A small business profile collects the same messages every week. Where are you. Are you open on Sunday. How much for the small one. Each answer costs a minute of someone's working day, and the people who do not feel like typing the question never turn into customers at all.
Instagram gives you one link field. Facebook gives you a website field and an action button, and most pages leave both pointing at a homepage that was never built for a phone. This guide is about what sits behind that single link: the address on a map, the hours, the prices, and a way to get in touch, on a page you can rewrite in the middle of a shift.
What a small business link in bio has to answer
Somebody watches a Reel, likes what they see, and taps through to your profile. They are not browsing. They are in the middle of a small decision that goes today or not today, here or the place two streets over.
Three things settle it. Whether you are close enough to bother. Whether you are open. Whether the price is anywhere near the number they had in mind. A bio holds none of that, because it is 150 characters and the business name has already taken a third of them.
So the link field is where the answering happens. Behind it is either your homepage, which was designed for people who already know you, or a page built for someone who has known you for eleven seconds.
The address belongs on a map, not in a caption
An address typed into a bio or a highlight cover asks the reader to copy it, switch apps, paste it and hope the street name matched. Often it does not, because the same street name exists in two districts and the numbering restarts.
A map card on a link in bio page puts the pin on the page itself. The visitor sees where you are before tapping anything, and the tap they do make opens the location in whichever map app is already on their phone. Google Maps, Yandex Maps and OpenStreetMap links all work, which matters in the places where Google is not what everyone opens.
Two branches means two cards, labelled by district rather than by number. Nobody outside your team knows which one Branch 2 is.
Hours, in the only place anyone will look for them
Instagram shows business hours if you filled them in, in some layouts, on some screens. It has no idea you closed early for a holiday.
A short text card at the top of the page does. It takes 255 characters, enough for the week's hours and one sentence about anything unusual. The reason to keep it there rather than in your bio is that the page can change while the link stays the same. You can publish "closed Monday, open Tuesday from 9:00" by lunchtime without touching a single profile.
Put the hours above the map, not below it. Someone who is far away will still come tomorrow. Someone who arrives at a locked door on a Monday usually does not come back.
Prices where people can see them without asking
The message that starts with "how much" is the most expensive one a small business receives. It costs you a reply, and it costs the sender the small awkwardness of asking, which is exactly why a good number of them never send it and go somewhere with a price list instead.
Product cards were built for a shop, but they work harder as a service list. Each one takes a title, a short description, an image, a price, and a second price if you are running something this month. Put your five most requested services on the page with real numbers next to them and the question mostly stops arriving.
If what you sell is a product that has to be ordered and posted rather than booked, that is a different setup with a different checkout problem, and the guide on how to sell on Instagram without a website covers the ordering side of it properly. For a service business, the price list on its own does most of the work.
Getting in touch, without a phone call
Most people under forty will read a price, decide, and then look for a way to book that does not involve talking to anyone.
A WhatsApp link in the form wa.me/994XXXXXXXXX opens a chat with your business account, and adding ?text= with a pre-written first line turns it into a booking form for people who would never fill in a booking form. If you already use a scheduling tool, its public booking URL goes on the page as its own card. A link to your Google review page belongs near the bottom, where the people who came back are.
Keep the phone number in the text card so it can be copied. The buttons that actually get used, though, are the ones that open an app already installed on the phone.
Finding out which offer brought people in
The page counts visits and tells you where they came from: the referrer, the country, the device, and any UTM tag attached on the way in. What it will not tell you is which card somebody tapped, and that is usually the number worth having.
The way to get it is to point each card at its own short link rather than at the raw destination. Create linx.ly/shopname-booking, linx.ly/shopname-prices and linx.ly/shopname-map as a branded short link each, then use those as the card destinations. Every one of them keeps a separate count.
Say a month brings 240 visits, and the booking button takes 90 taps while the price list takes 130. That tells you people are checking the price before they commit, which is worth knowing before you spend a budget on ads about craftsmanship. If you do run ads, put UTM parameters on the page link so paid traffic stays separate from the people who found you in a Reel. Link click tracking covers what the report holds for each link.
The same link on the window, the receipt and the van
Every link you create also gets a QR code, generated automatically, and for a local business that is where it stops being a marketing detail. A code taped inside the window works while you are closed. On a receipt it collects reviews. On the side of a van it gets read at traffic lights by people who would never have searched for you.
Because the code points at your link rather than at a fixed destination, you can change what it opens without reprinting anything. That is the practical difference between dynamic and static QR codes, and it is why the sticker you print this month is still correct next spring when the price list has moved on. Scans land in the same report as taps, so tracking QR code scans tells you whether the window sticker earned the tape.
Test the printed size before you order 500 of anything. A code that fills a business card scans from a metre away. The same code shrunk into the corner of a thermal receipt, printed by a machine that is low on heat, frequently does not.
Where the link goes once it exists
One page, then every field you control:
- Instagram, where the bio link field is the only clickable thing on the whole profile. If you also want the business named in the bio text, adding multiple links to an Instagram bio covers what fits where.
- The Facebook page website field, and the action button above it.
- Your WhatsApp Business profile, which has a website field most owners never fill in.
- Google Business Profile, where the website field is what people tap after they find you in Maps.
- TikTok, if you post short video for the business.
- Your email signature, quotes and invoices, which keep working for years after you set them once.
- Anything printed: the window, the counter, packaging, the card you hand over.
Setting up your business link in bio
- Sign up for Linxly and start the 7-day free trial.
- Build the page in this order: hours, map, prices, booking or WhatsApp, review link.
- Set the slug to
linx.ly/yourbusiness, matching the name people already say out loud. - Create a separate short link for each button and use those as the card destinations.
- Print the QR at window size, then put the page URL in every profile field you own.
- Read the counts after two weeks and move whatever gets tapped most to the top.
Frequently asked questions
Does a small business need a website?
Not to be found and not to be booked. A link page carries the address, the hours, the prices and a way to message you, which is most of what a local business website does in practice. Build the site when you need something a page cannot hold, like a searchable catalogue or online payment.
What should a small business put behind the Instagram bio link?
Hours at the top, a map, five priced services, one booking or WhatsApp button, and a review link at the bottom. That is five or six cards. Past that, each extra card costs taps on the first one. The best link in bio examples post shows layouts worth copying.
Can I show my address on a link in bio page?
Yes, with a map card. Paste a Google Maps, Yandex Maps or OpenStreetMap link and the page shows the pin, so the visitor gets directions in their own map app instead of copying a street name.
How do I know whether the bio link is bringing customers?
The page reports visits with country, device and referrer. To see which button gets used, point each card at its own short link, and each one counts separately.
Can I change prices without changing the link?
That is the reason to use a page instead of a linked PDF or a highlight. Edit the cards, save, and the URL in every profile and on every printed sticker now shows the new prices.
Is a QR code in the window enough on its own?
It works for people already standing outside, which is a smaller group than you think. Treat it as one of several places the same link lives, alongside the profiles and the email signature, and judge it by its own scan count after a month.
The short version
Your customers are deciding whether to come today, and a profile bio cannot tell them where you are, whether you are open or what you charge. Build one page that answers all three, put a WhatsApp or booking button under the prices, give each button its own short link so you can see which one people use, and print the QR of that page for the window and the receipt.