I see it so often. The most amazing salons, studios, med spas, and boutiques. You know, the type you can’t help but walk into when you’re walking down the street because your eyes are just drawn to it. Everything seems like it was made just for this store, the décor, the color scheme, the furniture, all of it just fits and it looks amazing. Everything has its own place and style to add to the brand’s aesthetic. From there, you’re able to determine, does this store’s aesthetic align with mine? If so, you buy something, you book a service, you keep tabs on what they’re doing, and most importantly you keep coming back.
The reality is, we live in a digital world these days, and if you’re anything like me, the thought of driving to busy areas, finding parking, walking around in crowded areas for hours just browsing is something I find myself doing less and less. This means less time walking past these amazing stores that catch my eye and randomly popping in to buy something or book a service, and more time looking for the services and items I want online. We live in a world where we can find everything we need right at our fingertips. Want a facial? Just Google “Facial services near me.” Looking for a reputable med spa? Google “Best Med Spas in my area.” A whole list of businesses will populate for anything you need. From there, you begin looking at their websites and book with the business that aligns with what you’re looking for and stands out to you most. So now, instead of walking past that store that caught your eye and popping in, it’s the website that stopped you. That is the world we live in now.
Let’s face it, having a physical storefront that looks amazing and an aesthetic social media account isn’t enough anymore, especially for businesses in competitive markets like the aesthetics industry. Most people are searching for services via search engines like Google and Bing and clicking through the results. So, if you put all that time, effort, energy, and most importantly money into your location and your brand, why aren’t you investing in your website to reflect all of that? The majority of consumers whowant your service will never see what your storefront actually looks like before booking or ordering online. They will however, and most likely, see your website, and if that website is filled with stock images, buttons that don’t work, aren't easy to navigate, and don't showcase your brand and what you bring to the table, they will just click to the next website that actually does all those things. Your biggest competitors may be miles away from you but their website takes seconds to navigate and win over your potential customers.
So we’ve talked about why your website matters but what actually makes a good website?
Let’s start with your brand. A website with a strong brand identity crushes it. From the color scheme to the fonts, and most importantly the pictures. Remember how I said when you walk past a storefront and see how amazing it looks and it makes you want to stop in? Well, pictures on a website can do the same thing. It hurts my heart when I see amazing businesses that are literal aesthetic dreams just throw a bunch of stock images on their website. Grab your iPhone (I swear the camera quality is top-tier) , start snapping some aesthetic shots and use those instead. Not only does it show people your location it gives you that brand identity that draws people in.
Website Functionality. We live in a world where people want to hit the easy button and find all the information they’re looking for quickly and easily. If your website is hard to navigate, people are going to get frustrated and just click on the next website. When building your website think about it from the perspective of someone who is visiting it for the first time and knows nothing about your business, that will help with mapping out how the flow of information should go. I personally like to include a booking/purchase button in the header of the website as well as when the website first opens. This way, if someone is coming and knows they just need to book/buy something it takes them zero time to accomplish that. The header button will allow them to navigate throughout the website and when they decide to book/buy the button is right there to do so. Zero looking around, zero time to complete the task.
Search Engine Optimization otherwise known as SEO. Ah yes, the dreaded SEO everyone hears about but what does it actually mean?! In simplest terms, SEO is what search engines use to determine what your website is actually about. So, if you are a med spa, it’s how Google recognizes you are indeed a med spa, so when people are searching “Med Spas near me” your business populates in those search results. There is so much that goes into SEO (I will make a blog on that another day) but some examples are things like website headings, meta descriptions, alt tags, etc (these are things that happen during the website development stage and on the back-end of your website) as well as things like blogs and backlinks. Strong website SEO helps you rank higher on Google and in return, help you get more clients organically. The downfall of SEO is it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Google is constantly changing what it prioritizes for its rankings which means changing your SEO strategy along with it. Lucky for you, you have Shaipe Agency to do that for you (Sorry I had to put a plug for us in here somewhere.)
So let’s recap here:
Your website matters, it is your digital storefront. More than you probably thought. Your location could be an aesthetic phenomenon that puts (insert aesthetic business/brand here) to shame, but if your website is majority stock images with buttons that don’t work and zero SEO no one will know, nor book a service to find out. So please, please, please (Sabrina Carpenter V.) take a scroll through your site and make those updates and changes your future customers will thank you.
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