How to Choose Website Builder for Salons in 2023

Since your website will be your first point of contact with many of your clients, you may be wondering how to choose the best salon website builder for your business.

You’ll want to make sure that you find something that’s easy for you to use, provides great value and leaves you with a professional-looking, functional salon website with all of the features that you need.

This may sound easier said than done, but finding the right website builder for your salon is much easier if you have a list of your business’s needs and understand your salon budget.

Let’s take a closer look at what you’ll want to look for:

1. Consider Your Salon Budget

Does the website builder have a flexible pricing plan, or do you have to pay for a block of time (such as a year’s subscription) at once?

What services are offered for free, and which will cost extra to add them on? Many website builders offer a certain amount of free storage, for example.

Make sure that you have a clear idea of your base budget for your salon website, as well as a range that you’re willing to spend or be flexible on for “extra” services that you don’t actually need, but would like to have.

This will make it easier to select a website builder that meets your needs, without getting tempted to pay for a lot of things that you might not actually use or want.

Some websites even offer a free trial period or have a money-back guarantee, which gives you the chance to evaluate their services before committing to the site.

2. What Do You Want Your Salon Site to Do?

Speaking of needs and priorities, you should start by asking yourself what exactly you want your salon website to do.

Do you want to connect with clients and allow online bookings? Are you looking to boost your brand awareness and provide additional information about salon services, and what about selling retail products online?

Begin by making a list of these needs, while also considering your audience and how likely they are to need/want each service. Some of the ones we recommend looking for are:

• Integration with online booking: This is a big one, since many salons now offer online booking and clients love the convenience of it.

• How many pages do you need: Do you want everything on one page, or do you need something that offers multiple pages and a menu?

• Mobile friendly: Having a responsive design that scales well on a small screen will help you to reach more clients, especially when they’re “on the go.” This is crucial if you want to offer online booking services, too.

• Social media share buttons: Double check that the website builder you use has the ability to connect and share your site with other social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.

  You’ll also want to make sure that what gets shared looks good and doesn’t include too much extra text or an image that’s too big or too small.

• Adding photos and videos: You’ll want to be able to add photos and videos easily, have them load quickly and scale well on a smaller size screen.

3. Ease of Use

Make sure that the builder or template that you select is easy to work with. Many website builders allow you to drag and drop pictures and boxes of text into position, adjusting things as needed.

You want something that also lets you preview the finished product and make any changes if things don’t look exactly right.

4. Offered Templates and Features

Look for a website builder with a large number of templates, customization options, so that making the changes to the website is easy.

Make sure that the templates offered look like they’re good quality, and try to find a site with a responsive web design that can switch between mobile and full screen versions, but still has good page loading speed and full functionality in both modes.

5. How Will Your Salon Website Rank?

This is important since you want to attract potential clients and use your online presence to boost your brand. Look for salon SEO options and social media tools like integration options with FaceBook and Instagram.

6. What’s the Support Like?

Be sure to look at customer reviews and make sure that the website builder has good client support in place, in case you run into any issues. This will save you a lot of time (and potentially money) later on.

7. Data Ownership

It’s important that you read and understand the agreement that you enter into with the website builder or company, because this could affect who owns the content at the end of the day.

If you decide that you eventually want to move your site’s contents to a different platform or upgrade to a different version if this template stops being supported by the creator, you will probably want to avoid building the whole thing from scratch again.

Conclusion

When deciding on a website builder for your salon, the most important thing is to keep your salon’s needs and target audience in mind.

While it might be tempting to go for the one that offers the best price, this might not end up being your best option if you need to spend time and money redoing everything later if you’re not happy with the results.

Take your time and choose the best website builder for your salon’s long-term needs. You’ll be more satisfied with your final results if you go into it with a solid plan and budget ready.

Citations

The Creative Person's Website Builder: How to Make a Pro Website Yourself Using Word Press and Other Easy Tools
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=GtX

Do we fear the right things?
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/do-we-fear

The Scientific Comparison between Web-Based Site and Web-Builder (Open Source) Project: Functionalities, Usability, Design and Security
https://www.academia.edu/download/70659971