"Website versus Instagram" sounds like a debate, but it's really a misunderstanding. The two do different jobs, and the argument only exists because Instagram does its job so visibly — likes, comments, followers — while the website's job happens silently, inside Google, where you never see it working.
So instead of arguing, let's look at the evidence. Not our opinion — Google's. Because when someone nearby searches "cafe near me" (and around 54% of cafe discovery happens through exactly that kind of search), Google decides who appears. The only question that matters is: what can Google actually see of your cafe?
The test: search your own cafe in an incognito window
Before reading another word, do this. Open an incognito or private browsing window on your phone — incognito matters, because Google personalises results and you've searched for your own cafe a hundred times. Now search three things: your cafe's name; your cafe's name plus your town; and the thing you'd want to be found for — "brunch [your town]", "coffee near [the station]", whatever fits.
For the first search, you should see your Google Business Profile on the right (or top, on a phone), with photos, hours and reviews. For the third search, be honest: are you there at all? If competitors with websites fill the results and you don't appear, that's not because their coffee is better. It's because Google can read their details and can't read yours.
While you're in there, tap through your own profile as if you were a stranger. Press the "Menu" button. Press "Website". Note where each one lands. For a lot of Instagram-only cafes, both buttons dead-end at a login wall or a linktree — which is the moment a warm, nearly-decided customer becomes someone else's customer. Keep whatever you found in mind; the rest of this article explains it.
What Google can read on each
Google's crawler is powerful but literal. It reads text, structured data, and page titles. It cannot reliably read text inside images, story highlights, or captions on a platform that actively limits what crawlers see — and Instagram does limit it. Here's the honest scorecard for the things a customer actually searches for:
What the scorecard means in practice
Read the Instagram column again and notice what it adds up to: on Instagram, every fact a new customer needs is either an image, buried, or stale. That's not a criticism of how you run the account — it's how the platform is built. Instagram optimises for keeping people scrolling inside Instagram; it has no interest in feeding Google clean data about your opening hours, and it never will.
The website column isn't magic either — it's just legible. A one-page site with the menu as real text, hours marked up properly and a consistent address gives Google exactly what it wants to cross-check against your Business Profile. That agreement between profile and site is one of the quiet trust signals that decides who appears in the local results. Roughly 94% of customers check a venue online before visiting; the scorecard decides what they find when they do.
Why "link in bio" doesn't fix it
The standard defence is the link in bio — one URL pointing at a linktree of your menu PDF, your delivery partner, and last month's event. But look at the direction of travel: a link in bio only helps someone who has already found your Instagram. The whole problem is the person who hasn't — the one typing "cafe near me" at the bus stop. No link in your bio reaches them, because they never see your bio.
There's a second issue: what's behind the link. If it's a PDF menu, you've handed a phone user a pinch-and-zoom exercise, and handed Google nothing at all — PDFs are the worst way to put a menu online, for reasons that deserve their own article and got one.
The both/and setup
Here's the arrangement that actually works, and it's not a compromise — each part does the job it's best at. The website is the foundation: one fast page with your menu as real text, hours marked up properly, map, phone number and photos. It exists almost entirely for Google and for first-time visitors answering the three questions: what do you serve, when are you open, where are you. Instagram is the personality: daily specials, the new bake, the dog in the window. It keeps regulars warm and gives your cafe a voice.
The connective tissue matters: embed your Instagram feed on the website, so the site always shows today's photos without you touching it, and put the website link in your Instagram bio, so followers can find the practical details. Your Google Business Profile then points at the website, and Google sees a consistent, cross-confirmed picture of your cafe from three sources. That consistency is precisely what earns placement in local results.
This is exactly how we build cafe sites, incidentally — Instagram feed embedded as standard, because we'd rather work with the account you already run than pretend it doesn't matter. You can see the pattern on real examples we've built.
The 20-minute audit
Set a timer and run through this list. Each check is a real thing a customer or Google will hit this week:
- Incognito search your cafe's name — does a Google Business Profile appear, and is it yours (claimed, not auto-generated)?
- Check the hours on that profile against reality, including bank holidays. Wrong hours are the fastest way to a one-star review.
- Search "cafe near me" from inside your cafe. Do you appear in the map results at all?
- Tap the "Website" button on your own profile. Does it go somewhere useful, or dead-end at a login-walled Instagram?
- Find your menu the way a stranger would. Count the taps, and note whether the prices are current.
- Check your Instagram bio has your town, your hours, and one working link.
- Load whatever website you have on 4G, not wifi. If you get bored waiting, so does everyone else.
See yours before you decide anything
If the audit went badly, the fix is smaller than you think. Send one photo and your Instagram link and we'll build a free mockup of your cafe's website in 2 hours — Instagram feed embedded, Google fed properly. If you're still weighing up whether a site is worth it at all, start with the honest version: does my cafe need a website?