How to get your page on Google

Instagram is where people find you when they are scrolling. Google is where they find you when they are looking for something specific, which is usually the moment they are ready to spend money. Being in both is worth the half hour it takes.

Your Instagram profile is not much use to Google on its own: it has almost no readable text and it sits on somebody else's domain. A page of your own has a title, a description, real sentences and an address, which is the whole list of what a search engine needs.

The three things Google needs

A page it can reach. A real web address that loads for anybody, with no app and no login. Every IG Websites page is one of these from the moment you publish.

Words it can read. Google reads text. Say what you do and where you do it, in a sentence a person would say out loud. Amara braids hair in Peckham beats any arrangement of keywords.

A title and a description. These are the two lines that appear in the search result. They are also the two lines that decide whether anybody clicks it.

Write the title and description

The title is the blue line people click. Put what you do and where, and your name if people search for it. Around sixty characters stay visible on a phone, so lead with the part that matters.

The description is the two lines underneath. It does not change your ranking, it changes whether the click happens. Say the specific things: what you sell, the area you cover, the price you start at, the fact that people can book online.

Write for the search somebody actually types

People do not search for adjectives. They search for a thing and a place: braids in Peckham, sourdough classes Bristol, wedding photographer Cork. Put those words in your page because they are true, in the sentence where they belong, and skip anything you would be embarrassed to read aloud to a customer.

If you serve a town, name it. If you serve several, name them in a sentence about where you work rather than in a list at the bottom.

Give Google a reason to trust the page

• Link to it from places you control. Your Instagram bio, your TikTok, your YouTube description, your email signature. Those links are how it gets discovered in the first place.
• Keep it current. Real hours, real prices, real availability.
• Say who you are. A name, a face and a place beat an anonymous page every time.

What to expect

Give it a few weeks. New pages take time to be found, and the first search you will win is your own name, which is more useful than it sounds: it is what somebody types after seeing your work and forgetting your handle.

Searches for what you do in your town take longer and are worth more. Keep the page accurate, keep linking to it, and check your stats to see what people did once they arrived.