What to Put in Your Instagram Highlights
Highlights are some of the most-clicked, least-strategic real estate on an Instagram profile. Most businesses fill them with whatever stories happened to be saved rather than deciding what a new visitor actually needs to see — so a genuinely useful set sits there, unbuilt, right under the bio. Here's the fix.
First, what most businesses get wrong
- No clear order — Highlights read left to right; burying "Services" behind five personal ones means most visitors never reach it.
- Mismatched or ugly covers — a random grab-bag of icons and colours looks unfinished before anyone even taps in.
- Stale content — a "New Menu" Highlight from 2023 quietly tells visitors nobody's paying attention.
- Too many Highlights — fifteen tiny categories dilute focus; five to seven strong ones beat fifteen thin ones.
- No path to act — no Highlight actually tells someone how to book, buy or enquire.
The Highlights lineup formula
Copy this order — it's built so the most decision-relevant information comes first:
2. Services/Offers — what's actually for sale or on offer.
3. FAQs — your top three to five most-asked questions, answered plainly.
4. Reviews/Results — proof, kept factual rather than salesy.
5. Behind the Scenes — the humans and process behind the brand.
6. Book/Contact — the exact next step, with zero friction.
Six categories, built in that order, is enough for almost any small business.
Three real examples
Same formula, adapted to three very different profiles. ✨
Please note: general information, not legal advice — check current official guidance before relying on it.
The nuance nobody mentions
Here's the honest bit: Highlights won't grow your account. They don't drive reach or bring in new followers — that's the feed and Reels' job. What Highlights actually do is convert the people who already found you and tapped your profile. Spending hours perfecting Highlights while your feed sits stale for a month is optimising the wrong end of the funnel; get both working, but don't mistake one for the other. Think of Highlights as the shop window you polish after the doorbell rings, not the thing that makes it ring in the first place.
Mistakes that quietly cost conversions
- An empty or outdated "Reviews" Highlight — worse than no Highlight at all; it signals nobody's rated you lately.
- Burying the booking link three Highlights deep — put the clearest next step where it's easy to find.
- Never updating FAQs — as your offers change, your FAQs Highlight should too.
- Treating Highlights as an archive — not every story deserves to live there forever; curate, don't collect.
Frequently asked questions
How many Instagram Highlights should I have?
Five to seven well-curated Highlights usually outperform a long row of thin, overlapping categories. Focus on what a new visitor actually needs to decide.
Do Highlight covers need to be custom-designed?
Not expensively — but a consistent, simple style (same font or colour, or your logo) looks far more credible than mismatched default icons.
Should I include a reviews Highlight for a health or professional service?
Keep it factual and general rather than a curated testimonial reel, and check your industry's advertising rules — some regulated professions have specific restrictions on how reviews or results can be displayed.
How often should Highlights be updated?
Review them every few months, or whenever your services, pricing or FAQs change — a stale Highlight is a missed chance to answer a real question. 💖
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