Without getting too technical on a beautiful Sunday morning, we wanted to give a few short tips on thinking about how your website actually attracts business. Not necessarily how to generate traffic, but how do you get business from the people that do come to your site.
Generally speaking, people will find your salon’s website in one of three ways:
- Typing in the address directly
- Linking from another site
- Doing a web search on a search engine.
Regardless of the methods in which people make it to your site, it is dependent on your efforts; it is your job to get the word out. Examples of the first two methods in action include participating in salon or fashion forums and referencing your site in your posts and including your website on your advertising. The latter method, search engine optimization, is not so simple and relates to the way your site is built.
FUNCTION
Part of attracting business to your website is a matter of making sure that site visitors come back and refer their friends. How do you create that sort of loyalty? Your website does not have to have video or play music to attract business, in fact that can be somewhat annoying. It is just a case of building a website that actually serves your customer.
Ask yourself some questions about what function your site performs for clients and prospective clients. For example:
- What would people want to learn about your business before trying it?
- Do my clients want to know who will be cutting their hair?
- Do they want to research products and your use?
- Will my target audience want to interact with my site with blogs, polls, news and updates and online booking?
Thinking about what function it provides and what people want during the research process will help you to create a site that will convert prospective clients and get existing clients to come back online to visit. For instance, if you intend your website as a resource for customers to get more information about the services you provide or how to contact you, feature that information.
WEBSITE DESIGN
Aside from writing the verbiage that goes on your site, one of the ways to make sure that your site fulfills its intended function is to spend some time literally sketching your site. List out the pages that you yourself would expect to find as a customer and draw them out. Note what information you would expect a customer to look for and include it. This exercise will take just a few minutes, but it will help you develop the concept of your website more fully. Here is an example site map for a salon website to help you get started.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Although this blog isn’t about generating traffic, per say, a well optimized site will also help viewers be on the right page at the right time by matching up keywords in their search phrase to the exact page they are looking for. For example, if they are searching for a salon that does hair extensions, it’s best to have them land on the page that outlines why you are the best salon in the area for hair extensions. This is proven to convert more business from traffic to the site.
This is done by some simple search engine optimization tactics, but a very important when constructing your site – page titles and keyword placement. First thing is to have your address and served area on every page. This helps local web traffic find you. Second, every page should have a unique keyword. For example, if ‘hair extensions’ is a popular keyword searched, you should have an entire page dedicated to information about your hair extensions services.
Once you know what the keyword is for each particular page, make sure that it’s been placed in the page title at the top of the browser window as well as within the page content:
- Make sure there is a lot of text on the page and use the keyword regularly. Don’t go overboard; making sense is much more important than squeezing in one more!
- Use the keyword in title and the captions for the images on that page.
- Incorporate a video and use that keyword in the title of the video and in captions.
Even if you can’t do a full overhaul of your website now, changing the titles and updating text is one easy and quick way to get the process started!
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.
