Instagram only allows a single click-able URL in the profile. Most people seem to use a service called Linktree. To get a feeling for the format, here’s an example by Alicia Keys and one by the MoMa.

The styling is a bit different for each site. Some have photos, some have plain colors. But all have the same elements of the same size: a circular picture at the top, and a list of links as very wide buttons. It’s optimized for mobile use, to make you rstuf available for visitors of e.g. Instagram profiles.

I find the format interesting for this use. It’s a hub of central links. That’s useful if people discover you on social media but don’t yet know you. If I point people from my watercolor/sketching Instagram profile to this personal website of mine, christiantietze.de, they won’t see any picture, any drawing, but lots of stuff in English about “computers”. That’s not helpful.

So I built my own Linktree page: https://christiantietze.de/linktree/ – And the best of all: I can style it however ugly or pretty I want, add animations, sparkles, you name it, because it’s on my own website!

It’s a list of links, the style is optimized for mobile consumption as a menu, and there’s not much going on in general.

I also considered using my /now page for this, but it’s too wordy, and it’s designed to describe the current point in time, not provide a comprehensive overview of my stuff.

That being said, the Linktree format lends itself to use for evergreen links to redirect visitors to your blog, your social media profiles, and such things – but also to ever changing content, like “My latest album XYZ on Spotify”, which you’ll want to replace with your next album once that comes out.

Let’s see what happens with that link hub/menu/directory format.

This is a gentle reminder to everyone out there that hosting your own website is not that hard, and it is super rewarding because you have 100% control and don’t rely on external services to do the simplest things, like displaying links. (To be fair, Linktree offers a couple of built-in marketing features in the “Pro” tier when you look at their pricing page.)