Top tips from ken picton for a successful salon website
Published
26th Nov 2010
by rachael
Winner of HJ's Innovation/Website of the Year 2010, Ken Picton offers five steps to a successful salon website
Think about brand identity
When developing a new website or redeveloping one, it is vital to create a strong identity that mirrors the business or brand. It is important that you don't over- or under-sell your brand.
It is also vital that you recognise the function or purpose of the site. For example, is it for online appointments, selling services, or simply to impart information?
For us, the challenge was to give a fantastic first impression, and show all the services
we offer to leave the clients wanting to know more.
Choose a developer carefully
When developing a website, it's important that the team you choose to create it is in tune with your ideas and thoughts.
We chose a company in Holland called U-lab, which fully understood the need for our site to be able to work on all platforms, and the ability to have full functionality with these.
For example, we were aware that any use of Flash would mean it wouldn't work on the iPad or iPhone, and as we have iPad stations in our salon for clients, we needed a company that was expert in HTML and design.
Keep information relevant and easy to read
Years of statistics have proved that those pages containing information about the team will be consistently the most-visited pages on your site, along with prices, and pictures of interiors - so give these areas prominence.
We dedicate a complete section to our people, their prices, biogs and the full potential to blog on their own personal pages.
Online appointments is the most hit page within our site and shows that the future of any hair website should have a full online appointment service 24/7.
And, don't forget your website is also one of the best recruitment tools you can have to attract potential new team members, so use it.
Keep it fresh
Invest as much into your content management system as you do the design, as this is what will allow your site to stay relevant, fresh and up to date.
There is nothing worse for a client to return to your site to see there is no recent news or information. It is vital to have the ability to change and update the information.
Always look for ways to make your clients return to your site - for example, run blogs, promotions and news.
Use search data to optimise performance
Make sure your site is developed to be fully optimised with search engines - this means it will work smarter and harder for you.
The use of Google Analytics allows you to see when your site is most used, by specific pages; the amount of time people spend on your site; and what interests them. All this information will allow you to continually develop your site.
