What to put in an Instagram bio for a small business

A bio is not an introduction, it is a decision screen. Somebody has tapped through from a post, and in about three seconds they answer two questions: is this for me, and what happens if I stay. Everything in the 150 characters serves those two.

The four lines

1. 1What you do and for whom, in plain words. "Sports massage for runners, Leeds" beats "holistic wellbeing space".
2. 2The proof or the specific. Years open, a qualification, a number, or the thing you are known for. One detail, not three.
3. 3What to do next, as an instruction. "Book below", "DM the word GUIDE", "Prices in the link".
4. 4The link, with one destination — the page that matches the instruction above it.

Where you are matters more than people think: for anything local, the town in the bio is the difference between being found and being scrolled past, and it is also what the search inside Instagram matches on.

Cut these

• Emojis as bullet points on every line. One is a decoration; five is a ransom note.
• "Founded 2019 ✨ dreamer ✨ dog mum" — none of it answers either question.
• Hashtags in the bio. They do nothing there.
• A link tree with fourteen destinations. Every extra option lowers the chance of any click.

The name field is search

The bold line at the top — the Name field, not the @handle — is what Instagram's own search reads. Putting your service and your town there ("Anna · Nail Tech Bristol") gets you found by people typing exactly that. Nobody searches for a first name they do not know.

One link, one job

Send the link where the instruction promised: prices to the price list, booking to the booking page, a free guide to the guide. A link that lands on a homepage makes the visitor start the search again, and most do not. If you genuinely need two destinations, two is the limit.

Then check it monthly on your own phone, logged out. Broken and outdated bio links are the most common quiet leak in a small account, and nobody will tell you about it.