10 ways to boost your hair salon's online presence

Want to know how you can boost your hair salon's online presence? Kate Woods, owner of Salondipity, shares her tips for boosting your business's presence online.

How Can I Boost My Hair Salon's Online Presence?

If you’re looking for ways to ensure a constant stream of new clients when your salon re-opens, investing a little bit of time working on your SEO now will reap the benefits later. A surefire way to be seen is to get your salon featured as one of the three listings on the Google map for salons in your town. Hair and Beauty marketing specialist Kate Woods explains what you can do to get your salon on the map. If someone tells you to ‘do X, then Y and Z you will definitely get to the top of the rankings’ they are over promising. There is no exact science and it varies depending on the search term and the competition and the proximity to the search (e.g. the location). But, there are some key strategies that high ranking sites have in common. If you want to get your salon onto the map and have a constant stream of potential clients, I suggest you try them too. 1. Claim your Google My Business Listing If you haven’t already done so, go to google.com to claim your business listing. If the Google My Business page already exists, but you don’t manage it, go into the listing and click on Own this business? Claim it now. 2.  Complete your Google My Business page with as much detail as possible Write an intro. Include your opening hours. Mark all categories that are relevant to you. 3. Upload photos in all the available sections Remember to use photo descriptions and include your town’s name in some of them 4. Get reviews You’ll need plenty of reviews – you also need to respond to them professionally (even any negative ones). 5. Add posts to your page You don’t have to do this every time you post to social media, but find a balance that works well for you (somewhere between weekly and monthly). Be sure to add customer photos at the same time 6. Be consistent with your NAP Make sure that you always write your businesses name, address and phone number the same online. You’d be amazed by how often salons use different versions of their name in different places! 7. Claim your listings on other review sites Start with Yell, Yelp, Freeindex, Yahoo Local, but have a look around to see what other listings sites matter in your area 8. Add bookings if they’re available to you Google has some partners - that enable you to have online booking directly from your local listing. These include Treatwell, Fresha and Shortcuts. 9. Build your local reputation Generate local links across the web by teaming up with other local businesses, charities, schools, and media. This could be reasonably-priced editorial, guest blogs, podcasts, competitions or sponsorship. 10. Take a look at your competitors’ listings Is there anything underhand or untoward on their listings? Is so (and only if so) you can report it to Google be suggesting an edit. Finally, be patient and keep an eye on the Google My Business Insights in the dashboard to monitor your progress. SEO improvements usually take up to 12 weeks to really take effect, so the sooner you get started the better. Find out more at salondipity.co.uk