What is Linktree, Why You Should Steer Clear of It For Your Artist’s Links, and What You Should Use Instead

If you are on social media, you have most likely seen a post on your feed with the caption “link in my bio”. If you’re interested enough to follow through, you get there, and it opens up to a series of links to various other websites and platforms in addition to the one link you were looking for. For some it looks convenient. Everything you need to know about this person all in one place, right? However for artists, the appeal of using these redirected link hub platforms is diminished by the lack of personality, flexibility, customization, and search engine optimization on these websites.

Linktree is likely the most prominent of these hubs, however there are other platforms that provide almost the exact same service such as Shortstack, Leadpages etc. Websites such as these put one extra step in front of all of your artist information, which can drive away a large portion of your audience right off the bat. On top of that, Linktree only allows paid users the full ability to customize their page to cater to their brand. Therefore, if you were hoping to skate by without a paid subscription, you are left to deal with the very limited options that are offered for free users. In all honesty, these interfaces are not the most pleasing to the eye, and they can completely mess up your aesthetic. 

So what should you use instead of Linktree? The best option (and the most professional one) is to take the time to create an artist’s website. By doing this, you are given the full freedom to customize each page to cater to your brand, from the different artist pictures, to the presentation of your content, all the way down to the color theme of the menu buttons. Creating an artist’s website also allows you to add more personality to your page, and still maintains the function of being a central hub for all of your links. You would even be able to embed various features such as YouTube music videos, a real-time view of your Instagram and Twitter feeds, and even your Spotify artist profile. These features are not offered on Linktree, and there is nothing on the interface that entices viewers to click on your links. However, with a website, developing artists can push more to their fans.

This also helps drive your SEO (search engine optimization). Having a Linktree in your Instagram bio tells search engines that users like to transition from Instagram to Linktree, which hurts the artists that are trying to use it to grow on the internet because SEO detects Linktree itself as a high traffic website, rather than the links that you provide on your Linktree profile. Instead, having an artist website comes with the advantage of having a personalized domain that will help boost your SEO, and will open you up to other opportunities to build content around that domain. For example, you can link photos, geotags, hashtags, and captions that can be found through the SEO from your original domain. Therefore, using your own website in place of Linktree will help boost your content on internet search engines, and ultimately drive more traffic to your website rather than a third party.

We understand that there is a lot of front end work that goes into creating a professional artist’s website, which is likely why many artists turn to Linktree as a quick and easy alternative. In fact, it can be quite time consuming to build a website correctly. One must have some knowledge on coding languages such as Javascript or Python, and other aspects such as HTML and CSS. But, what you must realize is that the amount of hours you can put into making a website that is fully personalized to your aesthetic and fully functional for your needs as an artist is completely worth the time investment. In the end, you will drive more fans directly to your page, your social media links, and your content links. Thus, resulting in higher traffic to your content which will boost you up on search engines and increase your overall popularity on the internet.

However, artists are humans after all, and as creatives ourselves we know how busy life can get in the music industry. Therefore, we offer services to help take some of the workload off artist’s backs and develop their professional websites for them. If you are an artist using Linktree or a different website to feature your links in your social media bios, ditch that platform and check out EAR Online instead. EAR understands the value of having an artist’s website as a central hub for your content, and we are fully equipped to provide you with high quality web development services that can take your music career to the next level. That way, you as an artist can focus on what matters most to you: making music.