Tips for Optimizing Your Salon or Spa’s Web Presence

Having a strong web presence is essential for any local service-based business, and salons and spa are indeed no exception. Achieving high rankings on search engines such as Bing and Google will help your business get noticed and set it apart from your competition. Whether you are just opening your doors or have been around for years, here are some ways that you can quickly take your web presence to the next level.

Directory Listings

To get your salon or spa noticed online, start with directory listings. Also known as citations, these directories are websites where you can create a profile and include your salon name, address, phone number, and web URL. Think of the YellowPages, Yelp, and Google My Business listings as good places to start. From there, reach out to as many listings that you can find and then be consistent with the information that you are including.

Reviews

Many of directory sites have a way to rank or do reviews of the businesses that are listed. Take advantage of some of the better directory site and invite your customers to give your salon or spa a good review. Obtaining a lot of good reviews on better listings will help with your search engine rankings and gain better placement for local searches.

Salon Websites & Blogs

The most reliable way to obtain a web presence for your business is to create a salon or spa website and blog. Your site will provide information about your business and is a landing page for people who are doing web searches but is also an opportunity to share ideas, expert advice, and inspiration. This engaging, well-placed content is also the dominant attribute of high ranking websites. If you create engaging content, users will come back time and time again, and the traffic will result in improved search positioning.

Blogs or vlogs (video-based blogs), mainly when part of the primary website structure, can be highly useful tools for connecting with existing customers and creating new business. This sort of platform gives salons and spas an excellent opportunity to establish themselves as an authority in the beauty industry and differentiate themselves from their competition. A variety of content ranging from trends, tutorials, expert advice and hair care and styling tips can prove both interesting and informative. As your blog grows, your search engine ranking will increase accordingly.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Marketing is a blanket term for any series of strategies used to help a website rank higher within search engine results. One method is the process of search engine optimization, also known as SEO. Search engines rank and display websites according to an always evolving algorithm. While specifics of a search engine’s algorithm are not entirely understood, we’ve learned many vital aspects over the years and search engines, like Bing and Google, continue to share more detail with each major update.

In basic terms, search engines look for keywords on every webpage, page title, and in-page links to help others find what they are looking for when searching the web. Making sure that your website content, including titles and links, contains copy that is relevant with terms that relate to how others might search for the material is essential.

When creating your salon or spa’s website, make sure to use title tags as well as meta description tags. The title tag is the bar of copy appearing above or even just below the web address bar, depending on the search engine. Add title tags on each page of your website with a relevant key phrase using the fewest amount of words possible to convey the most meaningful message. Also, for your meta description tag write a brief description that clearly explains the primary function or content of each page. Because it’s neatly summarized, this copy is some of the preferred information from which the search engines draws.

Keep in mind that search engines place a fair amount of credence on the reputation of a site. They give better rankings to those that produce regular and relevant content and have a decent amount of credible inbound links. With that in mind, consider sharing your content with good sites but make sure the links back to your site are in place.

Pay-Per-Click Ads

Though organic traffic to your salon website and or blog is preferred, building a competitively ranked online presence is a long-term, ever-evolving strategy. While not entirely a replacement for SEO, pay-per-click is a viable alternative for gaining immediate exposure through the use of targeted visual and textual media. Programs like Google Adwords and Bing Ads allow salons and spas to market to specific search audiences with sponsored ads based on their indicated criteria. An investment in pay-per-click is especially suitable for newly launched websites or those experiencing lulls in traffic and therefore needing a boost.

What About Social Media?

Though not exactly a search marketing strategy, social media holds such weight and marketing force that it’s worth an honorable mention. The beauty industry is inherently visual, and brands are ideally positioned to engage fans through stunning imagery and thoughtful delivery. Social media can also produce massive amounts of traffic. Instagram alone, arguably the most popular platform of the moment, has over 500 million active users each month.

Some social platforms offer built-in advertising services, allowing businesses to put their content in front of target audiences and increase brand awareness. Salons can direct sponsored traffic to their social media page, a particular content post or directly to their website. While this won’t necessarily impact the ranking of your site in search results, the inflow of traffic being siphoned from social media can help in the long run.  As your brand awareness grows, your percentage of search queries and website clicks stand to improve along with it – all resulting in higher search engine placement.