Must Have Features for a Salon & Spa Website
In today’s age, it is important to have a professional website for successfully promoting your beauty spa/salon. A salon and spa website is an absolute necessity for optimizing and marketing your business and therefore, attracting more customers. The web can be a very beneficial instrument for doing this, and the importance of keeping up with the latest trends and appealing design while keeping your site updated will make it more attractive to others while bringing in new customers.
If you want to be successful at building a reputation for your business in the online space, you need a website with a design that's attractive and a customer-friendly design. Here is an overview of the must-have features of a professional spa/salon website. These outstanding features will capture the attention of your website visitors and provide the best user experience.
A Modern & Beautiful Theme
When people judge the credibility of a brand, 75% of people admit that they judge based on how it looks online. Designing an attractive website gives an appealing look to the website. Hence, attractive themes have a huge role in enticing visitors. You take pride in your work on your clients. Your website should be no different.
Quality images
Beauty is inherently visual, so if you want to attract clients to your site, you need a website that includes a gallery of images of your products or services. Try to steer away from stock photos on your site, but instead take real shots of work you’ve done on clients’ nails, hair, make-up, eyebrows, or whatever is relevant to your line of work.
Whether you’re a hair stylist, esthetician, nail technician, or run a full-service salon, pictures speak volumes when it comes to marketing your business. Take the time to gather the images you need to make your website feel like an extension of your business. Be sure to update your images regularly so that your content stays fresh and you’re always on top of the latest trends. If you can, schedule photoshoot days and invest in a brand or lifestyle photographer to come in monthly/quarterly to capture the latest work and trends.
Testimonials
Add reviews from satisfied clients to your website to give your brand a credibility boost. This is also a great way to encourage people to try your services if they may have been reluctant before or don’t know what to expect. If you offer a range of services at your salon, include reviews covering a variety of offerings. It is also important to keep this section current.
Online Appointment Booking
Run your schedule, don’t let it run you. Today, people are in need convenience and immediate resolution. Unless you can afford to hire a dedicated receptionist to take bookings, many beauty salon staff find they need to juggle working on clients and answering the phone at the same time. If your staff is busy, they might leave the answering machine to catch any incoming calls. This isn’t ideal, and many beauty salons might end up losing business if clients can’t book an appointment then & there. An online booking system is a great way to avoid this!
This is why I like using Squarespace with my custom website builds. You can easily create an online appointment booking section on your site for this to happen. This will make life so much easier for you and your clients. It means appointments can be made even when the salon is closed or when you’re busy with another client.
A Blog Section
Based on a report by Forbes, 34% of customers are more likely to make an unplanned purchase after receiving personalized content. Hence, a beauty salon website with great content offers better chances to boost your revenue. Add articles with tips for maintaining skin tone, recommended shampoos and conditioners for the different hair types, steps for the perfect skincare, etc. will convey your expertise to the readers.
Digital Gift Cards
According to Restaurant Technology News, the sales of digital gift cards will hit $698.2 billion by 2024. 😳 A gift cards feature on a spa & salon website has become a convenient marketing tool for promoting the online beauty business. Your current clients love you and want to share that love. Offering digital gift cards is a great gift idea and a way to market your beauty services to potential clients just like the ones you already have.
Optimized for mobile
We love our phones and just can’t seem to put them down. If you own a salon or spa, you need to have a mobile friendly (or “responsive” – it’s the same thing) website. Why? Because Smartphones are transforming the way we engage and behave. A great mobile friendly website is a must for anyone operating a successful business in this industry. If potential beauty clients can’t view your website on their phone they will just move on to the next salon in the Google search list – your competitor. Then browse their website and call them (not you) to book that first appointment. This is another reason why I build with Squarespace. It is natively mobile friendly. Whether you like it or not the future is mobile.
Winding up…
In this modern era, driving/calling the salon for pre-bookings, gift card purchases, inquiries, etc has become unnecessary. These activities should be easily carried out from your website. An outdated website will not be appealing to your future clients, therefore, having a beautiful theme, enhanced features and technologies on your website are essential. Features such as online booking, gift card purchases, pricing & service lists, map-view and business hours should always be available, on-demand.
I help hair and beauty businesses to run and grow a profitable online presence. If you need to level up your online game, schedule a free consultation with me and let's chat.