059: 3 Website Lessons I Wish I'd Known in My Salon Days

In this episode, Jules reflects on her time managing a salon website as a beauty and holistic therapist. She shares the lessons she wishes she had known, offering valuable insights for salon owners and small businesses looking to make their websites work harder for them.

Key Takeaways:

• Harnessing Website Potential: Learn how to use your website to attract more customers, showcase your services, and even assist in recruiting team members.
• Making the Most of Google Business Profile: Discover how to optimise your profile with unique content and visuals to connect with your audience and stand out locally.
• The Power of Local Search Optimisation: Understand why standing out locally is easier than competing nationally and how to use location-specific content to your advantage.
• Building and Leveraging an Email List: Explore the importance of growing an email list and nurturing it regularly to boost engagement and sales.
• Creating Unique Product Pages: Find out why crafting original product descriptions can help your site rank higher and attract local customers.

This episode is packed with practical advice to help local businesses unlock the power of their websites and reduce the pressure of constant marketing efforts.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Free Beginner's QuickStart Guide to SEO – A simple guide to get started with SEO.
• Website Consulting – Personalised advice and actionable steps to improve your website and SEO.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Purpose
• 0:49 Background and Experience
• 1:09 The Importance of a Salon Website
• 2:59 Optimising Google Profiles
• 4:43 Leveraging Product Pages
• 7:43 Building an Email List
• 10:04 Local SEO Strategies

Transcript

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Introduction and Purpose

Hi. Good morning. So I thought I'd just hop on this morning and record a quick episode about what I wish I'd known when I was back in the salon. What I wish I'd known about websites.

It's one of those things that I look back on now with all my SEO knowledge, and I realise how much potential there was in the salon website.

Background and Experience

So if you don't know me, if you don't know my background, my background was as a beauty and holistic therapist. So pre-pandemic, I had a split role in the salon.

I did a day and a half doing the marketing with websites and the internal marketing in the salon and all sorts of things, all sorts of techie stuff. And then three and a half days doing treatments.

The Importance of a Salon Website

So I was responsible for the website in the salon and the Google profile and all of that kind of stuff. And I think as a salon, we just didn't realise how much potential there was in the website and just how valuable it can be in terms of getting customers in.

There was always a drive to get more customers. We always could have done with more team members as well. I think that was one of the things that, one of the areas we could have utilised it better in terms of actually showcasing what we did and why it was, you know, a fabulous place to come and work.

And I think there's so many things that as a salon owner, whether you care about your website or you don't, I think a lot of the time it's difficult. It's difficult when we're doing our own marketing, and it's also difficult when it's not the thing that you love doing.

If you want to be just doing treatments, looking after clients and doing the things that you enjoy doing, then it can be really hard to think about all of the other stuff that we have to do, all the business stuff, all the marketing stuff. But actually, if you can get your website right and you can get your website working for you in the background, then that takes some of that pressure off.

And it does take time to begin with, it does; it is the thing that actually you have to put some effort in. You have to build some content up on your website. You have to get some structure in place that actually helps Google and helps wherever people are searching, whatever is showing up in the search results.

It helps that information come across more easily. And, you know, so there are some basics to put in place, is what I'm basically saying there. But I think the things that I wish I had known, I wish I understood how much of a difference it could make.

And I wish I'd known where to put the focus as well.

Optimising Google Profiles

So we had a Google profile, we had a profile from back in the days where it used to be called Google Plus, and it was terrible to use. It was so difficult. It was non-intuitive.

You had to always hunt for your login, and it was a nightmare to use, actually. And I'm glad I went through those sorts of iterations, and I'm glad I had that time spent on the more difficult side of using Google because I think it makes me appreciate, even though we do have issues with Google profiles nowadays, and it can be a real pain, it's so much easier than it used to be when it was back in, when it was Google Plus.

And I'm glad that we had that, but even with that, I realised how little we were utilising that as well. So I think we had some images on there, we had some reviews, and we would always respond to them and those kinds of things. But actually, there's so much more we could have put on there that could have helped people to connect with us.

So the salon I worked at was a big Clarins Gold salon; it was a hair and beauty salon. And so they had a full range; they were in a large village, small town, and they had a full range of Clarins in there.

And that was one thing that we never did, was we never really, other than talking about the treatments, we never really talked about the Clarins products. And I think that's probably one of the potential areas that we could have really capitalised on, is if there's a brand new Clarins product coming out.

And especially at the time when they were doing TV advertising and things like that, or when they had a new launch of double serum or something where it was, you know, there was something where people would be Googling Clarins products, by having that on our website in a structured way.

Leveraging Product Pages

So having a specific page for, you know, double serum, new release, or something like that, that could have been really helpful because people searching locally would then have been likely to see that in their search results. And to see that the salon sold Clarins and that it was local and they could come and pick it up in person, and people love to shop locally, you know.

So that's one area that I feel like we didn't really utilise. So I think I wish I'd understood the power of getting our products on the website. And also, one of the things I would say with that is actually putting your own spin on it.

Because if all you do is take the product descriptions that your manufacturers give you and just put that on your website, you're going to be competing with that across so many different other websites across the whole of the internet who've also done that same thing. They've just taken that standard product description, and it's word for word on there.

So Google will treat that as almost like duplicate content. So really, what we need to do with that is actually write our own description. So you could use AI for this; that would massively help.

Or you could actually just write your own little product review and have that in there and have your own spin on the features and the benefits, predominantly the benefits of the product that you're selling. And have that as part of your product description, have that as part of that page. And that way, it helps you to stand out.

So if there's a million and one websites that are talking about this particular product in this way that's just the same description as the manufacturer's, the manufacturer is always going to be likely to be one of the ones that shows up at the top of Google. Or one of the big retailers. So one of the big online retailers of products.

If you can just stand out as something slightly different, you've got a slightly different spin on it or a different review, or you are saying something different about that product, it gives another perspective. And Google loves other perspectives coming through. So that's something that you can really utilise and use that to help you to stand out a little bit with your product descriptions.

And then what that does is it brings traffic into your website. So hopefully, you've got e-commerce set up where you're able to then actually sell that online so that you're not having to then have people come in to buy it from you. But if not, even if you just optimise for that locally, and then you are getting more footfall, getting people coming through and actually buying those products, and that all helps.

Retail is such a fantastic upsell because it's not something that you're limited on. It's not something that you can only sell a certain amount of, like with services. You can only sell a certain amount, and then you run out of time; you're fully booked.

Obviously, you can only sell your products until you've sold out of them. But if you know that this is a product that always sells really well, we get loads of traffic coming to our website from this particular product, and it brings people in, and they buy it, then that it's a great way to then just up your profits and up your average takings each day. So that can make a big difference.

Building an Email List

I wish I'd known as well with websites how having an email list and having your website grow your email list and emailing that list regularly, how much of a difference that can make. I think that's something that often local businesses don't realise the power of.

That if you can have an email list full of your engaged customers, so people who want to hear from you, people who have bought from you, your regular customers, your regular clients, your regular visitors to your store or your salon, if you can have a list, you can then keep in contact with those.

That helps to raise the value of your business; it's like your customer database. Really, if you've got their permission to email them and to tell them about what's going on, you can bring them in, you can sell if you've got last-minute appointment cancellations, if you've got new offers, if you've got a new staff member and you need to get them booked up.

Then you can use your email list to help with that. And even if you are like a footfall business, so if you don't offer services, if you just need to get more people coming through your store every day, if you're letting people know what's going on, you're just reminding them as well that you exist and why they should come in and see you, then that can make a massive difference. And then if you ever want to sell your business, that is, that would be a valuable asset, especially an engaged email list, where you're emailing them regularly, and you are getting that feedback.

Your people are opening the emails; people are taking action on them. That can make a massive, massive difference. And you can use your website in different ways to help you with that.

So you could have some kind of freebie, some kind of download, or some kind of offer even, that people can get if they sign up to your email list. It can even be like a short video series where you talk them through a meditation or you talk them through a skincare routine or a face massage or something like that, something that people would enjoy having from your business. And if you're not sure about this, again, ask ChatGPT to give you some ideas of some great lead magnets to get people onto your email list.

And then you can start emailing them with some sort of helpful tips and letting them know what things are going on. And that can make a massive difference as well. The third thing I want to sort of talk about today, I want to keep this episode short.

I might revisit this in another future episode.

Local SEO Strategies

But the third thing is I wish I'd known how much easier it is to stand out locally than it is to stand out across the nation. So if you are a local business and you haven't optimised your website for local searches, it's a massive opportunity that you're missing out on.

There's so much we can do because with local searches, it's so specific. People are actually looking for services in their area, and there are specific words that you can use like that location, using that across pages of your website. That can make a massive, massive difference to standing out.

And over 40 per cent of the searches that I've done on Google or wherever people are searching, especially on Google at the moment, that's where we kind of have the stats around it, are for something local. So people look for local businesses, and that's not going to change as well. So even with AI searches, even with the AI overviews that we're getting now, which is going to affect people's website traffic.

If you've got lots and lots of blog posts and informational queries that are bringing people into your website and that information can be delivered in an AI overview, that is going to affect website traffic. But if you're a local business and you're selling something or people are looking for a service locally, then they're still going to want to go through to your website. They're going to want to go through and either book an appointment, or they're going to want to go through and find out more specifically on your website about you.

And that's not going away, even with AI overviews. People will still be wanting to buy things. People are still going to be wanting to book services. So that's something that is, it's so much easier that you don't have to do too much.

There are things you need to do, obviously, but you don't have to do so much if you're trying to stand out locally, and you only have to do a little bit more than your competitors are doing. And if you are in a very competitive niche or in an area where there is a lot of competition, being local still makes a difference, and it still is helpful. And there's still always opportunities to be able to stand out and to be able to just optimise your website, to get that traffic coming through, to show up when people are actually searching for what you do.

And that's the big benefit of searching or showing up in search and SEO, is you're not just interrupting people's scroll; you're not just waiting for them to almost like grab their attention and then try and drag them into your website. People are out there looking for services and for products like what you sell.

And if you can capture their attention while they're actually searching, and you can be that solution that the search results show up, then that can be so so powerful. And all you need to do is get them through to your website and then just have it set up in a way that encourages them to take the action that you want them to take.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

And so that's the things that I wish I'd known. I wish I'd realised when I was back in my salon days and had that website there, I wish I'd known the power of it and how much of a difference it can make in terms of having to do less marketing over the long run.

And in terms of just getting people realising about your business, just showing up, we kind of assume that people know us, but actually, people are looking online. And if we can be there, and we can stand out as a solution to their problem, then there's so much power in that.

So I hope you found that helpful, and I'll see you soon. Bye.