salon website tips
Website Conversion for Salons
First of all, you need to understand the term “Conversion” in relation to the Internet.
A website that converts is viewed as active content (as oppose to casual content). The web content has a purpose, which is to achieve a reasonable conversion rate. The conversion rate is the number of goals achieved, divided by the number of visitors to the website. The goal of “Active” content may vary from website to website. For a services website like your Salon, a conversion may be an inquiry like your phone number or street address, for an ecommerce site it may be a sale, for a blog it may be a newsletter sign up.
The conversion funnel design
The most sophisticated form of website design for conversion rate involves a conversion funnel. This is a marketing technique where a viewer is exposed to a series of events/elements, which move him or her closer to a sale.
The technique is not a new one, as traditional advertisers have been doing it for years with the AIDA method (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). The thought process of a potential viewer must be analyzed, and each page must ponder to what the viewer is likely to think or feel. This information is used to move a viewer through the various elements, almost as if the web design were a narrative. The last element is the conversion tool, such as a newsletter signup or checkout. How you choose to structure your conversion funnel is up to you.
Below are some tips to help you design your salon website for a better conversion rate, which could all be applied to a conversion tunnel design.
Remove any barrier to a potential conversion
A big barrier is navigation. Poor navigation leads to frustration that will often cause the user to leave your website. Worse still are the occasions where a viewer has decided to purchase (convert) and cannot find the means to do so. This is one of the dangers of a poorly constructed funnel design.
A web designer will imagine that a user will only purchase at the end of the funnel. As a consequence, he or she will only put the ability to buy at the end of the funnel. If you fear that this is you, then you should make sure that a user is able to convert on every page. Have the checkout link, newsletter signup link, contact form, etc, available on every page if you must.
Start the process off-page
Run ads to increase brand awareness and post reviews of your products and services on other domains. Be prepared to receive visitors who are already amenable to purchasing from you. In these cases you will not need to market to them as hard. Consider having them enter the conversion funnel at a later stage (on a page besides the home page).
Design your site around your goal
Creating a conversion tunnel is one way of doing this, but that is just one element of your website. Apply your goal to every section/element of your website. If you have an ecommerce site that is 150 pages large, and 5 of those pages consist of your conversion tunnel, and 9 are landing pages, you can apply your goal to all 150 pages. Your landing pages can drop people off at certain points during the conversion tunnel. The other pages may simply link to or advertise your goal, with each link placing the viewer at the beginning of the conversion tunnel.
Improve your websites focus
A mess of information and design may seem useful, but it is not ideal for converting people. Casual content can afford to lack focus, since its usefulness is not relative to a specific actionable goal. A lot of the time, it comes down to either making your point, or purging elements that detract from your point.
Include images to aide conversion
This is a no brainer in many cases. It is hard to imagine a salon site without images. But consider them also when you are linking form other domains, linking internally, or trying to prove a point. Picture links have less SEO value, but we are dealing with your conversions and not your SEO, and images aide conversions.
Reduce the thinking needed to click
The popularity of big boxes and widgets that are links has grown because they are a needed part of mobile browsing. This is not a bad thing because clicking on a big box requires little thought. Now, compare this to the website that puts five text links in a list and asks you pick one (it takes some thought). Thought is good if you are trying to provoke a reaction, but if you are trying to convert someone then help them to think less (at least when it comes to using your website).
Credibility is King
This is the last point for anyone who was good enough to read this article in full. Credibility is the biggest and most important key to your conversion success, and your web design can go a long way to increasing your credibility.
- Poorly designed websites are the first credibility killer. If your website takes ages to load, is hard to navigate, has tiny text or is cramped then your credibility will evaporate.
- Websites that look like they were built by amateurs are credibility killers.
- Boxy designs with sparkly or poorly animated features and plain color backgrounds will kill your credibility.
- Too many security and association logos are a credibility killer. They are often added by fraudsters in an attempt to fool people into thinking a site is safe.
Less is more–sleek and minimalist websites are easier to trust. Cramped or over filled websites look desperate. And over promotional websites look like they offer reduced quality at a higher price.
Author bio: Korah Morrison is a writer for EssayWritingServices.com. She helps students write essays of any complexity and writes about seo, blogging, social media, internet marketing and other tips.
Image Source: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8107/8517448155_9520b3d682.jpg
We can help you in creating a conversion funnel for your Salon website today!
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How to really boost your Salon Website
Are you still stuffing your salon website articles with as many keywords as possible to get high traffic and higher rankings on search engines?
If your answer is yes, then let me tell you something very important. When you just focus on keywords and not on the quality of your articles, then the desired results will most certainly elude you.
Here is how to boost your web presence by imposing quality content in your website:
- Good web copy engages your visitors and turns them into customers! At the very least it will turn them into loyal visitors who will visit your website again and again. It is very advisable to not recycle content from brochures, mission statements, other printed marketing material. The message on print material is focused on your company and not your target audience. A good salon or spa website should not just be about YOU, instead it should be about YOUR CLIENTS and how you can help them.
- Make your articles relevant to the products and services you provide. Don’t fill your articles with fluff and unnecessary information that will only end up distracting your clients. The title of your article should always be in sync with your article. For example, if your latest article is about the Spring and Summer Hair Styles, then include content that describes these styles. Arrange the write-up in a proper structure and make sure that your readers can easily find out what they are looking for.
- Be sure that your website is not mis-selling or mis-leading. Never promise anything that you can’t deliver! Remember, your website content is the platform through which you are going to communicate with your customers. Your content, may it be videos, images or text, should be closely related to what you offer. However, it’s important that you don’t go overboard with your marketing messages.
- Always keep your website content fresh and unique. Update your website with related videos, images and articles at least a couple times a month. You can write about the new products you offer, services you added, rules and regulations, etc. For example, do your hours change during the summer months? Let your customers know about it via your website before hand. The new changes will be visible immediately and your clients can make adjustments in their own schedules.
- Your website content must be informative and easy to understand. Articles and product or service descriptions should always be written in a clear and understandable way so that the facts are conveyed to your readers very easily. If your readers are not able to make out what you are trying to say, they will not stay on your page for long. This will result in increased bounce rates and ultimately a lack of business.
5 Salon Website Tips
Your website must highlight the unique features of your salon and on how the products and services you provide will benefit your customers.
This can not be accomplished by keyword stuffing. Your website will naturally rank higher in search traffic and get more traffic if you implement the tips we outlined in this ‘How to really boost your Salon Website’ article.
If you need additional website help, don’t hesitate to call us at 320.961.4732 or click here to send us an email.
We can help you to get your salon website to rank higher!
Understanding Error 404 Pages for Salon Websites
Changes to an existing Salon website can hurt its visibility.
If you consider making the following changes, your inbound links can be broken and search engines may need to re-index your website pages.
- New page names such as contact.html instead of contact-us.html
- Removing website pages
- Domain name changes
Any potential clients and website visitors searching for the non-existing or removed pages in a search engine will land on a page with the message “Page Not Found”, this is a 404 error page. The problem isn’t the website itself, but the search engine result pages. Meaning the new pages haven’t been indexed by the search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. yet.
To avoid any confusion for your salon website visitors and potential clients we suggest making the following change.
Create a custom ‘Error 404 Page’ (see image below of the Salon Marketing Error 404 page for example).
Custom 404 Error Page
Creating a custom error page helps capture your visitors and prevents them from becoming discouraged.
A custom 404 error page that shows within your own salon’s website will keep the connection between your visitor and your brand. Your visitor will now have access to your navigational menus, sidebar and header. You should also include a search box and links of your most popular posts or featured articles. An automatic redirect to the home is also a good idea.
The 404 error page for Salon Marketing reads: Error 404 – Not Found – Sorry, the page that you are looking for does not exist. Try another search. This is followed by a search box.
We also included a line stating, “Check out some of our most post popular posts instead”. We list our three most popular articles next.
Setting up an Error 404 page for your Salon website is fairly simple, depending on your set-up. A Word Press site like the Salon Marketing website has a custom error 404 page built within the template. You can find it under ‘Appearance’ – ‘Editor’ – ’404 Template’ (404.php).
After you made the changes to your salon website’s custom Error 404 page, make sure your error page is functioning properly. Type “www.yourwebsitename.com/test” (replace “yourwebsitename” with your site’s URL) and hit enter. Review your results.
Don’t loose any more visitors or potential clients because of an Error 404 page. Be pro-active and help your visitors find their way to your salon website.
Need help setting up a custom Error 404 page for your website? Give us a call today.
Fall Marketing Tips for Salon Websites
Fall is a great time of year to look over and make changes to your salon website.
The days are getting shorter and we spend more time indoors, searching the internet. Did you know that in the past year 76% of people searching for local businesses used an Internet search? Try searching for your own salon with Google. Does your business show up on the first page? If not, we can help you get there. We offer local SEO packages to optimize businesses like yours so you will not miss those customers looking for your salon on the Internet. Give us a call at 320.961.4732 today to find out what we can do for you.
Fall Tips for Salon Websites
Does your Salon website suffer from these common flaws?
1. Confusing and Cluttered pages – Many websites have too much information on a single page. Your salon website should be clear and easy to read. Your visitors should instantly know what your website is all about.
2. Copy is too small – This is a very common mistake made by many website developers trying to give a site a sophisticated look. We recommend text fond of 14pt or larger. Why not make the text easy to read for your visitors?
3. Lacks objective – Every page of your website should have a very clear objective. Some good examples are: prompt your visitor to make a phone call or submit an email address, give easy to follow directions to your salon or ask visitors to try a new product or style.
These are but a few of the many things that need to be addressed when designing a new website or overhauling an existing website for a salon or any other business for that matter.
Give us a call at 320.961.4732 or click here to send us a no strings attached email.
What we can do for your salon…
1. Website design and hosting
2. Local SEO to help your salon get more leads
3. Pay per click advertising – Adwords account setup and management
4. Website improvements, changes and optimization
5. Website tracking setup so you can track your salon website traffic
Remember, optimized salon websites generate free leads 24 hours a day, every day of the year!
The Most Important Things to Have on Your Salon Website
Having a full fledged website isn’t something every business needs. There are all the different social media sites, Google, Yahoo & Bing Business pages and various other websites, like Yellow Book, to share your contact information and basic business information. So, as a salon owner do you really need a website? YES, because your potential clients want to know more about your business than your phone number and physical address.
Here are the Most Important Things to have on your Salon website:
A map to your location and easy to find contact information
Besides showing your phone number and address it’s a good idea to show your visitors exactly where your salon or spa is located on a map along with easy to follow directions. You don’t want your potential clients to get lost on their way to your business. Have your phone number highly visible in the header or sidebar and make the number clickable, click here to see how.
Pictures and videos to add depth to your website
Most website visitors love to look at pictures, especially perfectly coiffed men and women. You have absolutely no excuse to slack on pictures and videos in your business. Integrate photos into your articles, have a client slideshow, show off the latest styles and products in short video clips. You could also create various photo galleries. How about a gallery for your staff to high light their individual expertise, a photo gallery to introduce the layout of your salon to new clients, a gallery just for children or photos of the newest trends or wacky what not to do’s.
Interact and start to build a relationship
Once a visitor has found your site it is important that they are compelled to stay on it for a while and of course, you should give them a reason to come back. The longer your visitors stay on your website, the higher the chance that they will reach out to you, share your website and expertise with friends and family and remember you and your business later on. Be friendly and informative! When writing articles for your website always ask your visitors to respond in some way. Ask for your visitors opinions, have them leave a comment, email you or share your article on their Facebook or other social media sites to start a conversation.
A successful website for your salon isn’t just about supplying your visitors with general information. A salon website should be a fun place to visit, where your clients can find out what’s new in the world of beauty, where they can get all the information they need to feel comfortable and will want to come to your salon for their next appointment.
Image Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/374914
The 3 most important website Dont’s
A well designed website for salons and spas will have both, website visitors and search engines, in mind.
Oops – Website mistakes to avoid
Your website should be a pleasure to visit and it must please the search engines. After all you want your website to rank high and be found when people are searching for your Salon or Spa.
Here are our 3 most important Salon and Spa Website Mistakes to avoid:
1. Don’t use complicated navigation
Many websites today contain a menu bar with lots of tabs, drop down items and sub items within them. This can get very overwhelming for your visitors and most of them will not read every item and sub item within your menu bar, so they’ll never see most of your website content.
Keep your website navigation simple! Break your website down into major categories and then reference them with simple navigation. Try to combine some of your content on a single page or use categories that are common in blogging platforms such as WordPress. Your salon visitors will stay on your website longer if they can easily find what they’re looking for.
2. Don’t let your website get outdated
This is one of the most common problems. Most salon and spa owners like you find it difficult to update their own website. Website developers handle the task and you have to pay them to get it done. This is an very unfortunate scenario.
Your website should be easy to be updated. You should not have to hire a website developer to simply add fresh content to your existing site. Salon and Spa websites built on content management systems or blogging platforms (like this one using WordPress) are excellent solutions to this problem. You can easily add content to your website, from announcements to events and articles about helpful information that is related to salon. Search engines as well as your website visitors are looking for relevant content, not information from two years ago. A newly updated website is a signal to the search engines and to your website visitor that your salon or spa website is fresh, active and well maintained.
3. Don’t make your website hard to understand
When your visitor arrives at your website he or she should know immediately what your salon or spa is all about. Why would your website visitor want to spend time trying to figure out what’s on your website, when there are millions of other websites out there, literally at the tips of their fingers, that may be much easier to understand.
A confused website visitor will leave fast and look elsewhere. Make it super easy for your visitors and they will like it and spend time on your website. Most people are very impatient when browsing the internet. Always use large headlines to break up blocks of text. Include fun pictures as well, use images that convey information relevant to the text and to your overall message.
Always keep in mind that your salon and spa website has to please your visitors and search engines alike.
Click here for our 5 Important Website Do’s for Salon and Spa owners.
Keeping your website simple is almost always better than having an overloaded and complicated site. Just like in your physical Salon, avoid clutter as much as possible. Present your website visitors with a simple and easy to use website experience and they will come back again and again.
Get more traffic with our Salon Website Tips
With our Salon Website Tips you not just get more traffic, but ultimately turn your website visitors into salon customers.
Along with the ability for your salon website visitors to find needed information quickly and easily, the most important reason to have a website at all is to get lots of traffic.
Getting more traffic for your Salon Website
A website that doesn’t get traffic is of No Use to the salon owner. So, let’s look at some Search Engine Optimization tips to drive traffic to your website.
There are two main categories of search engine optimization. The first is on page optimization, where we take a look at the website itself. The second is off page optimization, which is largely made up of link building.
Salon Website Tip #1 – On Page Optimization
Unique, keyword rich title tags are a must for every website. The title tag is the text that shows above the browser address bar on each web page. It also shows on the search engine results pages after a search is performed. This may be the single most powerful item in terms of search optimization. Each page in your website should have a unique title. If two or more pages within your website have the same page title, the search engine will pick only one of them to display in search results, making the other two pages much less effective.
Always do your keyword research before adding any new website content. You should know which words people use most often when searching for your website content. Google offers a completely free keyword tool for researching the popularity of keywords, also know as search terms.
To make your salon website content most pleasing for your visitors include easy to read text, images as well as video. Whatever you choose to write about must be unique and it must be worth reading. Generating well researched, fun and interesting website content is not an easy task to do for many people. Quite simply, it takes a lot of effort and hard work.
Your content text (articles or blogs) need to stay on topic and they should always contain at least one link to other pages within the same website. These links should point to other pages on your website that are related to the specific topic, like the 5 Important Website Do’s are related to this article.
All of the images on your salon website should be used with the “alt” tag containing relevant and on topic descriptions. Use images to break up long text, to draw the eye to a particular statement and to add color to your web page.
Salon Website Tip #2 – Off Page Optimization
The second category of Search Engine Optimization for your salon website involves things that are done outside of your website. This is mostly achieved by link building. Link building means acquiring links from other websites that point to your website. If you are a member of your local Chamber of Commerce you will most likely have the option of getting a link from the chamber website to yours.
When you sign up for online directories like Spafinder, Search your salon, Yellow Pages and Yahoo Directory, you will usually have an option to have a link pointing to your website from theirs.
A link on another website that points to your website is called a back link. You want as many high quality back links to your website as possible. Keep in mind, quantity counts but the quality is very important as well. In fact, right now the quality of your back links is more important than it ever has been.
Quality back links are links that exist within content that is relevant to your website content. For example, if you have a back link on a spa website that points to your article on your website that talks about spas, that is a relevant link. This will give you a quality back link. On the other hand, if you have a link to your spa article from a website that contains personal ads for people in China, that’s not very relevant and is not a good back link for you.
Creating a salon website that your visitors can find easily and will enjoy and return to again and again is hard work and takes time.
Do you write your own website content or hire professional writers? Leave us a comment below.
5 Important Website Do’s
Many websites for salons and spas look pretty, but they fall short because the websites are poorly built and are missing important pieces. Don’t get me wrong, a visually pleasing website is nice to have. Just remember that there are other aspects that need to be considered in order for your customers to find you and successfully use your website.
Do Fill Your Salon Website With Good Content
- All content for your website should consist of relevant pictures, text, and links. It’s most important that your website consists of what your salon and spa visitors are looking for, and it must contain value to your visitor. Good content also helps give search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo more information about your business, which helps your website rank higher in search results.
Do Get Rid Of Unnecessary Clutter
- Every page on your salon website should be simple to read, with defined headers and sub-headers. Don’t overwhelm your visitors with too much information on one page. Keep in mind, simple websites are much more favored by visitors than complicated, sophisticated looking websites.
Do Have Clear Site Navigation
- A good website makes it easy for your visitors to find the content they are looking for. Clear site navigation is a result of careful planning and categorizing the website content. Your main menu should categorize the main functionality, like contact, about, services, etc. Sub pages, pages that are one level below the main pages, should categorize the information. For example, your salon or spa website might have sub categories consisting of the various services you offer.
Do Include Contact Information
- Your contact information should be included on every page, not just the contact page. If you depend on people calling, you must make your phone number very easy to see. Make your contact phone number large so it stands out and include it in as many places as possible. To make your phone number clickable for smart phones just wrap your phone number in a link like this: 
Do Optimize For Search Engines
- Your Salon and Spa website needs to be created with meaningful, unique and accurate titles on all pages and paragraphs. Your images should be include html alt tags and titles. Use hyperlinks that point to other pages within your website, like this link to our 3 Inexpensive Marketing Tips. Link to other websites that are relevant and useful to your visitor.
There’s much more to a successful website, but every salon and spa website must include these 5 Important Website Do’s.
Does your salon or spa website follow these guidelines?
Leave us a comment with a link to your website, we would love to take a look.
Do I need a website for my Salon?
The short answer is YES, you need a website for your Salon or Spa! Every business, no matter if you’re a service or retail business, needs to have an internet presence. More and more people search for business information like phone numbers and business hours on the internet, and especially on their smart phones. As a matter of fact, 1 in 3 mobile searches is for a local business like yours.
What should you consider when creating a local business website?
An attractive, engaging and easy to navigate website is important for your visitors, but most website designers will focus all of their efforts on appearance rather than the real purpose of a successful internet presence.
There are 2 important parts to any website:
1 – Information for your Salon and Spa Customers
Place your contact information in a highly visible font on the top part of all of your website pages so potential clients don’t have to waste time and effort looking for it. Include timely, relevant and interesting information about you, your staff and your salon or spa. Include business hours, maps, directions, specials, future promotions, services, items for sale, etc. Always engage your clients with a ‘call to action’. Ask your visitors to leave a comment, send an email if they have questions, or ask their opinion about something. Capture potential and existing customers by asking them to enter their information on a Newsletter sign up form.
2 – Find-ability of your Website
It isn’t enough to build a great looking website and hoping someone will stumble across it. Your website needs to be optimized for numerous search terms and various other tools need to be implemented. It starts with your website name. The example here is one of our very own websites of a local Hair Salon. The business name is Salon Panache and the website name is www.salonpanachealex.com. Anyone searching for a Salon in Alexandria will be able to find Salon Panache. On the other hand, if your business Continue reading
