As a salon or spa owner, your digital presence plays a big role in the actual customers that walk through your door. Google reports that 97 percent of consumers find out information about local businesses by looking online. In addition, the first 10 positions on a search engine results page will receive 97 percent of the traffic on a specific keyword or phrase. These two statistics together demonstrate that to be chosen over your competition, you need to be easily found on search engines and preferably on the first page.
So how do search engines determine what websites belong at the top of the list for a particular business name, industry keyword or geographic location? While each search engine has a secret formula for placing pages in a particular order, a long tried and true method of increasing your website rank focuses on getting a lot of links from other websites yours. Why? It’s a little bit like a popularity contest. If a lot of websites that point to your website as the authority for hair and beauty, Google will think you’re pretty cool, too.
Press Work Helps
Provide your local press with a steady stream of content to post on their blogs and news websites and ask them to link to your website. Include as many pages as relevant, without being obnoxious.
Contribute to a Group Blog
Group blogs are a great way to get both links to your website consistently, but also help you build your credibility in the community. If you have a few hours to spare (how nice), consider participating in a blogging community or perhaps approach local bloggers to see if you could guest blog for them.
Get Links to the Right Pages
Don’t always opt for your main website as the link – think about the subpages of your site, like www.salonname.com/hair-services. Sending people directly to pages with the most relevant information will get you even more points.
Consider Anchor Text
The text that becomes the hyperlink on the other website is called ‘anchor text’. A lot of times, you’ll see websites put something like: “Click here for more information on hair extensions.” They add the link to ‘Click here’ instead of ‘hair extensions’. Ask them to add your link to the keywords that will help you get higher on the search results, which is ‘hair extensions’.
Don’t forget standard listings
Make sure you have a link on all your Yelp!, Citysearch, True Local, Bing, Yahoo!, Pinterest, Facebook…..You get it. This definitely helps get you a few more links and the traffic to the page will help, even if only slightly. If it’s so slight, why do we mention it? Because it’s also just a big part of your overall SEO strategy and you’d be silly not to do it. 😉
Do not buy links
In general, it’s best to stay away from things that seem too good to be true. In the case of buying links, it truly is too good to be true. Google will penalize you if you try to cheat the system. If not now, in the future, so the scout’s honor route and work to get legitimate links to your website.
Author Bio: Valorie Reavis
Social Marketer, foodie, closet geekA marketing professional who has focused primarily on the hair and beauty business for of the past decade, Valorie now runs linkup marketing, a digital marketing agency for the hair and beauty professional. Valorie works to engage clients in the marketing process and help them successfully engage with their clients and community. Energetic and passionate about the industry, Valorie focuses on blending traditional and digital media in order to bring salons closer to their clients.
