Creating A Salon Website With WordPress

There has never been a better time to set-up a salon website for promoting your business. Why? Because 46% of all Google searches are people looking local business information, and 88% of those searches result in a call or visit to that business on the same day! If you haven't got a website then you're missing out on a huge amount of potential new customers.  On top of that your website is the perfect place to showcase your talent and your amazing brands, whilst giving customers an easy way to connect with you.

To get started you will need

• A domain name
• A website platform and hosting
• A great theme that works for your business
• A couple of hours to get it all set up

Picking The Right Platform

We have chosen to recommend WordPress as our website platform of choice for salons. It's easy to set-up, it's free (mostly), Google friendly and it's flexible meaning salons can easily differentiate themselves from their competitors. Thanks to all these reasons WordPress powers around 36% of the internet!

Of course there are other options available to salons including:

• Squarespace
• Drupal
• Wix
• Joomla
• Duda

Choosing your hosting provider and registering your domain name

There are a variety of hosts and domain name registrars out there, and it can seem a little overwhelming if you don't know what you're looking for. To make things a little easier for you we've listed some of our recommendations below:

• TSOHOST - Get 10% Off your first year hosting costs with offer code SPLHOST
• SiteGround
• Guru
• Go Daddy

All of the above hosting companies are widely used in the UK, allow easy installation of WordPress and allow you to register a domain name at the same time. The cost of hosting starts from about £1.99/month.

When choosing your domain name here are our top tips

• Use .com or .co.uk; there are lots of other options but these are the ones people recognise and trust
• Keep it simple; nobody wants to type in or remember a long complicated domain name
• Avoid hyphens; myhairsalon.co.uk is much better than my-hair-salon.co.uk
• Try to include keywords; this is especially useful if your desired domain name has already been picked. For example if you wanted millionhairs.co.uk but it wasn't available you could choose millionhairssalon.co.uk or millionhairslancashire.co.uk

The cost to register a domain name for one year costs around £4.95.

Once you've set up your hosting and domain name you'll need to install WordPress. Many of the above hosts include a "one-click" set-up for WordPress as part of your set-up. We've also included links to each one's instructions for setting up WordPress.

• TSOHOST WordPress Instructions 
• SiteGround WordPress Instructions
• Guru doesn't have a guide - it's included as part of the hosting set-up
• Go Daddy WordPress Instructions

Picking a WordPress theme for your salon

Your WordPress theme determines the look and feel of your salon website. WordPress comes with a few basic themes installed, but none of them are particularly appealing. Not to worry as there are thousands of free and paid themes available for salons. The most common place to find salon WordPress themes are

• WordPress.org- all free, but usually quite basic
• Theme Forest - paid themes but much more advanced. Prices start from $29

Picking the right theme for your website is one of the most important things to get right, as it  can be difficult to change it once you've set-up your salon website. A good theme should be representative of your brand, easy to navigate, quick to load and mobile friendly. Two of our favourite themes are Barber and Coiffeur.

Getting started with WordPress plugins

WordPress Plugins are extra programs that you can install on WordPress to add extra functionality to your website. We've included a list of our recommended plugins below:

• Yoast SEO - lots of handy tweaks to make your website rank better in Google
• WPForms Lite - quick and easy contact form set-up
• Wordfence - A free website security app to keep your site protected
• Akismet - Anti-spam functionality, reducing the amount of spam emails received through contact forms
• WooCommerce - allow you to sell products on your website like gift cards and vouchers
• Instagram Feed - pull your latest Instagram shots onto your website

Must have features and pages for your salon website

• Homepage - this should include an overview of your salon. Consider this your shop window; what are the most important things for your customers to see as they walk past. Ensure it shows off some of your best work, your contact details, links to social media sites and other key areas of your website
• Services Page - what services do you offer? What are the prices? What brands are available? Give has much information as you can; this will help potential customers understand what you offer before they contact you
• Gift Vouchers - If you offer gift vouchers make sure this page is easy to find; it's a great way of generating extra sales and guaranteeing revenue
• Meet the team - Introduce your team members to potential customers; this personal touch makes your customer feel like they know you as soon as they walk into your salon
• How To Guides - consider offering customers top tips on looking after their newly cut and coloured hair, styling guides and anything else you can think of. The more value you give to your customers the more likely they are to return to you
• Careers page  - are you recruiting? Include this information on your website
• Book online - you might have a booking system already that can link to your website; speak to your existing provider. If not consider implementing an online booking system to make life as easy as possible for your customers
• Contact Us Page - include a contact form, telephone number and your opening hours.

Offering Gift Vouchers

One of the best features salons can offer online is gift cards and vouchers for your services. Gift cards mean an upfront payment (cash in the bank!), they can introduce new clients to your business and are a great marketing tool!

One of the easiest ways of selling gift cards on your website is by setting up WooCommerce on your website which will allow you to take payments for these online. Set up your vouchers as virtual or downloadable products to allow customers to download a voucher straight away after payment.

A Reminder Of The Steps to follow

1. Sign-up for hosting and choose your domain name
2. Install WordPress on your chosen host
3. Install a theme on your new WordPress installation
4. Install any plugins that you need
5. Add pages and content
6. Share your new salon website with your friends, family and clients