Building Websites for Salons successfully requires a deep knowledge of the hair and beauty industry. Using the best salon website template from any of the website platforms like 'Wix' etc. only guarantees success if you follow key steps and present the right information in the right place.
A well-designed salon website will define your salon brand, have optimised key search terms used by potential clients so that your salon website will rank highly in a Google search, improve the client experience by explaining what services are available in your salon and enable them to book or shop for products and services.
In this article, you will learn why Websites for Salons are Important, look at some salon website examples and how to use salon website design to optimise your salon business.
To start Imagine you are a potential client who has never heard of your salon but who is looking for a service your salon provides.
Enter the name of the service and your location into Google search, does your salon appear in the list?
If not, search the name of your salon and look at the results.
How did your salon perform on each occasion?
As well as reviewing salon website examples it's always a great idea to review the websites of your specific competition through the eyes of a potential new client looking for the services you provide and asking yourself the question, would you select your salon from the other choices on the list?
If so, is your salon’s website design sufficiently engaging to make you want to stay on it long enough to review and understand what your salon has to offer and then finally take action by clicking the “book now” button to make an appointment?
So many salons spend large amounts of money on salon decor and expensive new equipment and ignore their online profile, relying entirely on Instagram or TikTok but little or nothing on salon website design to channel new clients to their salon business. Having a high-quality, well-designed website for your salon is not a choice, it's a requirement. Besides helping potential new customers understand your services, prices and availability, your salon website design is instrumental in creating the first impression new clients will make. How you design your salon's websites is the first indication they will get of what they can expect from you.
The hair and beauty industry is a very competitive market so having a high-quality online presence from which to differentiate your salon business is essential. There are 4 key reasons why you need a website for your salon.
A salon website is an important tool to attract new customers to your business. Your Salon can be found by potential clients through the use of search engines, like Google and from your social media channels. They can be directed to your website to learn more about your services, pricing, and location. You can also showcase your salon's portfolio, including pictures of your work, customer reviews, and ratings.
A website for your salon can improve your client's experience and extend your salon's capabilities by providing access to a salon booking system or to your Salon’s online shop, 24 hrs a day. This saves time for you and your client, as well as reduces no-shows. Your website is the foundation of your marketing initiatives when you communicate any promotions, discounts, or events you are hosting.
The way you design your salon website will establish your brand and credibility. It will enable you to create a connection with existing and potential clients and will allow you to articulate the type of experience they can expect. If your salon is found via a search engine by a potential new customer it is your first opportunity to demonstrate that you are a professional business that can deliver the service and experience they are looking for.
Styles and products will come and go. Your salon website design needs to communicate that your business is still relevant. If your website is dated, slow or poorly designed it will not reflect your true capabilities when compared to your competition. Staying relevant and current in the fashion industry is fundamental.
Designing and building a website for your salon can be a slow, painful and expensive process, especially if you make the wrong choices from the beginning. On the other hand, if you follow some basic steps, you will create something that will deliver real value for your salon for many years. To find out more about why the top salons have the top websites read our blog.
First ask yourself these 10 questions:-
Once you know the answers follow these steps:-
There are many ways you can design a salon Website using a range of different technologies and services. Picking the wrong route can lead to a very frustrating and costly experience with the end result being a poor-looking, difficult-to-manage or broken website that you cannot update and which will become a liability rather than an asset to your Salon business.
If you have reasonably good technical skills there are numerous self-build platforms available with “drag and drop” technologies that will deliver a pretty good result for budget price. We have provided a summary of the leading website platforms below but a very details article containing more information was written by The Website Builder website called “The Best Website Builder of 2023: Top 10 Reviewed and Rated” and should be read by those salon owners thinking of building their own salon website
Wix - It is generally agreed that Wix is one of the top affordable self-build website platforms for beginners with little or no experience in website construction. There is a wide choice of salon website templates to select from. The main criticism of the platform is the inability to change templates once the site is live.
Squarespace - Offering a wide range of feature-rich Salon website templates. While generally considered to be slightly inferior to Wix it is generally considered to offer better value for money. Key criticisms are its limited customisation options and the fact there is no auto-saving capability when editing.
Shopify - If you plan to sell skin or hair products online, which is recommended later in this article to maximise your salon revenue that a very good choice would be Shopify which started life as an e-commerce store but has expanded into website creation. It should be noted that while not all platforms provide e-commerce solutions all of them can be connected via a URL to alternative solutions very easily. A key criticism is the cost of their plans and limited functionality.
GoDaddy - While not ranking as high as other popular platforms GoDady is generally considered the best user-friendly platform for beginners, but this comes at the expense of limited and restrictive design options resulting in very basic websites.
However, the internet is full of badly designed poorly maintained “DIY” websites that aren't doing their owners any favours, so if you are not creative or technical then … don’t.
If this is not the route for you then you will need to find a specialist in websites for salons. They understand how to design a salon website that meets the needs of the salon industry and have the product and service images and descriptions to hand. If you use a website designer who does not specialise in the salon industry you will have to provide all of this content yourself and be prepared to make the time to be very involved in every step of the design process.
Another big benefit of using a specialist in salon websites is that they will be able to advise you on choosing the right e-shop and booking system to add to your website.
The best-designed salon websites are those that communicate simply and effectively using images and concise text what the visitor can expect from that salon and to enable them to quickly make a decision whether or not your salon can meet their needs.
Take a look at the salon website examples of your local competition. This is the height of the bar you are trying to jump. See how good they are at holding your attention and driving you to take some form of action like scheduling a booking. How will your salon’s website design be different?
Websites can be divided into two main design types.
Platform websites are popular with salons because they are simple and easy to navigate and are usually cheaper to build. Here are some examples of modular platform salon websites:
Multiple-page custom designed salon websites are ideal for salons with a lot of information to share, such as pricing, services, and staff bios.
Burgundy Skin & Beauty: This website is a great example of what a good website should look like. It's fresh looking with a menu that lays out all the options. The landing page text is in large lettering and states clearly what the salon stands for with two “call to action” buttons immediately underneath. Scrolling down beneath the “crease” is a tile design to all the services that are available.
Beauty By The Beach: The branding is what makes this website stand out. The clean look creates a professional clinic look and feel. The owner has gone to great lengths to articulate to the visitor the experience they can expect. This is achieved by the selection of images, the detailed staff biographies with portrait pictures and a gallery of pictures of detailing the inside of the salon.
The look and feel of the branding used in the design of your salon's website will define your salon's unique identity and helps to create your client’s experience when they visit your salon. For this reason, it is very important that your salon website branding resonates with your intended target audience and evokes the emotions that you want them to associate with your salon.
This should be evident in everything about your salon and how the people working in it conduct business and deliver your services. Your salon website tends to be the first time potential new clients will encounter your salon, usually by entering their service needs into a Google search. If they click through to your website, your branding needs to immediately communicate to them what you are offering and be sufficiently appealing to your target audience that they want to stay on your website, and eventually book a service with your salon. There are several key elements to building a successful salon brand
Your salon logo is the anchor of your salon branding and should create a strong impression with your target audience quickly. It should be designed so that if seen quickly, by people driving by, or glanced at on a website page, it will differentiate your salon from your competitors and immediately communicates your business ideals. Read more in our blog
The colour palette you choose for your salon branding will set the mood and is the foundation for generating emotions about the brand that you are trying to create. Colour plays a very important role in the decision-making process and whether people respond positively or not to your brand. For this reason, it is important to take time to understand colour combinations and their impact on how people perceive them. Check out this youtube video from Hubspot
The type of font used by your branding is important to help to define the “lifestyle feel” of your brand and underpin the mood generated by your logo and colour palette. Check out this youtube video.
Whether you have chosen to build your own website for your salon using one of the many website-building tools or retain an industry specialist at building websites for salons you will first need to create a “Brief”. This is where you document the design and structure of each of the sections you want to create for your website. The more detailed you make the brief the clearer the design will be in your head and for any other people involved and the more chance you will have at being satisfied with the result.
There are critical elements you must understand and include in your salon website design if your website is to be effective at being found during a Google search and convert any potential visitors into clients.
Keywords are words or phrases that Google Search uses to classify or categorise your website so it can match a search query or question from someone to the right website. So if someone enters “Microneedling” and a location and Google knows your website has listed that service and you are located in that location your salon name will appear in the search list. There are other factors that determine how your “rank” or how high up the list you appear to find out more read our blog:
Using the right “keywords” or “keyword phrases” in your website headings and content is critical to being found on Google Search and also to make it easier for visitors to find what they are looking for. For each of the sections listed in the Salon website design brief below you will need to create a short list of keywords and keyword phrases that you want your salon to be associated with and then ensure that they are included in Titles, headings and your content. It is important that you logically group keywords by topic, particularly when creating content for services or treatment pages and that the principal keyword is used in the page URL. For example - your 'Laser hair removal treatment web page' should include in the back-end 'Laser Hair Removal (include brand name) for face and body at salon name at salon town or location'
Images
For obvious reasons, the quality and type of Images used in your salon website design are critically important. For this reason, it is important that you ensure that “stock” images used by you are either purchased from a reputable provider or come from the brand distributors that you use and that you have been authorised by them to use them. For your salon's image gallery page and for pictures of your staff use a professional photographer.
Salon website mobile optimisation
About 60% of all website traffic is via mobile devices. If your salon website is not optimised for mobile viewing you will be penalised by Google search and will also create a very poor impression for those people who visit your site via their phones.
Website Navigation Menus & Naming Conventions
Ensure your navigation is designed so that all the available content on your website can be accessed quickly and easily. Ensure that the most important items are placed first e.g. Services / Treatments and are grouped logically with dropdown menus if necessary. Make sure the navigation menu is placed at the top of each webpage and is located in the same place.
Website Footer
Your website Footer, the strip at the very bottom of each webpage should be the same. This section is often ignored but can offer great value to the experience of the visitor. It should contain your social media icons, your navigation menu repeated so that visitors can move to other sections of your website when they get to the bottom of a page, a CTA or call to action, which is usually an opportunity for them to enter their email address to receive information and offers and finally links to your terms of service.
See the example below from Eternal Beauty
In the following section, we will provide Salon website design tips on what should be on a salon website, which pages you should include and how they should be constructed to achieve maximum results for your website visitors and for Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.
One of the most important pages on your website is the home page or landing page. This is usually the first page a visitor will see. The line at the bottom of the screen below which the user needs to scroll down to see more information is called the “fold or crease”. Everything above it is called the “Hero Section”.
Your hero section needs to be constructed to inform a visitor quickly what it is you offer, what the benefit will be and what you want them to do next. See the two examples below. Typically the “call to action” for a salon is a “Book Now” button and a lead capture strategy where a visitor could receive a discount code or offer in return for providing an email address.
When complete a visitor to your home screen should know within 5 seconds who you are, what you do, what the benefits are and what they need to do next.
How detailed your service or treatment pages have to be very much depends on the type of salon you have. Hair Salons provide pretty universal services which are well known while on the other hand, aesthetic clinics tend to provide complex treatments involving advanced technology and products. In either case, the following elements have to be addressed on each page.
When writing each of your treatment overviews and specific treatment descriptions incorporate all of the relevant keywords for this section that you documented earlier in the brief process. Ensure you include a “Book Now” button with each treatment to encourage visitors to take action.
Including pages in your salon website design that detail your staff images, skills, awards and qualifications with a gallery of high-quality, professionally taken photographs of inside and outside of your salon will help to create intimacy and a sense of familiarity with your website visitor, helping to remove the sense of anxiety some people get of meeting strangers in a new place . It is an opportunity to present the human side to your salon business. Often using video is a very effective tool to really give a potential client a real sense of the experience you are offering.
Key elements to include on this page
This is usually a very basic and simple page containing essential business information such as business hours, email and telephone contact information. It is absolutely critical that the business address you use in your contact information is exactly the same as the address used in your Google business page and google maps and that you state your postcode, Eircode or zip code. If you embed a Google map into your contact page, like the example below, you must ensure that you use the Google Map Plus code to ensure that both reference exactly the same location otherwise you risk confusing the Google indexing bots who will think they are two different locations and therefore two separate business. This is particularly important to rural addresses where often addresses are abbreviated from the official address.
Positive testimonials from satisfied clients are probably the best marketing tools you have to convert a potential client from undecided, to action. For this reason, they should be placed strategically in key locations throughout your salon website. Specific feedback regarding a service, treatment or staff individual should be placed accordingly while more general feedback should be placed in locations such as the “About Us” pages. You should use a Google Business Page to capture your client reviews as this will greatly improve your ranking on a local Google search and these can then be copied from this location to your website. Although difficult to achieve try to get video testimonials as these an infinitely more effective for both site visitors and for Google Search ranking. Check out this example on our own website
Starting and maintaining a blog on your Salon’s website is time-consuming and labour-intensive activity but can yield great benefits.
However, to be effective the material on your blog needs to be relevant and current which means regular updates. It is better to not to start a blog at all if you do not think you can maintain this commitment.
Introducing Frequently Asked Questions or FAQs at the end of complex treatment pages and as an independent page on the website enables you:-
Adding a Salon booking system to your Salons website is a no-brainer if you are serious about converting visitors to your website into paying clients. In addition, there is a ton of benefits that come with the right salon booking system that will help you reduce costs and become more efficient. Read our extensive blog which walks through all the benefits of using a Salon booking system in greater detail.
If you are serious about increasing your salon sales and making more profit from your salon business you're going to need an online shop. The profit margins your salon can earn retailing products online are much higher than you can normally get for services, with a lot less effort. There are other good reasons why your salon should have an online shop. We have listed the main ones below:-
Increase Revenue:- You can Increase your salon's sales. Typically margins on retail products are 50%+ which adds a big increase to your salons' profit. Read our blog "Quick and easy ways to grow your Salon's online sales"
Attract New Clients:- You can attract new clients to your salon by leveraging your local Google business profile when new clients search for products that are in your online shop. This gives new clients a reason to go to your salon website where they will become aware of other services and capabilities that your salon offers.
Retain Existing Clients- Offering more options to your existing clients to buy the product recommendations and upsells you made when they visited your salon, when they run out, 24/7 online will ensure that these sales do not go to a competitor and will provide another hook to retaining your salon clients.
To find out how to design your salon shop and more about why you need to add an e-shop to your salon’s website, read our blog
It does not necessarily follow that the company or person you select to build your salon website is also the right choice to build your salon’s online shop. We have written an extensive blog on how to go about adding an online shop to your salon’s website which you can read below
Having the best salon website design is crucial to the success of your salon business. Websites for salons are the first point of contact for potential customers, and they can make or break their decision to visit your salon. A well-designed salon website can showcase your services, your team, and your brand in the best possible light.
When designing your salon website, make sure to keep it simple, clean, and easy to navigate. Your website should be mobile-friendly and optimised for search engines. Include high-quality images of your salon, services, and team members. Use clear and concise language to describe your services and pricing.
Remember to include a Salon booking system in your salon website design so that customers can easily schedule appointments online. This will save them time and make the booking process more convenient.
Make sure you keep your website fresh and engaging to your target clients by regularly updating it with new content, such as blog posts, promotions, and events. This will keep will help with your search engine rankings.
Designing a website for your salon is a creative and rewarding experience which should add great value to your salon business for many years. Good luck!
Some examples of successful salon websites include Beauty By The Beach, Burgundy Skin & Beauty, and BeBeauty. These websites have a clean and modern design, easy navigation, and clear calls to action.
A salon website should have essential features like contact information, services offered, pricing, and online booking. Other features that can enhance the website include a blog, customer reviews, social media integration, and an online store for selling products.
By using the appropriate keywords and keyword phrases in the titles and content of your Salon Website Design you will be more likely to appear in a Google search for potential clients looking for services that contain those words.
To attract new customers, a salon website should have a clear value proposition, showcase its services and products, and provide a seamless user experience. Other ways to attract new customers include offering promotions, providing educational content, and optimising the website for search engines.
Having a website for a salon can bring numerous benefits, including increased visibility, improved credibility, better customer engagement, and increased revenue. A website can also help a salon establish a strong online presence and reach a wider audience.
Some common mistakes to avoid when designing a salon website include using low-quality images, cluttered design, confusing navigation, slow loading times, and poor mobile optimisation. It's also important to avoid using too much jargon or technical language that customers may not understand.
A well-designed salon website can improve customer experience by providing a user-friendly interface, easy navigation, clear calls to action, and personalised content. Other ways to improve customer experience include providing educational content, showcasing customer reviews, and offering online booking and payment options.
