How to Create a Link on Facebook

November 11, 2025

Learning how to create a link on Facebook seems simple until you realize just how many ways and places you can share one. From standard posts to Stories and Reels, each format has its own rules for getting your audience from their news feed to your website. This guide will walk you through exactly how to add links across all of Facebook’s key features, along with some best practices to make sure those links actually get clicked.

Understanding the Basics: The Standard Link Post

This is the most common way to share a link and the one you’re probably most familiar with. It’s effective because Facebook automatically generates a clickable preview box, making your link visually appealing and giving context to what you're sharing. This works for your personal profile, a business Page, or in a Group.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Link Post:

Start a new post. Go to the "What's on your mind?" field at the top of your Feed or on your Page's timeline.
Paste your URL. Copy the full URL from your browser (e.g., `https://www.yourwebsite.com/blog-post`) and paste it directly into the post composer.
Wait for the preview to generate. Facebook will take a few seconds to "fetch" the preview. It will automatically pull in a title, a short description, and an image from the webpage. This is your link preview box.
Add your own context. Above the link preview box, write your caption. This is your chance to tell people why they should click. Ask a question, pull out an interesting quote, or state the main benefit of clicking the link.
(Optional) Clean up the URL. Once the preview box has loaded, you can delete the raw URL you pasted into the caption field. The clickable preview box will remain, making your post look much cleaner.
Post it. Click the "Post" button to share it immediately, or use the scheduling options to publish it later.

That's it! When someone sees your post, they can click anywhere within that preview box - the image, the title, or the description - and they'll be taken straight to your website.

Adding Links to Different Facebook Formats

Facebook isn't just about standard posts anymore. To reach your audience effectively, you need to know how to share links within its other popular formats like Stories, Reels, and even your profile's 'About' section.

How to Add a Link to a Facebook Story

Facebook Stories are a powerful way to engage audiences with short-form, disappearing content. For a long time, only big accounts could add links, but now the "Link Sticker" is available to most users and Pages.

Here’s how to use it:

Create a new Story by tapping "Create story" on your home screen.
Add a photo or a video as your background.
Tap the sticker icon (the smiley face in a square) from the top right menu.
Select the "Link" sticker.
Paste your desired URL into the field provided and tap "Done."
Now you can move the link sticker around, resize it, and even change its color by tapping on it. Place it somewhere that’s easy to see but doesn’t obscure the main content of your Story.
Add any other text, GIFs, or effects, and then share your Story.

Viewers can now tap this sticker to visit your link directly from your Story, which is great for driving traffic to promotions, blog posts, or product pages.

How to Add a Link to a Photo or Video Post

What if you want to share a great photo or video but still want to include a link? You absolutely can, but there's a small catch: the link won't generate a clickable preview box like a standard link post. Instead, it will just appear as a plain text URL within your post's caption (the description).

Here's the process:

Start a new post and choose "Photo/video."
Upload your visual content.
In the "Say something about this..." caption field, write your description. At the end of your text, paste the full URL.
Post as usual.

While the URL is still typically clickable on desktop and mobile, it's less noticeable and visually compelling than a dedicated link preview. Because of this, you need a strong call to action (CTA) in your caption to encourage people to click. For example: "Find the full recipe at [your link here]!" or "Check out all the new arrivals here: [your link here]."

How to Add a Link to a Facebook Reel

Similar to standard video posts, you can add a link to a Facebook Reel in its description. When people watch your Reel, they can tap to see the full description and find the link there.

To do this, simply paste your link into the "Describe your reel..." field before you publish it. Like with other video posts, the call to action is everything. Use your video's audio or text overlays to tell people "Link in the description!" or "Link in caption to learn more!" to direct their attention.

This method is also a great time to lean on the classic "link in bio" strategy. Mention it in your Reel, and make sure the link in your Page's profile is updated to the content you're promoting.

Adding a Permanent Link to Your Facebook Page

Your business page offers a few prime spots to place important, semi-permanent links.

The Website Field: This is a dedicated spot in your Page’s "About" section. Go to your Page >, Edit details >, Contact info and add your primary website URL. This is the first place people will look for your site.
The Call-to-Action (CTA) Button: This is the prominent button located right below your cover photo. You can configure this to say things like "Shop Now," "Learn More," "Sign Up," or "Contact Us," and direct it to a specific URL. To edit it, go to your Page and click the blue button to change the text and the destination link.

Best Practices: How to Make Your Links Stand Out

Just posting a link isn't enough. You need to optimize it to grab attention and encourage clicks. Here are a few strategies to make your links more effective.

1. Control Your Link Preview with Open Graph Tags

Have you ever posted a link and noticed Facebook pulled in a weird, low-quality image or a confusing title? That happens when a webpage doesn't give Facebook clear instructions on what to use for the preview. You can fix this on your own website using what are called "Open Graph" (OG) tags.

OG tags are small snippets of code you add to the `` section of your webpage's HTML. They tell social platforms like Facebook exactly which image, title, and description to use when creating a link preview. If you use a platform like WordPress, tools like the Yoast SEO plugin make adding these simple without needing to touch any code.

The four most important OG tags are:

`og:title`: The title of your content.
`og:description`: A one- to two-sentence summary of your content.
`og:image`: The URL of the image you want to display in the preview. Use a high-quality image with a 1.91:1 aspect ratio (e.g., 1200 x 630 pixels).
`og:url`: The canonical URL of your page.

Here's a quick example of what they look like in the code:

<,meta property="og:title" content="The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing" />, <,meta property="og:description" content="Learn how to build a brand and drive results..." />, <,meta property="og:image" content="https://www.yourwebsite.com/images/awesome-guide.jpg" />, <,meta property="og:url" content="https://www.yourwebsite.com/guides/social-media/" />,

By setting these up, you give your links a professional, polished look every time they’re shared, dramatically improving the chances of someone clicking.

2. Use Strong and Clear Calls to Action (CTAs)

You can't expect people to click a link just because it’s there. You need to guide them. Always accompany your link with text that tells your audience what to do and what benefit they'll receive. Don't be shy, be direct.

Examples of good CTAs:

Instead of: "Here's our new blog post."
Try: "Ready to boost your productivity? Read our 5 game-changing tips here."

Instead of: "Check out this product."
Try: "Shop the look! Get your summer style here before it sells out."

3. Shorten and Track Your Links

Long, messy URLs can look spammy and intimidating. Using a URL shortener like Bitly makes your links cleaner and more trustworthy. An even bigger benefit is tracking. Shortening services provide analytics on how many people are clicking your links, where they're coming from geographically, and which posts are driving the most traffic. This data is priceless for understanding what content resonates with your audience so you can create more of it.

Final Thoughts

Sharing a link on Facebook is a straightforward process, but getting it right involves understanding the nuances of each content format and optimizing your link for engagement. Whether you're adding it to a standard post with a beautiful preview, using a sticker in your Story, or dropping it in a Reel's description, the key is to make it visible, compelling, and easy to act on.

Of course, managing and scheduling all this content - customizing posts with links for Facebook, then for Reels, then for other platforms - can become a lot to handle. We built Postbase to solve precisely this problem. Instead of fighting with tools built for a different era, you can use our visual calendar to plan your content, schedule your link posts reliably across all your accounts, and trust they’ll actually publish. It’s a modern, simple way to manage your social media without the usual headaches.

Spencer Lanoue

Spencer's spent a decade building products at companies like Buffer, UserTesting, and Bump Health. He's spent years in the weeds of social media management—scheduling posts, analyzing performance, coordinating teams. At Postbase, he's building tools to automate the busywork so you can focus on creating great content.

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