Creating an Instagram business account: A step-by-step guide

As brands strive to establish unique digital identities, social media has become a powerful tool for enhancing brand visibility, shaping narratives, and building a community. Instagram, with its hyper-visual nature, remains a favorite for brands, empowering them to drive meaningful interactions and foster deeper connections.

With over 2 billion users, the platform offers immense potential for driving traffic to your website and boosting sales.1 As a result, over 200 million business accounts call Instagram home, highlighting its effectiveness in scaling operations and connecting with new audiences.2 

An Instagram business account doesn’t just give you access to a broader audience, however; it also offers powerful tools such as website integration and analytics to streamline your marketing strategy.

If you don’t have an Instagram business account, you could be missing out on a remarkable opportunity—but you can fix that. In this guide, learn how to create a business Instagram account and discover actionable tips for using the account to drive traffic to your Name.com domain.

 

Why create an Instagram business account for your brand

An Instagram business account isn’t just another addition to your marketing channel mix. The many reasons why you should create one include:

• Works for any business – Businesses of all sizes thrive on Instagram and can tap into its broad audience reach to boost engagement and revenues. Household names like Coca-Cola, IKEA, Nike, and Lululemon, as well as small businesses, use the platform to increase brand awareness.
• Access actionable insights – Instagram Insights provides specific analytics on your online performance, helping you refine content strategy and social campaigns. For instance, you can view reach, impressions, and engagement data for posts, as well as website visits, profile visits, and calls from promotions.
• Leverage promotional strategies – An Instagram business account allows you to create social ads and partner with influencers to build brand awareness. Together, these strategies give you access to demographics you wouldn’t reach, growing your digital marketing ROI and brand visibility.
• Boost customer engagement – The platform lets you interact with customers and monitor their engagement through likes, comments, saves, and shares. Customers can share their opinions and feedback, allowing you to nurture relationships and improve customer experience.

 

Popular for its visually engaging content and #hashtags, Instagram has carved out a distinct niche for itself in the social media landscape. Regardless of your business size, you can exploit its potential to boost brand visibility, revenues, and customer engagement—and it all starts with creating an Instagram business account.

 

Step 1: How to set up your Name.com domain for Instagram

If you plan to use Instagram for eCommerce and driving web traffic, it’s essential to register a domain name. The platform requires you to direct customers to a domain you own when using Shops and verifies domains before adding them to your business profile.

Name.com makes it easy to set up a unique domain name for your Instagram business account. Go to Name.com, type in the name you want, and click Search. If the name is available, add it to your cart and go to Shopping Cart in the upper right corner to complete the order.

With Name.com, you find the most prominent top-level domains (TLDs) to get your business online and connect it to Instagram. Apart from the traditional TLDs, like .com and .net, you can also explore new extensions, like .online, .live, .market, .ninja, .bio, and .studio.

 

Step 2: Creating your Instagram account: quick and easy steps

On Instagram, you can create a personal or professional creator account and switch it to a business one. Instagram allows you to have up to five accounts.

After setting up an Instagram account, go to your profile and click the More icon in the top right corner.3 Then, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings and Privacy, and select Account Type and Tools.
2. Click Switch to Professional Account, and tap Continue.
3. Select Business, and click Next.
4. Pick a category that describes your business, and tap Done.

 

On the Instagram mobile app, go to your profile and click Edit profile below your profile picture. Scroll down, tap on Switch to a professional account, and complete the setup. The mobile app offers more features and functions than the web version.

 

Step 3: Setting up your business profile for success

Next comes completing your Instagram profile before engaging with customers and promoting your business:

1. Go to Profile, and then click Edit Profile.
2. Tap Change photo to upload a unique picture that represents your business—most businesses upload their logo for easy identification.
3. In the Bio section, share the details about your business, including your products, services, and slogan.
4. Go to Professional account to add your email address, WhatsApp number, and phone number.

 

For your phone number, choose whether customers can reach you by call or text. You can also decide whether to display your contact details or not.

 

Step 4: Connecting your Name.com domain to your Instagram bio

Instagram allows you to add up to five domain names to your bio. Note that the functionality to add your website is not available on computers. Download Instagram’s Android or iPhone app to complete this part:

1. Once you have the app, tap on your profile picture to go to Profile.
2. Click Edit Profile.
3. Tap Links and go to Add external link to add your Name.com domain name.
4. Click Done to complete the step.
5. You can remove a website by clicking the domain name and tapping Remove.

 

If you have several domain names, you can always reorder the list anytime. Simply go to Edit Profile and tap Links, click More Actions, then tap Reorder links.

 

Step 5: Tips for optimizing your Instagram business account

Your profile must be discoverable online and on Instagram. It also needs to stand out and provide customers with all the key information about your business. Here’s how to do that:

• Add action buttons – With a business account, you can add action buttons to your profile, such as “Place an Order,” “Book an Appointment,” or “Get Tickets.” Go to Edit Profile and tap Action buttons under Public business information. Pick a button you want and connect it to your online service to complete the setup.
• Get Meta verified – Establish your business account authenticity and help your customers know it’s the real you with a verified badge. Obtaining one helps secure crucial protection for your brand identity and earns the trust of potential customers. The badge ranges from $15 to $350 monthly.
• Incorporate relevant hashtags – Identify hashtags that relate to your business, products, or services and add them to your bio. For example, if you’re a digital marketing business, you can use hashtags like #digitalmarketing and #SEOmarketing. This can increase your reach and exposure on the platform.
• Add business location – You can add your business location under Contact options. The area will appear under your business name on your profile. Adding a location can help increase trust, visibility, and sales.

 

Before promoting your business, share exciting content, such as videos, reels, images, or stories. When you interact with customers, they’ll likely first visit your account to learn more about you–having an empty page is likely to scare them away.

 

Step 6: Using Name.com tools to boost your Instagram presence

Creating an Instagram account is just one part of building a unique digital identity for your business. With Name.com, you get best-in-class tools and an all-in-one platform to support your digital strategy and supplement your Instagram presence.

Name.com partners with Wix to allow you to set up your website in minutes and add it to your Instagram profile. Or, you can use Name.com’s One Page Website Builder to create a single landing page to generate leads on Instagram.

Name.com also makes getting a professional business email easy through Titan and Google Workspace. These services offer different tools and features like calendars, cloud storage, reminders, templates, and scheduling functions. You can then add the email to your Instagram contact details.

Finally, Name.com offers an SSL Certificate and Sitelock Security, which help to boost customer confidence whenever Instagram users visit your website. You can also use URL Shortener to share branded short links with your audience to improve brand visibility.

 

How to leverage your Instagram account to drive traffic to your website

Social media has become a formidable tool for business growth, allowing you to drive web traffic to boost conversions and sales. You can use Instagram to steer prospective customers to your website by:

• Sharing quality content – Posting high-quality content can boost your engagement, leading to more customers visiting your site. Examples of great content include behind-the-scenes videos, voice-overs with captions, and clickable stories.
• Adding your website links – Share links to your website, blog, and landing pages in your profile. Instagram allows you to add up to 5 links, which customers can click when they need to learn more about your brand or products.
• Instagram ads – Instagram advertising improves your exposure to your content and brand. You can start with a budget of as low as $5 per day to drive traffic to your website at $0.50-0.95 per click.
• Direct call-to-actions (CTAs) – Directly asking your customers to take action in your posts can boost your web traffic. A CTA can encourage your followers to visit your online store, click on a link, read a blog, and fill out a form.
• Collaborating with influencers – Instagram influencers can mention your brand and link to your website or product links. Influencer marketing gives you access to a wider audience, boosting your web traffic and customer pool.

 

Instagram’s massive user base makes it ideal for driving significant traffic to your website. Pairing it with the right tools, such as Names.com’s URL Shortener and single landing pages, can support your social media strategy, boosting your visibility and engagement.

Common mistakes to avoid when you create an Instagram account

When setting up your Instagram business account, beware of these common mistakes that can derail your digital strategy:

• Not adding your websites – Instagram is a conduit for prospective customers, but you also need to provide a smooth path to navigate off it. Failing to add website links can deny you significant traffic, hurting your conversions and sales. Use Name.com to register domains for your website and blog, and add them to Instagram.
• Sharing poor quality content – Your content represents your brand, so be cautious of what you share on Instagram. Boring and poor-quality video and images can easily drive away customers due to poor engagement.
• Buying followers – Yes, your business account is new with almost no followers, but this doesn’t mean you should buy followers. Purchased followers can be inactive accounts or bots, resulting in no engagement. Grow followers organically by sharing quality content.
• Using inconsistent branding – Inconsistency in branding and content breeds confusion and hurts engagement. Ensure your visuals, tone, ads, and messaging reflect your brand identity and values to deliver authentic communications and win customer confidence.

 

Creating an Instagram marketing strategy that guides your team and outlines your goals can prevent these mistakes. A well-defined strategy eliminates inconsistencies and sets standards for quality content for your account.

 

Next steps: Growing your business with Name.Com and Instagram

Instagram is popular among Gen Zs and millennials due to its visual nature, with more than 60% of the users aged between 18 and 34 years.4 As a trendsetter of social media marketing, the platform offers opportunities to tap into new audiences and drive business growth.

It has shaped brands, small businesses, eCommerce shops, and the creator economy—and you can’t afford to miss out on this opportunity.

With an Instagram business account, you can engage your customers with in-the-moment content, connect with new audiences, and drive significant traffic to your website. Ensure you have a complete profile that showcases your brand and shares enough details with customers.

More importantly, add your website and blog to your Instagram profile to allow customers to learn more about you and your offerings.

You can use Name.com to register new domains for your website and blog to build your small business. We offer access to new TLDs like .business, .auto, .cologne, and .beauty, along with tools like website builder, email, and SSL certificates to enhance your Instagram presence.

Find your domain today and add it to Instagram to start driving traffic or growing your shop.

 

Sources:

Statista. Instagram – statistics & facts. www.statista.com/topics/1882/instagram/

Instagram. Get your business started on Instagram. www.business.instagram.com/getting-started

Instagram. How to set up a business account on Instagram. www.help.instagram.com/502981923235522

Statista. Distribution of Instagram users worldwide as of April 2024, by age group. www.statista.com/statistics/325587/instagram-global-age-group/