A Linktree Alternative That Will Improve Your Website SEO

Chances are, you have come across Linktree links on social media. Many brands and influencers use them in the bio of their social media profiles. And since social media profiles usually allow the placement of a single active hyperlink, Linktree and similar services became really popular.

Linktree allows you to put together multiple links to your products and pages on one convenient page and hosts them for you, providing a hub for all the content you’d like your followers to see. This is how they got millions of social media website users (specifically Instagram) to direct all their traffic to a third-party website, effectively becoming a middleman between influencers, brands, and their fans.

Linktree is bad for your SEO

Whenever you use a third-party service to host your links, you are sending your audience to their territory. You are gifting (and, sometimes, even paying for this “privilege”) the entirety of your social media traffic to a website that does very little for you in return.

By using Linktree or other similar services, you are hurting your SEO in a few ways.

By sending visitors from your Instagram profile to a Linktree-hosted page, people tend to get lost along the way. Any visitor would need to click twice just to get to your actual website. Search engines use the amount of traffic your site receives to rank the quality of it. Linktree is taking those “hits” for themselves, leaving your site less “valuable” in the eyes of Google.
Traffic from Instagram is better than traffic from Linktree. It’s all about relevancy and Google tracks that. If your site is linked to from Instagram (from your profile that is clearly all about your specific industry), then it signals to Google that the link is relevant and that Instagram “recommends” visitors to view your site. But Linktree content is generic and has nothing to do with your site, so there’s much less relevancy, thus less ranking.
The overall time spent on your site is much less. Because people first land on a Linktree-hosted page, it’s recorded as time spent on Linktree and not on your site. Google measures session duration which signals to them the quality of your content. The longer time spent on your site, the higher, and more relevant, is your content.

Linktree is no longer your best option

In addition to hurting your SEO, here are several other things that make it a sub-optimal option for most businesses:

With time, many customization options were added to match the unique branding desired by the users. Usually, that improvement went hand in hand with the monetization of such services. So to get more customization, you have to pay them.
Each extra click provides an opportunity for visitors to get distracted, annoyed, or simply forget what they came here for and abandon the Linktree site even before they got to your actual site.
You are at the mercy of server uptime and response time of a third-party service. Imagine the frustration you’ll feel when your website is up and ready for business but the service that directs your audience there is experiencing an outage. That is just an added level of risk that is completely unnecessary.
Your list of links needs to be updated regularly to stay relevant to your latest content. It’s yet another thing to keep track of, together with your login, password, recurring payments, and the expiration date of the card you’re using to pay. Every business owner knows the KISS formula (keep it stupid simple) that advocates for the simplest solution whenever possible, and Linktree doesn’t really fit the description.
You need to keep track of and manage yet another service when you update your site.

Instead, your website can host a Linktree-like page

You don’t need a third-party website to host links that lead to your website; you can create a dedicated page on your own website that will do the job. Visually, it will look like a familiar Linktree page so people will know how to navigate it. Additionally, it will have all the SEO benefits of a popular landing page that can direct relevant traffic to various areas of your website.

It’s possible to create such a page via Shopify Theme Editor on your own. You can add text, links, etc and you're done with it. However, the process can be extremely clunky if you don’t know what you’re doing. So if you don’t have the time to experiment, there’s a ready-to-use solution: a Social Media Links Page by qwiqode. It is a reusable and customizable template that can be easily added to your Shopify page.

Here are some of the key benefits of using qwiqode Social Media Links Page:

Take all SEO benefits for yourself. The new landing page is a part of your website, so all social media traffic comes directly to you.
The time spent on this page counts as time spent browsing your website, adding to the total session duration. Not only a high average session duration increases the likelihood of visitors converting into customers, but it also signals search engines that your content is of high quality, potentially encouraging more organic search traffic with time.
The Social Media Links Page content block is available after a one-time purchase with no additional monthly or yearly fees. Linktree may be free at first, but a customizable paid version of the service is not cheap since the fees add up over the years.
This block is fully customizable, and you can change the fonts, button style and colors, as well as the background with a color or image and adjust spacing between the links and other elements on the site. The overall style of this page can be designed to match the rest of your website and fit in with the branding of your company.
You can easily add a collection of products to display to your visitors without even having them navigate to another page.
You can add a block of text, your logo and links to your additional social media platforms.
No coding knowledge is required. The UI is intuitive, and as long as you’re familiar with the Shopify Theme Editor, you should have no trouble setting up your new social media links page.
Since this content block is uploaded directly to your Shopify website, you won’t have to rely on third-party hosting servers to run it. As long as your website is accessible, you won’t ever have to worry about the landing page not opening up.
When you need to add new links or redesign the page, you don’t need to go to a different website to do so. It’s one less login and password to remember, and it’s one less type of user interface to learn. Also, if you change the name of a page or update its URL, this will automatically update on the menu.
You can track the incoming traffic on your Shopify Analytics page. The tracking process is simplified and streamlined since it lands on a single page of your website first rather than getting diverted to various pages.

But of course, the best thing about this qwiqode section is that visitors go directly to your website. Nobody is lost along the way, and people are less likely to get distracted and bounce.

Do you have a sale you want people to take notice? Display a curated collection of those products on sale, change the look of the page, update any text and or links from within Shopify itself.

Working with experts is always better

As we mentioned, it is possible to create an individual page and add links and buttons manually. However, the amount of time it will take a web design novice to figure it out might simply not be worth it. The Social Media Links Page content block costs just $100, and it can be easily added to your Shopify website. It will take all guesswork out of creating an important landing page for your website.

qwiqode helps businesses fine-tune the design of their Shopify websites by creating customizable content blocks. We also help with installation upon request. Check out the most frequently asked questions to see how it works. And if you need a custom solution for your website or want us to design a high-quality landing page from start to finish, simply reach out to our team with your ideas.

Will this Social Media Links Page work for everybody?

It is our belief that this product is ideal for all Shopify store owners who have a social media presence. The SEO benefits alone make the transition extremely worth it, and it’s a no-brainer improvement that will have long-lasting positive results. Plus, it is a cost-effective shift that will save you money in the long term. Frankly speaking, there are no real downsides to ditching a third-party service in favor of making your website more self-sufficient.

Purchase the customizable qwiqode Social Media Links Page to improve your SEO today!