says to tap Stickers while creating a story, choose the Link sticker and enter the URL. People who can see the story can tap the sticker to visit the link.
What is the best way to direct traffic from Instagram to your blog?
Instagram does not rank the ways. Its pages describe profile links, the link sticker, links in messages, boosting and Traffic-objective ads. Our suggestion: put the blog address in a profile link, then use the link sticker for individual posts.
Can I put clickable links in Instagram captions?
No Instagram page we read states whether links in captions are clickable. Use the profile links and the link sticker, which Instagram documents.
Where do I see how many people tapped my link?
Story insights list link taps under Interactions and website clicks under Profile activity. For visits after the tap, use analytics on your own site.
