Your church link in bio: what to put there (and whether you need Linktree)

Every church Instagram has the same little line at the bottom of the profile: a link. And every week someone on staff asks what should go there. The livestream? The Easter page? The giving page? A Linktree with fourteen buttons? If you've wondered what the right church link in bio actually is, here's my honest answer: send people to a short page on your own website, and keep it to five links or fewer.

Let me explain why, and then walk you through building one in about half an hour.

Who taps the link in your church bio?

Before you pick links, picture the person tapping. Your members mostly don't. They already know the service times, they're in the group text, and they give through the app.

The person who taps is usually someone new. A friend shared one of your sermon clips. A neighbor saw your Christmas Eve post. A college student who just moved to town found you through a hashtag. They watched something, felt something, and now they want to know one thing: what is this church, and could I go?

That changes what the page should do. It isn't a menu of everything your church offers. It's a short, warm bridge from a thirty second video to a real Sunday.

Do you still need Linktree?

Maybe not. In April 2023 Instagram started letting every account add up to five links right in the profile (Edit profile, then Links). Only the first one shows on the profile, and the rest open when someone taps it. For some churches that's enough.

Linktree and tools like it still have a place. Linktree has a free plan with unlimited links and basic stats, and it's quick to set up. I don't think any church is doing something wrong by using it.

But here's what I'd weigh. When your link goes to Linktree, the page lives on someone else's address. It looks like everyone else's page. It usually doesn't match your church's look. And every link on it sends people somewhere else again, so a guest taps once to get to Linktree and again to get to your actual site. Each tap is a place someone can give up.

When your link goes to a page on your own website, like yourchurch.org/links, three good things happen. The guest is already on your site, so the next step is one tap away. The page looks like your church. And your website's own visitor numbers show you that someone came from Instagram and what they did next.

So my rule of thumb: if your website is current and easy to edit, build the page there. If your website is hard to update and you need something live today, a free Linktree is fine for now. Just don't let it become the permanent home.

What I learned setting one up

This fall I offered one of the churches I work with a simple link in bio page for their Instagram and TikTok. They liked it right away, and then something good happened: the page sat waiting while their team picked which links to put on it. I'd asked for no more than five.

That wait was the most useful part. Choosing five forces a real conversation. Is the youth page more important than the women's retreat? Does the bulletin download need to be there at all? (Usually no.) What does a new person need first?

A lot of church link pages have the opposite problem. They have every ministry, three giving options, last spring's event, and a podcast nobody updated. A guest can't find the one thing they came for. Five links, chosen on purpose, beat fifteen links collected over time.

The five links that belong on a church link in bio page

Here's where I'd start for almost any church. Swap one out for a season when you have something big, like Christmas Eve or Easter, and then swap it back.

1. Plan a visit. Your service times, address, what to expect, and what happens with the kids. This is the link that turns a viewer into a guest, so it goes first. If you don't have this page yet, I wrote about what a plan a visit page should include.
2. Watch. The latest full message or your livestream. Someone who just watched a clip often wants the whole sermon.
3. This season's big thing. Christmas Eve, Easter, VBS, a new series. One link, with a date, and you remove it when it's over.
4. Next step. Your connect card, prayer request form, or "I'm new" form. Something that lets a person raise their hand without walking up to a stranger.
5. Give. Members will use it, and it belongs there, but it goes last. A guest shouldn't see a giving ask before they see your service times.

Notice what isn't on the list: the staff page, the beliefs page, the bulletin, every ministry. Those still live on your website, and someone who wants them can find them in your menu.

How to build it on your own website

You don't need a special tool. On most church websites this is just a new page.

Make a page at a short address, like /links or /hello. Leave it out of the main menu so it stays tidy, and keep it simple: your church logo or a photo of your people, one line that says who you are (something like "A church family on Main Street, worshiping Sundays at 10am"), and then your five links as big, easy buttons. Put your service time and address right on the page too, so someone who never taps a button still gets the most important answer.

Then check it on your phone. That's where every single visit to this page happens. The buttons should be easy to hit with a thumb, the page should load fast on cell data, and nothing should require zooming in.

Finally, put the same address in your Instagram, TikTok and Facebook profiles, and use it in your sermon clip captions instead of "link in bio" alone. "Plan your visit at yourchurch.org/links" tells people exactly what they'll find.

Keep it current, or it hurts you

A link page is only as good as its last update. The most common problem I see is a seasonal link that never came down: an Easter button in July, a fall retreat that already happened. To a new person, that says nobody is minding the front door.

So give it an owner and a rhythm. Whoever posts your sermon clips each week takes ten seconds to tap every link on the page. Once a month, ask whether the seasonal link still fits. That's it.

If you're posting clips every week, and I hope you are (here's how to turn one sermon into a week of posts), this little page is where all that attention lands. It's worth getting right.

If your website makes this hard

Sometimes the honest reason a church uses Linktree is that adding one page to their website is a fight. The login is lost, the volunteer who built it moved away, or every change breaks something.

If that's you, that's the real problem to solve, and it's bigger than Instagram. It's the reason I built Church Studio: a church website you can edit from your phone, with a plan a visit page built in and follow up for new guests included. It's $39 a month, and you can try it free for 14 days to see if it fits. And if you'd rather just talk it through, call me at (860) 854-4983. I'm always happy to help.