What a link in bio is, and what it should do for wine.

A link in bio, in two sentences

A link in bio is the web address that sits under your name on your Instagram profile, and the only place on that profile a follower can press to leave Instagram and reach you. For a wine business it is the door to everything Instagram cannot do: booking a tasting, buying a bottle, joining the wine club, finding the cellar door.

The “bio” is the short text under your name, and the link sits just beneath it. People write “link in bio” at the end of a post because a caption cannot hold a working link, so every post that wants to send someone somewhere points them back to your profile.

Why Instagram gives you only one place to press

Instagram is built to keep people inside Instagram. A web address typed into a caption is just text; it cannot be pressed. The same is true of a comment. So the profile holds the one door out, and everything you post points back to it.

That makes the link under your name small in size and large in consequence. A follower only taps it after they have already decided they like you. The photographs worked, the story worked, and now they want to do something about it. What opens next decides whether they book, buy or put the phone down.

There is one more thing worth knowing. You almost never tap your own link. Only your followers see what opens, which is why so many wine businesses have a link that has quietly stopped working for them without anyone noticing.

The three kinds most wine businesses have today

Tap the link under the name of a dozen wine businesses and you will find one of three things.

None of these is wrong. Each one simply asks the follower to do work, to search, to decide, to trust, at the exact moment they were ready to act.

• The website’s home page. Built for a laptop, with a wide photograph, a menu hidden behind three lines, and often an age check and a cookie banner before anything else. The shop and the booking page are somewhere inside. The follower has to hunt.
• A list made with a general link tool. A column of buttons that all look the same, with the tool’s own logo on the page and, on a free plan, an invitation to the visitor to make a page of their own. Your name is there; so is someone else’s. There is an honest comparison in Linktree alternative for wineries.
• Instagram’s own list. Instagram lets a profile show up to five links. Under the name it shows the first one followed by “and 2 more”, and tapping opens a grey list with the same chain icon beside each and web addresses cut off at the edge. It works, but nothing in it looks like you.

What a follower wants when they tap

Someone who taps the link under a winery’s name is rarely browsing. They have one question. Can I visit this weekend. Can I buy that bottle from the last post. Are you open tonight. Where exactly are you.

A good link in bio answers that question before they have to ask it. The most useful thing is at the top, the words are large enough to read with one thumb, and every button says plainly where it goes.

What a good one does

• Opens quickly, on a phone. No laptop layout squeezed onto a small screen.
• Carries your name and your look. Your photograph, your colours, your words. Nobody else’s logo.
• Puts one thing first. The shop, the booking, the table: whichever one earns your living.
• Answers the practical questions. Opening hours, the address with a map, the next event.
• Links deep, not wide. Each button goes to the exact page, the booking form or the club sign-up, not to a home page that makes people start again.
• Tells you what worked. How many people opened it and which buttons they tapped, so you can change the order with a reason.
• Matches the words in your bio. If the bio says “Book a tasting below”, the first thing that opens should be the booking. There is more on those words in how to write a winery Instagram bio.

Check yours in two minutes

You can do this today, with or without any new tool.

If it takes more than two taps to do the thing you care about, the link is costing you visitors. The step-by-step for changing it is in how to add a link to your Instagram bio.

• Ask a friend to open your profile on their own phone and press the link under your name while you watch.
• Count how many taps it takes them to book a tasting or reach a bottle they could buy.
• Note anything that is not yours: another company’s logo, a banner, an invitation to sign up.
• Check the order. Is the thing you most want people to do at the top?
• Read your hours and address as a stranger would. Are they there at all?

A page made for wine

SOMM DIGI LINK is a page for the link under your name, made only for wine businesses: wineries, estates, wine bars, shops, importers and sommeliers. You choose one of the finished designs made for wine, type your name, and the design wears it; the words, colours and order are yours to change. It holds booking, the wines, the club, events, hours and a map, on an address of your own such as yourwinery.sommdigi.link.

You can build the whole page first, with no card, and see how it looks behind your own name. The designs are all on the designs page.