Are you wondering how to make a beautiful salon website for your business? Before you get started, make sure to read our checklist of 10 things to include on your salon website to make sure it is not only beautiful, but it gets you more interest and bookings.

The 10 most important elements for a great salon website:

1) It has to be fast and mobile

Make sure your website loads in less than 3 seconds! Sure, 4 seconds sounds like nothing, but even just one second delay can prevent 50% of people from staying on your site! So stay away from large pics and videos to keep your website fast. Also, since more than half of all website traffic now comes from a mobile device, be absolute sure your website looks good and works well from a phone!

2) Make sure to collect emails

More than 80% of the people that visit your salon’s website will leave without you ever hearing from them again. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Add a popup on your site inviting people to join your beauty club for a special discount and promotion. You get their email address and can start communicating with them through email. Soon enough you’ll convert them to loyal clients!

3) Make it super easy to get in touch

Will your website accept online bookings or do you prefer to receive phone calls? Whatever you choose, make sure that your contact info is front and centre on your homepage.

Make your phone number large and clickable from a mobile device
Show your address and directions on the homepage
Make “book an appointment” the most prominent button or link on your homepage

4) Each page should have one clear CTA

What is a CTA? A call to action! This is the action that you are pointing to on each page. And each page should have one main action. Usually this is in the form of a large button, link or image. If it’s the homepage? Book an appointment. The services page? To look at pics of your work. The contact page? A button to call you.

5) Please skip the stock images

You know those pictures you can download from the internet of impossibly gorgeous women with perfect makeup? Please don’t put them on your site! People can sniff out stock pictures from miles away. Use pictures of your staff and real clients instead - just make sure they have good lighting and aren’t blurry.

6) Include your client reviews

If you’ve been collecting client reviews on Facebook, Yelp and Google, you have a goldmine of content that you should be using on your website! Make a page called “Client Reviews” and include your top reviews in it. This is called social proof and it does wonders for winning over new clients.

7) Sell benefits not features

What is the difference between saying “Keratin treatment is a process that smooths your hair by sealing protein in with heat” and “Get strong silky hair that lasts. Get our keratin treatment”? The words speak for themselves. Sell the benefits to your clients, not the products themselves.

8) Make your brand stand out

Your salon’s brand is not just your logo; it’s your colors, fonts, image style, and your writing style. Make sure that all of these things are apparent on your website. Choose a color palette and use the brightest colors as your buttons, and the second brightest as your title color. Choose 2 fonts that contrast and use them consistently.

9) Introduce yourselves

Incredible customer service and friendly staff that make you feel at home are what sets an amazing salon apart. And for website visitors who haven’t yet become clients, they want to see if that’s what your salon is like. Include an “About” page with pics of your staff or better yet a quick video introducing yourselves and your location.

10) Simple is usually best

All of the tips above will help you to create an effective salon website that turns visitors into clients. But it can be easy to overdo things on a website. Fewer pages with less text is often best Don’t overwhelm your visitors with long pages that go on forever and don’t have 20 menu items either. Simple is good!

Looking for more ideas to market your salon online?

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