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Every business today needs some kind of online presence to be successful, and that includes service-based businesses like a hair salon. Even the most neighborhood-centric salon—generationally beloved by everyone in a two-block radius—will benefit from creating and promoting their business online.
A website is often a customer’s first interaction with your hair salon and what it offers, including specialty treatments, pricing, and availability. Your website can be a key step in someone becoming a paying customer.
If creating, maintaining, and promoting a website isn’t something you’ve done for your hair salon before, we’ve got a step-by-step guide for you on where to start and the important information you’ll need to communicate to customers. Additionally, we have tips on everything from what goes on your homepage to how SEO can impact who sees your website.
1. Define your business needs
Before you start picking out a color palette or which font to use, decide first what your small business’ needs are, if you have any particular goals you’d like to reach, and how a website will help.
As a baseline, you likely want to inform potential clients about your stylists, services, pricing, location, and booking. But you may have more specific goals too. For example, if your hair salon has just undergone a renovation to incorporate new services and stylists, that may be something you’d like to highlight.
Clarifying what your needs and goals are—they’ll be different for a new business versus an established business—will form the foundation of your website. This includes your marketing and the different avenues you can use to acquire new customers.
2. Get a domain name
A domain name, like squarespace.com, is like a street address for your website. It’s part of your overall brand and as important as your business name. Often, it makes sense for your domain name and business name to be the same. That makes it easier for prospective customers to find your site.
In some cases, your business’ name as a domain may be taken. Make sure you have a few variations and a list to work off of to see what’s available to buy. You could try adding a location, like [salon][city].com, or get a unique TLD, like .salon instead of .com.
Use the Business Name Generator to brainstorm a name
3. Pick a website builder or make it custom
When it comes to creating your website, you don’t have to build it from scratch. Website builders, such as Squarespace, offer great templates and options to choose from that take a lot of the guesswork out of creating a website that works for your business.
For example, Squarespace Blueprint AI can help salon owners generate a website that’s fit for their business with responses to a few questions on goals and brand personality. From there, the tool recommends specific structure, design elements, and curated content that fits your business’s needs.
Or you may wish to fully customize your website if you have some coding chops. In any case, your website or the template you choose should be nimble and offer some flexibility if you want to change any images (such as client photos) or update information (such as pricing or specific hair stylists.) Choose a website with options to grow with your business.
4. Design your website
Your website is the first impression you leave with a prospective customer. That means brand and design can have a lasting or fleeting impact on someone visiting your website. Font, color, and whatever visuals you choose can reflect the salon’s overall brand and the feeling you’d like your customers to have when they visit in person.
Keep these design tips in mind:
Don’t clutter your pages with a lot of text.
Keep images small and use the essentials so it doesn’t visually overload the website.
Intuitively place the dropdown menu and/or essential information in a place users can find easily.
If you’re not sure where to start, look at other hair salon websites and use designs or layouts you admire as inspiration. On Squarespace, you can use the Layout Switcher and Site Themes suggestions to preview page layout ideas or fonts and color palettes that match your vibe.
5. Build out your hair salon’s website pages
Many customers use a business’ website as degree zero to understand both that business and its offerings, and if it’s the right fit for them. What you put on your hair salon’s website is ultimately up to you, but the following are some useful places to start.
Ask yourself: What will my customer need to know and where will they find it? That will help you determine the sorts of website pages you’ll need for your website.
Homepage: This should provide a high-level look at your hair salon and what you offer, clear links to more detailed information, and potentially client photos or testimonials.
About page: Customers love knowing more about the businesses they frequent. Your about page can include information about you or the other stylists, how long you’ve been in the industry, and the story behind the salon’s start.
Services and pricing: Your customers are very likely coming to your website for this information, especially if they have never been to your salon before. List what services you offer and any corresponding price, and if they differ by stylist or experience.
FAQs and salon policies: An FAQ provides customers answers to some of the questions you get asked most. That can vary, but, generally, those questions may include hours of operation, cancellation policy, and anything about salon etiquette (e.g. arriving five to 10 minutes early for an appointment).
Appointment page: We’ll get more into what should be included on an appointment page below but, at a high-level, you want customers to have easy access to a booking portal for appointments.
Contact information: On your contact page, include any relevant information from a phone number to business email or address and business hours.
Something to consider when designing, creating, and generating content for your pages: You can use artificial intelligence (AI) to help with your website. Writing about yourself in a compelling way can be challenging. AI is a useful tool to brainstorm suggestions on effective phrasing and information to provide. Remember that when using AI to create content for business pages, it helps to be as specific as possible in your prompt.
6. Add an appointment scheduler
Most salons take the majority of their appointments via an online self-scheduler, since it takes manual work off of stylists’ plates. Integrating this function seamlessly into your salon’s website is crucial—customers are used to booking and managing appointments in a few clicks. When you use Acuity Scheduling with Squarespace, for example, you can display available appointments for customers and block out times during the day that are unavailable.
You can also create custom intake forms, so you know any concerns or hair goals before a client’s appointment. Allow for returning customers to login to an account connected to your website so they can get through the booking process faster and make it easy for you to schedule them in for future appointments.
If you’d rather manage your appointments manually through a custom intake form, you can add a custom contact form to your booking page instead.
7. Accept payments online
It’s become common for hair stylists to ask for a small deposit to secure an appointment that will be deducted from the overall fee or ask for a payment method to keep on file. This helps limit no-shows or late cancellations and protects your bottom line if someone does miss their appointment.
Or for example, if a customer is asking for a substantial change to their hair, which would require some consultation and several hours or visits to complete, you can accept a fee beforehand, with a tool like Squarespace Payments, to secure the bookings and apply it to their final payment.
8. Consider SEO
Appearing on the first page of any Google search is the goal for many businesses. More than 95% of websites don’t get any organic traffic. But that’s not a foregone conclusion—search engine optimization (SEO) can help drive organic traffic to your website.
Customers searching for a salon via a certain keyword or phrase, like “curly hair salon” or “hair salon [CITY]”, can discover your website with the help of SEO. Start by incorporating likely search terms in your website headings, page titles, and page descriptions with images. Make sure to get your business listed in map directories and local small business directories too, to help boost your reach in your area.
9. Use social media
Just like your website is an extension of your business’s overall brand, so is your social media presence. Consider getting an Instagram business page and a link in bio like Bio Sites to share client photos and offer quick access to your salon’s website and booking options.
Many customers will start searching for businesses and services where they’re already browsing, so having some kind of presence can get them to your website faster than SEO.
10. Promote your work and reviews
Incorporate reviews and client photos throughout your website so prospective customers can get a sense of the work you do and the satisfaction of prior customers. You can sprinkle these around your homepage, services page, and stylist bios or About Us page..
Often, if a customer is new to a business, they’ll do their own research and weigh your salon against other options. Examples and positive word of mouth from current clients will help them get a sense of how you work and build their trust in your salon. Give them as much information as possible to help them compare.
See 10 ideas for marketing your services
11. Make your website mobile-friendly
Depending on your website builder or template, not all websites are mobile friendly by default. Squarespace’s websites are designed to adjust to fit different screen sizes, but there are ways to optimize your site so users can access information about your salon.
Preview your site on different screen sizes to make sure it’s easy to navigate, important information and images stand out, and pages load quickly and correctly. If you run into issues, consider adjusting your layout or using images strategically, for example, to minimize loading issues.