How to turn your Instagram into a website

Most Instagram business accounts already hold most of a website. What's missing is the part that gets you found and paid: a page Google can rank for "lash tech in Plano" with a price list on it, and a clear way to book that doesn't start with a DM thread.

Moving it across takes an afternoon, with an import that reads the public profile and shows you a plan before it charges anything.

What your Instagram already has that a website needs#

Look at your profile the way a stranger would: a name, a one-line description, a category, maybe a link, a row of highlight circles, then photos. Now open a tattoo studio site and you'll see the same parts in a different order: name at the top, a line under it, a row of sections, a gallery of work.

• The bio line is the headline. "Fine line tattoos, Portland, books open monthly" beats most agency copy.
• Category and location are the subheading and the footer.
• Highlights are sections. If yours are called "Prices", "Aftercare", "Studio" and "FAQ", that's already a navigation bar, though you'll carry it across yourself.
• Pinned posts are the services list.
• The grid is the gallery. Six good photos of real work look more like you than any stock image.
• The link in bio is the contact section, or it should be.

What it doesn't have (and why customers go quiet in your DMs)#

Instagram profiles rarely show up when someone in your town types "nail salon near me" into Google, and when one does, the visitor often hits a login prompt instead of your page. A single page with your town, your service and your photos on it can rank for that search, alongside a Google Business Profile.

There's also nowhere to put a price list. You can stick prices in a highlight, but nobody reads highlights before they DM. So they message "how much for a full set?", you reply, they ask about infills, you reply, they ask about Saturday, and somewhere in that thread they go quiet. I'd bet the wait between answers loses more people than the price does. A price list on a page answers all of it at once, even at 11pm when you're asleep.

And booking is clumsy. Instagram's lead form button collects a name and a couple of answers, but nobody sees your prices or hours next to it, so most bookings still happen in the DM thread, which is the slowest way to run a front desk.

Linktree and the other link pages aren't a website either. They give you one link to share. A list of buttons doesn't describe your business the way a real page does or rank on Google, and it sends people off to five other places instead of keeping them on yours.

Step 1: fix your bio first, because the page is written from it#

The bio is the first thing the import reads and the plan is drafted from it, so fix it before you paste the link. A working bio line has the service, the place and one reason to pick you: "Gel and BIAB, Frisco, walk-ins Tuesdays" or "Custom blackwork, Portland, books open the 1st of the month". Cut the emoji strings, and cut "DM to book", since that's the thing we're retiring.

The import doesn't open your highlights, so anything that only lives there (prices, aftercare, the FAQ) won't reach the site on its own. Jot it down now and add it in the chat in Step 4.

Check the category is specific too. "Beauty, cosmetic & personal care" is worse than "Nail salon".

Step 2: make your six most recent photos the ones that show the work#

The import reads your twelve most recent posts, but at most six of your photos end up on the page. Photo posts go first, Reel cover frames fill in if there aren't six photos, and your profile picture is used only if there's still room. Each photo it uses goes in a different part of the page, and it only generates an image where your own photos run out. It doesn't look further back than those twelve posts, so your six most recent photo posts need to be your best six.

Go through the grid and be strict. Keep the finished work, the studio or the van, you at work, a happy client who said yes to being posted. Archive (don't delete) the meme, the "closed Monday" repost, the blurry one, and the four near-identical angles of the same set. If your best work is from March, repost it.

Variety helps. Six close-ups of nails looks like a catalog, while one shot of the front door and one of you at the desk looks like somewhere a person could walk into. Reels only get used when there aren't six photo posts, and then only their cover frame, so if a Reel's cover is a black frame or a mid-blink, set a proper one.

Step 3: paste your profile link and check the plan before anything is built#

On Mr Create you paste your handle or profile link into the box on the Instagram to website page, or type "use my IG to build my site: @yourhandle" on the homepage. It reads the public profile (name, bio, category, link in bio, and your recent photos with their captions), which is free, and then shows a plan under the heading "Here's the plan" that says what it found and how it intends to organize the page.

Read the plan properly, because this is where changes are free. Check it got the business name right rather than using your handle, and that the sections are the ones you'd have picked; if it planned "Gallery, About, Contact" and you wanted "Prices" too, say so in the chat and it gets folded into the build. Then check the tone sounds like you. If your captions are dry and it's planned something gushing, tell it.

Nothing is charged until you click Build my site. That costs 100 credits, and a new account starts with 500 free ones. If the build fails, the credits come back. If it couldn't read the profile at all, usually because the account is private, it asks you to describe the business instead, at the same price.

The same box takes a website address too, if you've got an old site you'd rather rebuild than start over. That's the same flow, reading your pages instead of a grid.

Step 4: add the prices, the area and how to book#

The draft will have your photos and text written from your bio and captions. It won't have the three things from earlier, because Instagram never held them, so you ask for them in the chat.

Start with prices (why they belong on the page): a simple table of service, duration and price. If you charge by the job, write "from" and the starting number. A page with a starting price on it should get fewer "how much?" messages than one with a beautiful gallery and no numbers.

Then the area. Write the town into the page, once near the headline and once in the footer with the neighborhoods you cover. "Mobile lash tech covering Round Rock, Pflugerville and Cedar Park" gives Google something to match when someone in Pflugerville searches, and it doesn't fit in a bio.

Then how to book: "add a booking section with my phone number, email and opening hours, and a button to text me". If you already take bookings through an app, ask for a button that links to it instead.

A chat edit costs 20 credits, so those three requests come to 60. After that, click the text and edit it directly, which is free, and so is swapping a photo for one you upload.

Step 5: put the site link in your bio and retire the link page#

Publish, and you get a free mrcreate.co address straight away. If you want your own name, a custom domain needs a paid plan, and the domain itself is a separate yearly fee.

Then swap the bio link: put the site address where the Linktree was, change "DM to book" to "book on the site", and pin a post announcing the site.

Watch your DMs over the next couple of weeks. The "how much?" messages should drop, and the ones that remain are the good kind: "Saw the prices, can I get a full set Saturday at 2pm?"

The site is a snapshot of your profile on the day you imported it. It doesn't follow your feed after that, so new posts stay on Instagram unless you add them by hand. It's also one page, which is right for a salon or a tattoo artist and wrong for a shop with two hundred products.

Questions people ask#

Does it copy my captions word for word?#

It reads them, along with the photos, to work out what you do and how you talk about it, then writes the page from that. Expect its wording, not a copy of yours. If a line comes out wrong, say so in the chat before you build, or fix it in the editor after.

What if my profile is private?#

Then it can't be read. Either switch to public, run the import, and switch back once the build has finished, or skip the import and describe the business in the chat. That route costs the same 100 credits, and you upload your own photos in the editor.

Can I keep posting to Instagram?#

Yes, and you should. The site is where people check prices and how to book; the grid is where they find out you exist and decide they like you. Every caption can now end with "prices and booking in the link" instead of "DM me". If writing the posts is the part you dread, an Instagram post generator can draft them from the same business description.

Will it look like everyone else's site?#

The photos are yours, the page is written from your bio and captions, and it picks the palette from your photos, so two salons importing their profiles get two different pages. The nail salon example shows the general shape of what comes out.

If you want to try it, the Instagram to website page takes a handle and shows you the plan before you spend anything.