Content5 min read
What Order Should Link-in-Bio Links Be In?
Somebody taps a bio link seconds after watching one specific thing, looking for that thing. Almost every link page is ordered by what its owner values instead.
The right link in bio order starts with whatever your latest post was about. Somebody taps a bio link within seconds of watching one specific thing, looking for that specific thing — and the first row gets most of the taps by position alone, whatever is in it.
Almost every link page is ordered the other way: shop first, newsletter second, the thing that was actually mentioned in the video somewhere near the bottom. That order reflects what its owner values, which is not the same as what the visitor came for.
The link in bio order that matches why people tap
Six kinds of link, in tap-priority order:
- The thing this post is about. The video's recipe, the guide you mentioned, the product you
just reviewed. This row changes every time you post, and changing it is the only real maintenance a link page needs.
- The one action you most want. Singular. A page with three primary links has none.
- More of what they just watched. The archive, the playlist, the back catalogue.
- Buy something. Below the content links, because a shop link is found by people who were
already going to buy and skipped by everybody else however high it sits.
- Follow elsewhere. Cheap to include, rarely tapped — the visitor is already following you
somewhere, which is how they got here.
- About, contact, press. Last, and worth keeping. It is what a brand looks for, and brands
scroll.
FreeMentioned in this article
Link-in-Bio Copy StructureA link page ordered by what the visitor came for, not by what you value.Five rows fit on a phone
Below about five rows you are scrolling, and the drop-off between "visible" and "one scroll down" is the largest single gap on the page.
That makes the row count a real decision rather than a tidiness preference. A page with fourteen links has nine that essentially do not exist, and each of those nine also pushes the ones above it closer to the fold on a smaller screen.
The pattern that consistently outperforms a long list is one obvious row and a short list under it. A menu is a decision, and a visitor who arrived for one thing does not want to make one.
The four labels that lose taps
Labels fail in one specific way: they describe the click rather than the destination.
| Label | Why it loses | Better |
|---|---|---|
| Click here | Describes the action, not the place | Read the sourdough guide |
| My website | True of every link on the page | The archive of every recipe |
| Shop now | An instruction, not a description | Aprons and starter kits |
| Blog | A category, not a reason | Why your starter stopped rising |
The rule underneath all four is that a good label contains a noun the visitor recognises. "Read the sourdough guide" is tapped and "Blog" is not, because the first one tells you what happens next and the second tells you what kind of thing it is.
This is the same problem as a vague call to action anywhere else, and the same fix. Call to action examples has more of them.
The top row is the only thing that needs maintaining
If you change one thing about a link page, change the first row when you post.
It is a thirty-second job and it is the single largest improvement available to most link pages, because it converts a page ordered around your priorities into a page ordered around the reason the tap happened. Everything below it can sit unchanged for months.
The corollary: if you cannot face updating it, do not put a "latest video" row on the page at all. A first row pointing at something from four months ago is worse than no first row, because it signals that nothing here is current.
Where the link itself goes
The bio and the link are read together, and the label above the link is doing as much work as any line of the bio. "Recipes ↓" beats a bare URL, which beats nothing.
Most networks give you one link. Instagram allows several in the bio now, per its bio links help, which changes the calculation slightly — a link page is worth less when the two links you care about can both be in the profile. How to write a social media bio covers how the bio and the link work as one block, and bio character limits covers what room you have for the label.
If the link is going somewhere you want to measure, tag it. A link page that cannot tell you which row is working is a page you are reordering by instinct — UTM parameters for creators covers doing that without making the URL ugly, and link in bio tracking covers reading the result.
Things that do not matter as much as people think
- Button colour and shape. Real, and an order of magnitude smaller than position.
- How many icons you use. Icons help scanning and do not replace a noun.
- Whether the page is self-hosted. It matters for tracking and for owning the URL. It does not
change tap rates.
- Adding a photo. Fine. It also pushes every row down, which does change tap rates.
The distribution of taps on a link page is dominated by position and by whether the label answers the question the visitor arrived with. Nearly everything else is a rounding error against those two.
What order should link in bio links be in?
Whatever your latest post was about, then the one action you most want, then more content, then commerce, then socials, then about and contact.
How many links should be in a link in bio page?
About five. That is what fits a phone before scrolling, and anything past eight reads as a menu.
What makes a bad link label?
One with no noun in it. "Click here" and "Shop now" describe the click; a label should describe where the tap lands.
Should the shop link go first?
Usually not. People who intend to buy will scroll for it; people who came for the thing in your video will not scroll past it.
How often should I update a link in bio page?
Only the top row, and only when you post. The rest can sit unchanged for months.
Paste your labels into the link-in-bio copy structure tool to see them ordered by intent, with the vague ones flagged.
Put it to work
Tools for the job you just read about
Free to run, most of them without an account.
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Link-in-Bio Copy Structure
A link page ordered by what the visitor came for, not by what you value.
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Jargon & Acronym Detector
The words that make sense to you and not to whoever just arrived.
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Why a draft with nothing wrong with it still reads flat.
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Crutch Phrase Finder
The phrases you use every time, which you are the last to notice.
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Weighted Character Counter
Why your editor says 240 and the post box says 287.
Count →1 runs
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Carousel Copy Splitter
A list, split into slides the words will actually fit on.
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