I’ve been using Linktree to maximise my Instagram bio link and I know a lot of other bloggers and content creators use it too. However, I recently switched to using a custom page on my blog instead and it’s a decision you should also make!
In this post, I’ll be sharing the reasons why I stopped using Linktree for my Instagram bio link and why you should stop too if you have a website. I’ll also share a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a basic custom Instagram bio link with as many links as you want.
You can also create a more custom bio link like mine: khairahscorner.com/links and the link can be used on any platform, not just Instagram.
At the end of the post, you should be able to finally get rid of Linktree!
Why You Should Stop Using Linktree
We all know social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter allow only one link in your bio. Linktree was one of the first tools to offer the option of creating a page with multiple link buttons. However, it has some disadvantages:
1) You’re Missing Out On Blog Traffic
Linktree provides you with your own link linktr.ee/khairahscorner and it’s that link that gets all the traffic when your audience click your Instagram bio link. You may have noticed the metrics on your Linktree Admin; it shows the number of views your link has.
Imagine if it was your website that was getting all that traffic instead!
2) Ugly Template
The free version offers you a very limited set of options. There are no templates to customise and you have only a few background colors to choose from. In fact, everything just looks so bland and boring. Although, you get a few extra features with the paid version, there’s still not much room for complete transformation.
3) Unpredictable
There was a time when Instagram was flagging Linktree links as spam and giving a message like “this link is broken”. This can be quite annoying for your audience if they urgently need to use some of your links but your linktree page is showing an error.
Related:
– 7 Reasons Why You Should Get a Custom Domain For Your Blog/Website
Why You Should Also Stop Using Milkshake
Milkshake is another tool that helps you maximise your Instagram bio link by creating a “website” for you. One advantage it has over Linktree is that you can create multiple pages and use different templates. This allows you to customise how you want to display your links and categorise them for easy navigation.
However, it still provides you with a URL like msha.ke/khairahscorner and you’re still missing out on traffic that your website should be getting! If getting traffic isn’t a main concern, then you should probably switch to Milkshake because of its better template and multi-page functionality.
Your audience may actually not scroll through your multiple pages because they just want a quick link. Hence, I still recommend creating your custom bio link because at least, you’d be getting traffic even if they don’t end up clicking on any of the links!
With that said, you can simply create your own custom links page with your website and use that instead!
How to Create Your Own Linktree Page
This tutorial will show you how to create a basic custom links page like the one below:
At the end of the tutorial, you’ll also get the option of a more customised version.
The tutorial is for you regardless of whether you’re on a free WordPress plan, a paid WordPress plan or self-hosted. If you use another platform for your website, you can still use the steps and tweak them to match your platform.
NOTE: I used the Classic WordPress Editor for this tutorial. If you currently use the new Block Editor, you can check out this tutorial that uses Block Editor instead.
1. Create a New Page
Create a new page by navigating your WordPress dashboard: Pages>>Add New.
Give your page any title, in this example, I gave it a title of “All My Links”. The title is usually used to form the slug of the page. The page URL is called a permalink and the ending part of the permalink is called a slug.
You can edit the permalink for your preferred slug. However, you can also change it before publishing if you have the Yoast SEO plugin. For this example, I used the plugin feature to edit my slug as “get-started” and so my permalink will be khairahscorner.com/get-started.
For those on a free WordPress plan, you do not have access to plugins and so you can only edit your slug from the permalink.
2. Switch to Text Editor
The default editor is the Visual editor and since we’d be writing HTML code, switch the editor to the Text editor. This feature is available for all WordPress plans and self-hosted sites. Copy and paste this code into the editor to create the button links (replace the parts indicated):
<div class="links">
<a href="put-your-link-here">Replace this with what you want to write on the button</a>
<a href="put-your-link-here">Replace this with what you want to write on the button</a>
<a href="put-your-link-here">Replace this with what you want to write on the button</a>
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/khairahscorner">An Example</a>
</div>
If you’d like to know more about HTML and CSS, I’m currently running a series on my tech Instagram where I share weekly lesson on how to use HTML & CSS as bloggers/website owners.
3. Style Your Links
We need a way to be able to style our button links. For self-hosted websites or paid WordPress plans, you can install the Header and Footer script plugin. This plugin allows you to add CSS and JS codes directly into individual posts and pages without affecting your overall theme settings.
After installation, you can now add this code to the Insert Script to <head> section:
<style>
.links {
margin: 0 auto;
max-width: 600px;
padding: 15px 20px;
text-align: center;
border: 1px solid #aaa;
}
.links a {
display: block;
text-align: center;
margin-bottom: 15px;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 14px;
padding: 10px 15px;
background-color: #CBB9A8;
color: #fff;
}
.links a:hover {
background-color: #EBE1D7;
}
</style>
If you’re on a free WordPress plan, you cannot use plugins but you can still use inline styling to write CSS codes. The code is a bit messy but it does the job.
Download the file containing the code here and copy it instead of the code in Step 2.
4. Publish Your Page
Confirm that everything looks good and publish the page. That’s it!
Now you have your own links page, simply add it to your Instagram bio (or other platform) and you can get all the traffic coming from it on your website!
Here’s the full result for our example: khairahscorner.com/get-started
Create Your Links Page with More Customisation
If you’d love a more customised template like mine, I can create one for you for 5,000 Naira ( or $10 for other currencies).
What You Get:
– Remove/replace default website logo,
– No menu,
– No sidebar,
– Remove page title,
– Remove other unwanted default sections,
– Add links with categories,
– Add an author’s section,
– Fully optimised to look great on mobile and bigger screens, etc
If you’re interested, you can reach out to me to get started✅.
Please note that not all the above features are available for free WordPress blogs.
You can also request for a different & more unique design at extra costs.
Thank you for reading I hope you were able to create your own links page!
If you found this post useful and used the codes, please leave a comment so I can check out your new pages too!
If you have any issues with the codes, you can also leave a comment and we’ll solve it together.
Don’t forget to share on all your social media platforms too so other people can benefit!
With Love,
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