The first question is should you have a Website?

Abso-frickin-lutely!And not just a pretty online advert for your beauty business. It should actively put more money in your pocket. Your website should be the hardest working, yet lowest paid, member of your team. So good that it works 24hrs a day, doesn’t need sleep and never takes a sick day! Don’t ask me to design your website, my team will vouch for the fact I shouldn’t be allowed near photoshop too often. You need to use your own personality and creativity for that, but I can tell you the easiest ways to have it make you more money.

The real question is “How much money is your website making you?”

Look, if you don’t have a website, get one. Your website doesn’t need to be flashy, it doesn’t need to be 30 pages of professional photographs, clever copywriting and arty imagery. It just needs a few key ingredients to make it work. Your website should . .

* get you more clients

* fill your appointment book

* sell your products

* save YOU time (lots of it)

. . . and sell your gift vouchers!

But only if people know about it, can find it, stay longer than 7 seconds and know what to do when they get there.

“If you build it, they will come” may have worked for Kevin Costner in the classic 80’s film “Field of Dreams”. But it’s shitty advice when it comes to your website! Imagine you put on the most out of this world party, you’ve got amazing food, champagne on tap, entertainers, dancers, DJ’s and even a band. But you don’t tell anyone about it . . . you’re going to feel a bit stupid stood there trying to eat 100 plates of tapas, drinking fizz and dancing all by yourself. Same thing with your website!

First of all tell people about it EVERYWHERE! On social, on price lists, posters, adverts, in your salon, on emails. Your website should be the hub of your online presence. Social is important but DON’T rely on it. Make sure Google knows about it too. If people can’t find you by searching, then you may as well not exist. People are lazy and the google gods are good, but they aren’t perfect. Setup or claim your Google My Business profile now and check your details are correct. Go check them now. Update your pictures too.

Make sure the pics on there make people want to visit your business and your website. Keywords are still super important too. You don’t need to overthink this either. Ask your clients what they’d search for if they were looking for your business, but for some reason couldn’t remember the name? Boom! Their answers are your keywords. Use them. And measure your success too. Make sure you are using some simple website analytics software, Google Analytics is probably the easiest, to see how many people are visiting your site to see if your efforts are working.

BAKE SOME BREAD

Put the oven on, whack some bread in! ? It’s an old trick used to help sell houses. Make people coming around to view feel instantly comfortable with the homely, yet subtle, smell of bread baking away in the oven. Do the same thing with your website! You’ve already worked bloody hard to get people to find your website and drop by, the last thing you want is them leaving without booking or buying – so make them feel instantly welcomed and cosy when they visit. Unfortunately you can’t shove the smell of freshly baked bread down the internet yet, so what can you do?

Here’s how to make people feel welcome on your website:

• Make it snappy – You wouldn’t leave visitors waiting on the doorstep. So don’t do that with your website. If it takes more than a few seconds to load, people will simply click the back button and go somewhere else
• Tell ’em what you do – A confused mind doesn’t buy (or book) so clarify for your visitors exactly what you offer right at the top of the page. If you’re what they are looking for they’ll check out more, if not or if they’re not sure . . . they’ll leave.
• Tell ’em where you are – Now they know you offer what they want, they need to know where you are. It’s all very well finding a business online, but if you are 100 miles away, then they’re unlikely to become a client. Save them, and you, the time and clearly state where you are based.
• Make it for Moblles – Build your website specifically for mobile devices and check it yourself ON A MOBILE DEVICE. Websites get designed on computers, but your clients are browsing on mobile phones. What looks great on a computer screen might look awful on a phone. Make sure text is the right size to read on a small screen, buttons are visible and clickable with a finger prod and don’t have pop ups that fill the screen.

Go check out your website now using your phone. Does it pass these four tests? If it does great. If not, go bake some metaphorical website bread and get your website earning you money.

WHERE’S THE LOO?

When you gotta go . . . you gotta go! Visitors to your website are often in a hurry and once they know they’re in the right place, they want to get what they need to do, done as quickly as possible. So don’t make like hard for them by complicating things and making them go looking for what they need, things like:-

* your contact details

* your address info

* how to book online

* how to buy something

* your social media links

If you want your website to work for you, go for functional over flashy. Lead people to where you want them to go and give them easy options to click on for what they are looking for.So don’t make people go searching for the toilet when they’re desperate. Make things easy to find, put things in obvious places and no one needs to be caught short.

GIVE EM WHAT THEY WANT!

There are two important types of people that visit your website;

• new visitors
• existing clients

Most people build their websites mainly to attract new clients and the flow of the website is geared towards them. But don’t forget about the second group because they are where the easy money is. Recognise what existing customers are looking for from your website and make it easy for them. Existing customers aren’t bothered about your story, or your about page . . . they already know all that. They’re there for a specific reason. Chances are to book something or buy something. So if you are hiding your ‘Book Now’ and ‘Buy Now’ buttons on your web pages because you don’t want to appear ”salesy” that’s a mistake. Put them right at the top of your homepage, your existing clients will thank you for it.

So is your website working FOR YOU? Or is it more of an embarrassment you try not to tell people about and are secretly quite happy that people can’t find? Start by fixing the things above and your website will soon be singing your praises and bringing you more bookings and more revenue rather than just sitting there doing nothing. If you want to get your website working more for you (and get your website earning you money even while you sleep) and you like the sound of it being your lowest paid, best worker but just don’t know where to start, well we can help you with that. Come check out The Beauty Business Secrets Membership where we have courses and coaching to guide you through this process step by step.. . . and best of all, right now you can join for just £1 by clicking here.