3 Ways To Build A Salon Website

Building a website is an essential part of marketing your business. For salons and beauty salons, a good website should be easy to navigate and provide clear information to draw in customers.

With so many platforms and tools for building your website, it can be difficult to pick out the best one for your needs. So let’s break your options down into 3 categories (agencies, DIY platforms, and hybrid solutions) and talk about the key differences, pros, cons, and costs of each.

Category One: DIY Platforms

Do-it-yourself website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Wordpress give you the tools to build your own website. With these companies, you’ll have control over every aspect of your website’s design and layout. However, this also means you’re on the hook for most of the work in maintaining your site.

The Pros

DIY platforms are often the cheapest way to build a website, with prices ranging between $20 - $100 per month. The amount you pay ultimately depends on what types of add-ons and plug-ins you add. For example, you may pay an extra fee to include an interactive calendar for clients to schedule hair appointments.

Most platforms have a variety of templates you can use to start building your website. From there, it’s totally up to you to create content, organize widgets, and adjust the layout to suit your needs. If you have a specific vision for your site, you may prefer the level of control you get with a DIY website builder.

‍Because they’re so cheap, DIY platforms are also low-risk to set up. In fact, you may not have to pay anything to get started – many services only charge you once you take the website live or start using specific features. This makes it easy to experiment with different ideas and decide whether this approach is for you. 

The Cons

The DIY approach’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. Having so much control over your site is great if you know what you’re doing. However, it requires a surprising amount of time and technical know-how to build a website – especially if it’s your first time.

If you’re tech-savvy or have a keen eye for design, you may enjoy tinkering around with a DIY website builder. If you don’t have these skills or simply don’t have the time to spend figuring out a new platform, the DIY option may not be the best fit for your salon.

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Category Two: Agencies

In terms of effort, if DIY website builders are on one side of the scale, then agencies represent the other end. Instead of finding a platform to build your own website, you can hire an agency or freelancer to build it for you. Where the DIY route requires your time and energy, the agency route only requires (a lot of) money.

The Pros

Let’s say you have an exact design or a specific vision in mind for your salon website, but you don’t have the means to do it yourself. An agency can take your design ideas and build a website to your exact specifications. 

The other major advantage of hiring someone else to build your website is the amount of time and effort you need to dedicate to the process. A good agency will handle most of the work building your site, and you won’t have to do much more than give your approval.

The Cons

By far the biggest disadvantage of this route is the money involved. Hiring an agency is the most expensive way to create a website for your salon. Between the design process and buildout, a good quality site may cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $10,000+ to build.

An agency may also take much more time to develop your website. Depending on factors like how many other clients they have, an agency may take 1 to 6 months to build and go live with your website. 

During this process, you won’t be totally off the hook either: plan to spend time providing content and information to the agency as they build a site for your salon. You’ll also need to dedicate time to review work as it gets done, which can lead to further time spent if you need to make tweaks or request changes to be made.

Even if you have the budget to hire an agency, you may find that the cost and pricing isn’t always transparent. You may pay $5,000 up front to build your salon’s website, but a lot of agencies will add fees on top of that, like a setup fee or an ongoing hosting fee. 

Some agencies even charge you any time you want to make an edit to your own website! Not all agencies give you easy access to your site. With agencies like that, last minute changes and quick edits are simply not possible.

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Category Three: Hybrid Approach

At this point, you may be thinking that neither option sounds ideal. The DIY approach takes time and energy that should be dedicated to running your salon, but agencies can be prohibitively expensive. That brings us to our third and final avenue: a hybrid approach like Fisherman.

The Pros

Fisherman takes the best parts of the DIY and agency models to give you a happy medium for your salon website. Our website building service starts at $50 per month, but our most popular plans range from $100 - $300 per month. This is slightly more expensive than a DIY platform, but much more affordable than a typical agency. You can also save money by paying annually for a discounted rate.

The way we work makes it quick and easy to set up a website for your salon business. To start, all we need is basic information like the name and address of your salon. Then we’ll take it from there! 

‍Fisherman’s proprietary software will automatically build an initial version of your new salon website. Our team then uses the information we’ve collected about the beauty industry to optimize your site for today’s market. Then, we can work with you to add special features and personalize the branding on your site. 

With our streamlined process, we can build a salon website for you within a week – or even a few hours. There’s almost no effort required on your part, making this one of the easiest and fastest ways to build a new website for your business.

The Cons

Now, it wouldn’t be right of us to leave out the potential downsides to this hybrid approach. Fisherman isn’t a custom agency, so we can’t necessarily accommodate specific design choices. If you have an exact vision in mind for your new salon website, we recommend working with an agency or building it yourself on a DIY platform.

The reason we do it this way is because of our experience working with thousands of small business owners. We have a feel for what works and what doesn’t, so we focus on what we know is effective. Fisherman’s templates and design layouts are based on this experience and streamlined to be as fast and efficient as possible.

What we can guarantee is a clean, effective website for your salon that comes at a great price and requires very little effort on your part. Unlike some agencies, Fisherman gives you the power to make quick changes on your own. We also have an incredible customer support team ready to step in and make edits for you. With Fisherman, you can run your website how you want.

More About Fisherman

Fisherman has many more unique features that you won’t find with a typical agency or DIY platform. 

First of all, we are industry specific. We don’t cater to every kind of business because we want to make sure we provide thorough and thoughtful service to the industries we specialize in. Beauty businesses and salons are one of our favorite industries to work in. 

The team at Fisherman is intimately familiar with what it takes to run businesses in the beauty industry. We have a good feel for the best ways to drive traffic and incorporate search engine optimization into your salon website. By focusing on a few specific industries, we have a deeper understanding of what consumers really care about and are looking for in a salon.

Building your website is the first step to being successful online, but Fisherman brings a lot more to the table to take your business to the next level. We’re also a tech company, so we're always investing in new technologies, new products, and new features to support your salon business. We’ll be launching new products to help with digital advertising, content creation, e-commerce, and much more. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, every business owner should decide for themselves on the best path for building a new business website. The DIY and agency approaches will work for some, but we believe Fisherman is the best choice for beauty salon business websites. You can reach out to us at any time, and we’ll be happy to give you our advice on whether Fisherman is the best fit for you.

At Fisherman, we will help get your website up right away so you can be found online and add credibility to your salon. If you’re ready to invest in growing your business, we can help you reach more clients than ever before. Fisherman is constantly evolving and launching new products to help make your beauty business better online.

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FAQs

What should be included in a salon website?

A salon website should include many features, including clear contact information, a scheduling widget, and more. If you build your site with Fisherman, our team will ensure that your salon site has every feature it needs to be successful in promoting and drawing traffic to your business.

How to build a nail salon website?

There are many steps to building a website for a beauty business. Step one is to decide if you want to hire an agency or take a DIY approach. At Fisherman, we recommend our hybrid approach for a fast and cost-effective way to build your nail salon website.

What is a good profit margin for a salon?

A 10% profit margin is a good benchmark for most businesses. Studies show that salons have an average profit margin of 8.2%, which is higher than the general average of 7.7%.

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