6 Reasons Your Beauty Business Needs a Website

A business needs a website for many reasons – mainly to be found online and to build trust with potential customers.

However, most beauty businesses still don’t have a website and rely on social media profiles to showcase their work and be found by potential clients.

The biggest issue with this approach is that social media platforms are unreliable. Your account can be hacked, closed down, or even shadow-banned at any point, resulting in having to “start over.”

It’s our sneaky feeling that because many beauty professionals want to leverage platforms that enable connection first, they often disregard the power of a website. But a website isn’t something that is just one and done – it doesn’t just simply exist as a pretty landing page or a platform for online booking.

The Power of Websites For Beauty Businesses

A website can be an evergreen sales machine that brings potential customers to your business while you sleep. And a website may convert or close those potential customers into ACTUAL customers because of the website’s design, information, and user experience. 75% of consumers say they’ll form an opinion about a company and its credibility based only on its website. (So yeah – we’d say it’s worth investing in good web design.

Moreover, 48% of consumers admit that they actually judge whether or not a business is credible and “worth it” exclusively on its website design.

And suppose you have a phenomenal mobile experience. In that case, that’s even better 85% of adults think that a company’s mobile website should be as good or better than its desktop website. This is especially important as we see 57% of traffic on retail websites is visited from mobile devices.

And when done poorly, a website can also do the exact OPPOSITE – turn people away from your business. It can even turn 50% of people into the arms of your competitors.

With all that being said, let’s talk about 6 reasons your beauty business needs a website.

1. Make it a no-brainer for customers to choose you.

Many say, “Everyone finds me on Instagram” when talking about their clients. However, those who say that usually don’t have a professional website with SEO and Google My Business integrations.

Even though social media is a great tool, Google is still the number one search engine in the world. So if you aren’t showing up on Google, you’re praying that the algorithm Gods show you to the RIGHT people. Even if those people DO first encounter your brand on social media, their trust in you will either grow or dwindle once they click the link in bio, depending on how you present your business.

When you have a great website, you make it a no-brainer for your customers to choose you. Not only can you build trust with potential customers, but you can get them excited about your brand by giving them a sneak peek into your salon, experience, and general vibe. Some of our clients have even experienced doubling their customer base in the 3-6 months after getting a website.

2. Get your time back.

We call websites we build “evergreen sales machines” – why is that? Beyond being enriched with strategic SEO to help your business get found online, your website can also help you get your time back.

Here are some examples. (1) Integrating online booking allows you to stop spending your evenings booking clients over DMs or texts. (2) By creating intentional page layouts that increase conversions, you can stop worrying about having to “convince” anyone that your services are the #1 choice. (3) Having pages that share your policies or frequently asked questions saves time by not having to explain this before or during an appointment.

We love to couple time-saving strategic pages like the examples mentioned above with automated online booking programs and email campaigns, saving you even more time. Even having a clear “Contact Us” page with your phone number, email address, location, hours of operation, etc., saves you time and benefits your potential customer since about 44% of visitors will leave your website if there’s no contact information.

With the time you save, you can plan other ways to grow your empire, spend more time with your family, do some self-care or relax (hard for many of us entrepreneurs, we know!).

3. Speed up the sales process.

Before someone books with you, there will be questions that they will want to answer. And, more often than not, they’ll want to see what other people say about you. Having a website means you can provide this detailed information for everyone who visits your site and make it available every day.

By answering people’s questions up front and providing social proof like reviews and testimonials on your website, you save time (see point #2) and speed up the sales process. Customer reviews are trusted by 72% of “shoppers” or potential customers. By removing barriers to sales (feelings of uncertainty, unanswered questions, unclear expectations) and providing social proof on your website, you are inherently making it easier for people to say, “Yes! This is the salon or beauty business for me!”

The reality is people want to know everything before they book an appointment. It’s a long shot to hope that someone checks out your Instagram, reads all of your posts, checks out all of your highlights, searches for you on Google or Facebook to read your reviews, and then FINALLY clicks “Book My Appointment.” So instead, speed up the sales process by having the most essential information about your business in one place – on your website!

4. Make your online experience match your in-person experience.

If your beauty business takes its in-person experience seriously, consider if your website reflects the same energy. Your website’s design and user experience present an opportunity to create trust with customers and show them what they can expect when they walk into your salon or studio. Here are some ways you can make a brag-worthy online customer experience that matches your in-person experience:

• Integrate chatbots to answer common questions about your services or availability
• Include professional photos of your salon, studio, and/or staff to visually represent your brand’s energy.
• Add videos – a fantastic emotional connection tool – that get people excited to physically see your space or meet you and your staff.
• Include photos of real customers with testimonials. Showing someone’s face is a quicker way to establish trustworthy social proof.
• Show your portfolio before and after on your website – don’t just post these to Instagram. This will help build your credibility.

5. Earn more money passively.

Most beauty pros don’t want to be “behind the chair” for their entire career. So as you think about expanding your income streams, leverage your website to promote new and different ways to work with you and your brand.

• Create a course to teach other industry experts what you know
• Develop guides or e-books to help your clients take the results you give them to the next level
• Sell products online to help your clients build on the results they get by working with you in the comfort of their homes.
• Link to affiliate programs, software, courses, etc. – you could even link your Amazon Storefront or Like to Know It page to your website.
  
  

6. Increase owned media.

Have you heard the terms owned, earned, and paid media? Earned media represents things like your social media following. Paid media represents content you pay to place in front of an audience. And owned media represents content that you create and control. A website can help you increase your owned media (contacts that you “own” because they opt-in to hear from you) by growing an email list.

Why is this important? Because your owned media is FREE, it allows you to get in front of your target audience without an algorithm’s influence. So you can be in front of your customers or potential customers – directly in their inbox – anytime you want.

This allows you to share business updates, promotional discounts, and offers with a “special” group of people, creating FOMO (a hugely effective marketing tactic). For example, to grow an email list, you can offer a freebie or discount on your website and have them provide their email to sign up for it. You can even promote this freebie or value to your social media followers and tell them that when they sign up for the list, they get exclusive discounts and information that isn’t shared ANYWHERE else.

What is the benefit of more owned media in your beauty business? First, you can create deeper relationships with this group. Building stronger connections allow you to be their trusted go-to for all things beauty – and that trust = higher retention, more referrals, and more revenue for your bottom line.

The Takeaway

The beauty industry is fast growing and is expected to exceed $716B by 2025. That means more opportunities than ever to welcome new customers into your business. But, unfortunately, it also means more competition than ever.

How do you grow and protect your business and brand amongst the noise? Well, one way is to have a website. A website provides so many benefits, but specifically for beauty businesses, it allows you to:

• Make it a no-brainer for customers to choose you
• Get your time back
• Speed up the sales process
• Match your online experience match your in-person experience
• Earn more money passively
• Increase your owned media

At Daring Creative, we build websites with all these things in mind. We don’t create just a pretty landing page, so you can check another item off the box. We know a website is an investment – and we’re on your team to help that investment pay off for your business – and then some.

Book a complimentary Discovery Call with us today if you are ready to make your business “official, official” and are looking for a creative partner to help all your website dreams come true.