Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You've built a Dynamic Website for your spa. It is live and you want spa goers to find your website and buy lots of gift certificates for your spa. What's next? Optimize your site baby–it's called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The big engine is Google and they pretty much rule when it comes to searches. The good news is that even a small spa can win in this game, but you've got to play smart.

Ask yourself, are you in this to win? All right then, take a healthy shot of ego and jump in…

Keywords are well, key to the search.

What will a person logically enter when they are looking out there for your spa? (Let's just toss out of the equation the 5% of the population that is positively nuts when it comes to formulating logical searches.) Imagine a customer at home or work, sitting down at their computer. They plan to search the web for the perfect spa experience. Let's say they live in Austin and want to try something new. What do you think they are going to enter as their search in the Google search box? Austin, day spa.

To help improve the ranking for a spa in Austin, a website will want to have "Austin" and "day spa" written naturally in the content on the home page. Maybe something like, "Rejuvenation day spa in Austin is located in the heart of…" You get the point. Don't go overboard, Google is sensitive and it doesn't want you to throw keywords in its search engine face so 2-3 times should suffice. Make it natural!

Now take your keyword strategy a step further. If you have a specialty or focus at your spa add those as keywords to make sure target customers find you. You might not be able to rank at the top of the list for "Austin day spa" but perhaps for "Austin Reiki" or "Austin Reflexology." Someone interested in a specific treatment or bodywork may be adding those specific terms to his or her search.

Tag you're it.

Each website page has a title tag, which is where the text in the top line of the Web browser comes from. The title tag for this page is "Online marketing for spas, salons and massage therapists — SpaBoom Blog — …" The title tag is also used by many search engines as the title of search listings, and it is what a customer sees when they look at the search results for your spa. Make sure the title (and and description tags) include your city or geographic identifier and are clear, logical and describe your spa.

Popularity counts so get linked.

Super popular spas know they want to be on the first page of search results for their specific keywords, because most searchers consider the top search results most relevant. It bites not to be popular enough for the first page so make sure your SEO campaign focuses on establishing relevant website links to your website.

Imagine that a spa owner sends out a press release to the Austin Chamber of Commerce about their business, Rejuvenation spa. The Chamber of Commerce takes the information, adds Rejuvenation spa to their official website and then creates a link to the spa's website. Score, Rejuvenation Spa has just added an inbound link and it is relevant. To Google, that is important because it says that your site is important and relevant enough for another site to reference it. So get out there and make friends. It might be time to bake some cookies and initiate a campaign to get noticed online.

Blog on and on and on…

Make Mom proud and blog about your spa. Make sure it is relevant; you don't want customers to feel like they know you too well when they read your blog so keep it spa/business specific. If your spa is committed to a non-profit cause, talk about it on your blog. If you are bringing in a new piece of equipment that will take 10 years off a client's face, talk about it.

Building a reputation as a spa knowledge leader in your community will bring financial rewards to your spa and give Mom naches.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), General • 4 Comments »

Why do customers come to your spa; what is it about your spa experience or what you offer that makes your spa unique?

The question requires thought because it is the very thing you need to be focusing on. Granted, it can be a moving target especially for trendy spas that cater to those who want the newest and most cutting edge procedures. But even trendsetters need more than the next big thing to keep customers coming back again and again.

Find that thing that makes your spa special and stick to it like glue. It may be your personal stamp, spawned directly from what makes you tick or it could be born of the community of customers that surround you over time. Once you know you can use that knowledge to strengthen your website and SEO strategy and help customers find you online.

What makes your spa distinctive?

Do you offer unique treatments that are difficult to replicate without a huge outlay of cash, a trip to the Himalayas for a unique youth enhancing herb or a national talent search for specific expertise? SEO works for spas that have unique identifiers that become keywords on your website. By using those keywords on your site you leave a trail for customers find you.

Are you an integral part of your community building awareness, social responsibility and a loyal following of like-minded spa souls? Create a dialog with your customers by using the SpaBoom email marketing tool that allow you to send out the latest happenings and news from your spa.

Do you have location, a cross roads between work, fashion, bliss and an hour, half day or a full day of spa nirvana? Keeping your website updated can inspire a customer to pick up the phone and take advantage of your spas close proximity.

Are "new" and "now" an integral part of your vocabulary? Are you in constant search of the next big treatment for your cutting edge clients? Use the SpaBoom email marketing tool to reach your best customers and give them the scoop when there is something new and fabulous on your spa menu.

Does your meticulous nature infuriate less than perfect employees but also establish the groundwork for your customers' over the top spa experiences? A Dynamic website's ability to be updated and changed to satisfy your thoroughness can keep customers happy and build loyalty long-term.

Whatever that "thing" is that makes your spa sing is what will differentiate you from your competitors on the web.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing, General • 2 Comments »

After Larry's post, I wanted to add a link to a complementary article on SEOmoz about an analysis of social networking and how it is in many ways more trusted than email marketing for contacting potential partners or clients. In that analysis, one sentence in particular jumped out at me:

Wow.  With that in mind, consider how your pride and joy (and blood sweat & tears) — your business — appears to the internet at large.  By all means, first work on your basic website functionality, referring to our great starter guide for tips:

But after that, consider secondary online presences like a MySpace or Facebook page.  At the very least, do you personally have a LinkedIn profile? Consider adding these to your constantly growing toolkit for developing your business and branding.

The work of promotion and growing your unique brand never stops - not in a good economy, not in a down market, not ever.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing, Spa Website Design • Comment »

SEO (Search Engine Optimization):

No one can buy from your site if they can't find it. If you want to understand how people do or don't find your website, watch a friend or customer use Google to try to find a spa in our neighborhood. Try this test:

Have your friend search for your spa/salon, then have them search for several spa or services that you offer like a facial, massage or Reiki therapy. If you do not show up on the first page of results, a little SEO effort is in order. SEO is the dark art of making your website visible to the folks who should be looking for it. If you have never heard this term, and want that $4,000 month of online sales, this is a must do. It's a really big subject and the industry is full of scam artists, cheats and liars, so it's best to learn a little about it yourself.

I recommend starting with your "content." Good content is really the key to a successful SEO effort. Content is the stuff you say about your business on your website. It should have lots of the terms you think people are using to look for a spa or your business. Generally, make sure you describe who, what and where you are. You must include your city and geographic prominently in your home page (ideally in the the title tag). There are millions of sites about spas and massage, but only a few in your area. It also matters how your content is put up on your site. Use lots of text in your content. That website with swimming Koi, falling Lotus flowers or whining music are invisible to search engines. No one looks for a spa website for entertainment (except for us if its really really bad).

You should also check out your site's Page Rank. Google ranks website on a scale of 1 to 10. If you are at the bottom of that scale, your site (no matter how pretty) is unlikely to show up on that first page of results unless your content matches the search better then sites that are better ranked.

As I cautioned above, this is a massive area but you can do some good just by paying attention and editing your site. If your website is hard (or expensive) to edit this may be a key problem we can help you solve with a Dynamic Website.

If you would like to chat about these tips, join me by phone tomorrow.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), General, Spa Website Design • 2 Comments »

A TeleSeminar is worth 1000 blog posts.

If you are enjoying our top ten e-commerce tips series, Chris Brazey of SpaBoard is hosting a free TeleSeminar on Thursday, March 6th at 10:00am PT, 1:00pm ET. I will be his "guest" and will be covering 10 Tips to Improve Your Online Marketing. I will discuss all the tips we are presenting in the blog series as well as taking general questions on the subject.

Chris can accommodate the first 100 people who sign up for the seminar.

There is one catch to be aware of; when you sign up, you are also signing up for Chris's weekly profit tip newsletter. Chris assured me that he has an easy unsubscribe program if you later decide that you do not want his tips.

Sign up at DaySpaOwner.com before it fills up.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing, Spa Business Management, General, Spa Website Design • Comment »

Tip #2a

"One of These Things is Not Like the Others…"

Remember that sing-song game that had you as a little kid searching for items in a group that were different from the rest?

Your eye is drawn to differences — it's how our brains are wired.

Like the human eye, which eagerly jumps to things that are new and shiny, so, too, do the search engines. If you change the content of your website on a regular basis, those search engines see the difference on their next go-around and re-index your site. The key to your increased visibility, however, is that once the search engine sees new content, it will re-index your site more frequently.

Say you're on a one-month "schedule" with Google. Change your site every other week and you might now get indexed every 14 days. Or every 7. Obviously I can't speak to their exact strategies, but it has been confirmed that the more you change, the more they will notice.

Read about this in more detail in this great article on the interesting website design blog, AHFX.

Use that knowledge to add some new content to your existing site, change a description of what you do, or jump right into your SpaBoom Dynamic Website and add some new feature information that really talks to your clients. Our Dynamic Websites are already search engine friendly, but regularly changing your own content is just another way to get a leg up on the local and national searches that your potential customers are doing right this very moment. As a bonus, Dynamic Websites automatically tell Google every time you change your site, including things like new specials in Events, encouraging Google to index your site more often.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Website Design, Spa Gift Certificates • Comment »

Tip #2

Have a great website: No, I'm not repeating, or trying to make just 9 points so I can go home early (I am sort of home for those who care).

A website is not something you build and forget about. Just like your store, you have to keep it current or visitors get bored and have no reason to return. Add interesting content regularly; update your menu and specials and packages.

The SpaBoom Dynamic Website application will do this for you, and most of our top sellers use those tools. If you would like to make better use of them, call us! If you don't have a website you can easily edit, you should consider an alternative from us or a good web designer, like our partner Televox.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing, General, Spa Website Design • Comment »

Tip #1

Build a great website: OK this sounds obvious, but it is harder than it sounds. A great website does not have to be fancy, flashy (excuse my pun) or expensive. The problem starts with the design or direction to the web designers. Lots of bad websites result from a designer building what the client asks for. The trick is to ask for the right thing(s).

A website should load quickly, be easy to navigate and have an intuitive lay out. In geek speak we call that usability.

Think about what someone might want to look for on your website. Information like hours, phone number, treatments, location(s) and transaction links (like gift certificates, shopping carts or reservations) are what most web users are looking for on a business website. They should be able to get to any one of those from your home page with a single click.

Avoid "click to enter" landing pages, music and anything that causes a progress bar (often with the text "loading") to appear. These things look impressive when the designer shows them to you but no one wants to sit through them-twice. You want your clients to return often.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), General, Spa Website Design • 3 Comments »

Okay, so you're starting to read about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) everywhere, including on the SpaBoom Blog. You have a sense that it's important, but it's still very confusing. Worse, the information you read about SEO seems to be either conflicting or unhelpful.

What exactly is SEO and how can it help you? Let me suggest this definition for SEO:

When someone goes to Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL or the other search engines, and they want a spa or salon, they find and click to your website. Your website and online marketing practices should be tuned such that this opportunity is maximized - and more people see your business listed in those search results.

At the end of the day, people go to search engines to find the websites (and businesses) they desire and might not already know about. SEO involves everything that is necessary to get those people to go to your website.

There are many diverse opinions on SEO, and what makes this as much art as science, is the search engines themselves are constantly "fine tuning" the way they rank websites. They appear to do this for two primary reasons: first, to ostensibly provide better search results to their users and second, to prevent websites from "gaming the system."

Despite the varying opinions on SEO, there are some basic ground-rules. We are beginning a series of blog posts that will discuss how you can evaluate the effectiveness of your SEO, and give you practical suggestions on how you can improve your SEO. To not miss a thing, add our blog to your RSS feeder, or keep watching for new posts in the "Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO)" category.

Posted in Tutorials, Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • 1 Comment »

A lot of website design work these days (ok, most) is redesigning existing websites. Not exactly a bad way to spend your time, since the traditional way of building websites is a manual process. Even if the website was at one time search engine optimized, is unlikely to be any longer. But there is a critical step in a website redesign for which you'll pay a big price if you miss it.

Older websites, even when not search engine friendly, bring with them something very valuable: link equity. That's all the incoming links from other websites and all the links from search engines that have crawled your old website. That includes a lot of deep links — links which point from one page to another within your website.

It's very common — if not almost every time — to rename internal pages in a website redesign. Previously, Google or another website may have known your services page as services.html, but in your new website it's called menu, and Google "loses" that data. The value of all those links has just disappeared.

To sidestep the issue completely, do not change the filenames of your internal pages if you can avoid it. But if it can't be helped, here's the critical step: make sure your webmaster does a redirect from the old page to the new. You keep all that link equity, and it's valuable stuff! (Technical note: the redirect should be a 301, not a 302).

It's something we do automatically for Dynamic Websites (and one great reason to upgrade your SpaBoom Linked-in account to a Dynamic). Because of the Google Sandbox, you've got a big advantage with an exisiting website — make sure you keep it!

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Website Design • 6 Comments »

Google is important.

Businesses everywhere are getting more and more of their business from their online presence — even small local businesses, like say spas.

For example, 48% of Instant Gift Certificate sales on Spa Emergency started with a search on Google, compared with 11% from MSN and 4% from Yahoo. We rank better on Google and MSN than Yahoo, so it's not a perfect representation of each search engine's traffic. But it shows the importance of search engines, particularly Google.

Google's importance has started to make them the new Microsoft — the big evil, tech company that everyone loves to hate. Google is far from perfect and their motivations don't match your's terribly well. They want to provide their users with the best possible search results, while serving up all those ads that make them truckloads of money. From your perspective, you are always the most relevant search result. I completely understand your perspective — I share it, and we're always working hard on it.

But, that doesn't make the "Do no evil" company evil. They've just been super-successful and they now have an out-sized impact on all of us.

At lot of what I read in the mainstream press about search engines and particularly search engine optimization (SEO) misses the mark — often entirely. That's why I enjoyed reading the New York Times article Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine:

The writer doesn't try to get technical (which probably helps with not missing the mark), but provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the philosophy that drives Google as it works to improve it's search engine results.

Here's a great example that hits home for what we care about, finding local businesses:

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • Comment »

Well, at least approximately…

I hate to even write about this, since the value of PageRank is so hugely overvalued. But, it's still an interesting barometer for a website even if it doesn't have near the effect on your ranking in search results that did it the good ol' days. But here's the rub: Google only rarely updates the "published" PageRank that you see in places like the Google Toolbar. For example, it shows a PageRank of 0 for Spa Emergency.

You can, however, get a current, if only approximate PageRank from Google Webmaster Tools, which shows your page with highest PageRank (almost always your home page), and the number of pages (although not which ones) with low, medium and high PageRank. So, it's only approximate, and it translates so:

• Low: PageRank of 1 to 3
• Medium: PageRank of 4 to 6
• High: PageRank of 7 or higher

There's a big difference between a PageRank of 4 vs. 6. But, there is some value in this, particularly for a brand new website where you're actively working on search engine optimization (SEO). Spa Emergency, for example, shows a "medium" PageRank.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • 2 Comments »

Search engine optimization (SEO) is always done by focusing on specific keywords, like "Atlanta spa" or "massage Albuquerque". Ironically, although doing this well will bring you visitors making those searches, it's all the variations of searches — often completely unique variations — that will make up the bulk of your search traffic.

For example, for Spa Emergency, one of the keywords we've focused on is the rather obvious "spa gift certificates". But look at some examples of searches that have produced sales for SpaBoomers on Spa Emergency:

• massage spa mill valley strawberry village
• saint louis spas
• massage therapy + whitewater WI
• internet gift certificate email
• pedicure arlington
• send gift certificate through email

Those are all unique, one-time searches that brought a visitor to Spa Emergency who purchased an Instant Gift Certificate.

Of course, we get plenty of visitors searching for "spa gift certificates". But unique, one-time searches make up 82% of our visitors, and that has turned into 82% of our sales on Spa Emergency for SpaBoomers.

Focusing on keywords is still the practical way to go about SEO. But keeping the long tail in mind will make it much more effective.

By the way, the term "long tail" was popularized by the interesting book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. It's a great phenomena of the Internet: unlimited shelf space means that we're not limited to just the best sellers anymore. The original term came from statistics, to describe the common occurrence where low-frequency instances actually make up the majority in aggregate. Search terms are a great example.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • Comment »

It's easy to think of search engine optimization (SEO) as a one-time project — you do it, and you're done (many spas think of their websites this way, too, but that's a whole another subject). Alas, it just isn't so. Search engines are always changing, always trying to refine their results.

Google, which used to be famous for a few really big changes each year, is now rolling out refinements on a more constant, rolling basis. Last week, they made an algorithm change that bumped Spa Emergency from position #10 for "spa gift certificates" into the 20s. It's life with SEO, and you just adjust to the change and keep working hard. Newer websites will tend to feel the effects of changes more significantly. It's the ongoing SEO efforts that turn your website into an old hand for the search engines. We focus on the areas that bring real long-term benefit:

• Great content: It's easy to say, but hard to do. The more useful, relevant content for the audience that you care about, the better you'll do with search engines.
• Trusted links: Other websites linking to you, which are themselves relevant to your audience, gives you great traffic and sends all the right signals to Google.

SEO isn't difficult. But it is real work. And the intricacies are very detailed, and always changing.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • Comment »

We launched Spa Emergency less than two months ago, and we've already got great news to report about our ranking on search engines. We've focused on "spa gift certificates" even though this is a very competitive keyword. (Have you ever noticed that "keywords" should really be called "keyphrases"?)

First, the easier target: MSN. Spa Emergency ranks #1 for "spa gift certificates" on MSN, and that's been the case for a couple of weeks now. That means we're above SpaFinder, above SpaWish — above everyone!

Now, for the harder nut to crack: Google. Thanks to what many people call the Google sandbox, it's no small challenge to get new websites to rank well, no matter how great or relevant your site is. But this past weekend, Spa Emergency has started appearing for "spa gift certificates" on the first page of results on Google. In the last position, mind you, but we know how important it is to make it onto the first page. Because of the nature of search engine optimization, Spa Emergency's rankings will move around some.

We still have a lot of work to do to move further up and better promote your spa, but we are more than slightly pleased with the early results.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing • 6 Comments »

How do you know if Google is indexing your site or if it's running into any problems? Use Google Webmaster Tools! It's a great, no-cost service that makes sure Google knows about all the pages on your site, and reports back any problems.

You start by creating a Sitemap XML file, which lists all of the pages on your site in a very specific format. In return, Google tells you about any technical problems it has in indexing your site. You'd be surprised at the number of problems this uncovers — for example, Google might be looking for a page that no longer exists because another website is still linking to it.

Then, when your site changes, you can "ping" Google to automatically resubmit your sitemap.

Google also gives you some cool stats about search queries. Good web stats will show you the queries that visitors click on to get to your site. But Google knows something else: the search queries for which your site appears, even if they didn't click on it, and your position in those search results. Valuable stuff!

You can see why we use Google Webmaster Tools for all of our spa websites:

• We monitor it to resolve any problems Google has indexing your site.
• SpaBoom automatically pings Google whenever you change your Dynamic Website (including when a new Event comes up, like your holiday special).
• We analyze Google's stats for search engine optimization.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SpaBoom New Features • Comment »

Naming your spa is tough. The hours of agony, the battles with your partners or significant other or employees or strangers on the street. I'm going to simplify it for you — all we're going to pay attention to is search engine optimization.

The most common way people will find you online is by searching for your name. So, you have to rank in search engines for the name of your spa. That means:

• Your name has to be easy to spell, and short enough that people can remember the whole thing.
• You really want the .com domain, and it must match your name.

That's it! It works, because search engines give precedence to searches that match the domain name exactly.

In the end, take heart: because whatever the name of your spa, it's not the syllables that make it up but the experience of your spa that gives the name meaning.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Starting a Spa • Comment »

We've brought everything together in one concise place in our Online Spa Marketing Guide.

We've seen it in the experience of SpaBoomers around the country — focusing more of your marketing efforts online produces great results for the business of spa.

We start with the foundation of your online marketing, your spa's website, and then dive into choosing keywords, optimizing your pages for search engines, building links and online advertising. Check it out — and tell us what you think!

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing • Comment »

Just in the last two days, both Yahoo! Local and Microsoft's Live Local have added a bevy of enhancements, trying to catch up with Google (details on TechCrunch). In terms of adding complexity, I think they've succeeded.

Although still a little rough around the edges (particularly Microsoft), this competition is good news for local businesses — we've got three big companies battling it out to help make it easier to find your spa. There is a downside, though, which is you've got a couple more places you need to update your spa's information:

• Add your spa in Yahoo's Local Listings. They make "Featured Listings" look just like Adwords and I would question their effectiveness. I'd just go with the free basic listing.
• Microsoft gets it's local listings from another company: go to Localeze to add or update your listing.

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing • Comment »

Search is going local, and that's great news for spas! Check out the listing for Renew Day Spa on Google Local:

It really stands out! A lot of great information there — and it should be there for your spa, too! Go to "How do I add my business to Google Maps?" to learn how or go directly to the Google Local Business Center to do it.

There's good reason to check up on your listing — Google may not be showing the right website for your Local listing. In checking a handful of SpaBoomers' listings, I quickly found a couple pointing to the wrong website (I've already emailed you, if it was you).

Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Marketing • 2 Comments »