Spa Website Design

Coy is cute, but not when it comes to your spa's website. If it's been awhile since you performed a very simple test — the test of visibility — on your site, now is a great time to do that. Oh, and it's best to have someone else perform the search. That way you can get a real world experience, the results of which which will help you embrace, or possibly adjust, your website's 'net visibility.

Have a friend find your business online and watch what happens.

Don’t give them your URL; just ask them to do it organically so you can observe their process. Do they use Google, Yahoo or MSN to conduct the search? How is your URL ranked in the search results? Are you even ranked?

If you like what you see it will reinforce all the effort you have made thus far so keep it up. If you were surprised and not in a good way, it is time to reevaluate your website and get it in shape to help your business thrive.

This is an easy way to give you insight regarding how customers search for your services and website.

Posted in General, Spa Website Design • Comment »

A website with a large derriere may seem like a strange metaphor, but weight is relative. If you're carrying the right weight, you may look toned and fit. If you're not toned and fit but are at a low weight, you might still look larger than you'd like. It's a sad truth, and one that keeps us either vigilant or in the dumpers at any given point.

Where am I going with this? Your website's content might be robust but not fit, fit in this case meaning well written incorporating good keywords.

How to Increase Traffic Using Keywords Wisely

When developing or updating website content using the 3-4 keywords that result in the biggest impact from organic searches makes sense. But be aware, every other savvy spa in your area will be using the same keywords on their website.

Take the upper hand by incorporating additional keywords in content to attract a more specific customer looking for specific services. Creating precise content that describes your services in detail can bring in customers who are ready to make a purchase or set up an appointment. Why? Because these customers are looking for something specific and are much more likely to purchase if you have what they are looking for in spa services.

When describing your spa services, catch the customer’s eye with a great title and then provide a thorough picture of the service. If you offer unique and specialized spa services or you are a one-stop shop for the body, make sure the website accurately outlines each feature and backs it up by communicating the immediate and long-term benefits of the services.

Each time your website is indexed, every word you use can act as a keyword so craft your message carefully. Use action words in web content whenever possible, it will have a positive impact on website traffic. Think about it through the eyes of a customer. When conducting a natural search what action words might customers use to describe the spa services they are looking for? It is important to construct content that gives the customer an energetic and dynamic image of your spa services.

Leverage website content by being specific and assertive when describing your spa services. It is much easier to gain a client if you have exactly what they want.

Posted in Spa Marketing, General, Spa Website Design • Comment »

It’s time to take a "real" look at your spa website. It is super easy to be consumed by the surface of things, take my closets for example. I can feel good about the state of my house until I open a closet door, at which point I am consistently flabbergasted as I inventory what has been shoved into tight corners and what is suspiciously missing altogether. I realize I am once again guilty of practicing the art of denial.

Denying you have a household clutter issue is one thing; avoiding looking deeply into your website can translate to clutter of a sort that makes it hard for your visitors to navigate, or, worse case, makes it frustrating for them to do business with you.

So, take a look at your website and see if you can’t make some improvements. It is important to look beyond your website’s homepage and make sure the content and graphics on all pages are optimized to improve ranking which will improve traffic to your spa website.

Are all inbound links from trusted and relevant websites?

Over time, inbound links, websites that link to your website, can improve your natural search rank. It is intuitive that if other, relevant websites see your website as a resource, it should rank higher in search results. In the eyes of search engines, established websites, with a steady and healthy number of inbound links build trust and can react to link building more easily.

Do you know how to see all your inbound links?

If you would like to review your website's inbound links, go to Google search, type link and then your website’s address (URL) in the search box. Google compiles all the inbound links from all the big search engines into a list. You can see who has referenced your website. It is fascinating to take a look at the similarities and diversity of the links.

Do you have deep links?

A deep link is an inbound link to a page other than your website’s home page. It links to an internal page with particular content or images. A deep link implies to search engines that you have relevant data throughout the website. It encourages search engines to see your spa website as a resource for other relevant websites. A deep link opens more of your spa website for review and begins to reveal the full potential of your website.

There is tremendous opportunity for spa businesses to leverage their websites to increase traffic and sales. It starts by taking a realistic look at the entire website and a willingness to do the dirty work required to improve it. Dig deep, check your spa website to ensure it is up-to-date and doing all that it can to build your business.

Posted in Spa Business Management, General, Spa Website Design • 6 Comments »

This summer, SEO blogs turned their attention to the news of the moment:  Googlebot is now indexing .swf (Flash) files.

Does this mean that now, finally, using Flash on your website is OK?

In a nutshell, no.  Here's why — its about designing your site to be friendly to your audience, first and foremost.  What do your visitors want?  According to on-the-ground studies, they want to know:

1. How to find you.
2. How to contact you.
3. Your hours.
4. Your prices.  (Maybe)
5. Everything else, including:  events, specials, your story, photos, testimonials, newsletters, ambiance, and a "spa experience".

Do I sound harsh?  I don't mean to be.  A well-designed site can be elegant and still convey all of the most important information that your customers want.  But, if it is a lovely site with Flash elements and a preponderance of images that take a long time to load — especially on a mobile device — a potential customer like me isn't going to come in.  Why not?  If I cannot go to the website and immediately find an address, a phone number, and business hours, the website is almost useless.

Once I have that information, I'll likely stick around and read about the business, investigate my options, spend more time.  But first I need the basics, and it is all to easy to overlook those when designing with an eye towards graphics and motion as the first priority.

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

We hear from SpaBoom customers that writing web content can be a challenge. It is not surprising, writing effective web content is a unique marketing medium, much different than writing a brochure for your spa.

At SpaBoom, we thought it might help to answer some of your most vexing web content challenges. What do you want to know about writing effective web content for your spa?

I am constantly inspired by the stories I hear from our spa customers. Their unique passions and hard work for what they do is exceptional. That passion and inspiration along with a firm hold on its value to customers is a key piece in developing effective web content.

All the information you need to write effective content for your spa is out there, it is a matter of extracting and organizing it in a way that helps your customers.

We want to hear from you and will post our answers in a timely manner.

Posted in Spa Marketing, General, Spa Website Design • 4 Comments »

Haven't taken a peek at your website in a couple of months? (or, *gasp*, more than that?)  Here's what happens:

• Your website is not delivering value to you.  It is functioning as a doormat, something walked over when a customer is trying to get to your front door.

Go ahead — go look at it right now.  I'll wait…

Ok, done looking at your site?  What did you see?  Perhaps some contact info, some general words about what you do, some photos from last year?   If you just look at it with no assumptions, do you think to yourself, "this website speaks to me like it is fresh and hot in the middle of summer in 2008″?

No?  Let's solve that, and work on turning your doormat into a snazzy full-service valet.

There are a few easy ways you can get back on track and liven up your customer's experience:

• Monthly specials — doesn't matter if there's a holiday or not — just make one up. August? Perfect for back to school mom de-stressing packages. "Congrats! You've survived another summer with your kids — treat yourself!"
• Newsletters with photos of your spa and your employees — keep your customers familiar with what "you" look like, and they'll feel a more personal connection.

If they are excited about your voice on the website, they will keep coming back to see what you are up to each month, and every visit back is another opportunity to connect with them as a client.

Posted in Creating Customers, Spa Website Design • 4 Comments »

We've all been technological hostages at one time or another, and we've all reacted differently to that most ridiculous experience. We at SpaBoom decided that being dependent upon IT gurus more than is absolutely necessary, is just silly.

Examples like the ones that follow are part of the reason we not only provide the powerful revenue generating Instant Gift Certificates, but also offer up Dynamic Websites that you the spa owner can edit at will. Without calling us. Unless you just want to say, "Hi!", which is always fine.

Enjoy!

A spa owner knows they hired the wrong web designer when…

• They realize that cheap actually means crappy.
• They try to make a change to the site and it crashes.
• It takes until Valentine's to update last year's holiday spa menu-Ho Ho Ho!
• You would have called him an idiot at the first meeting but his mom had driven him there.
• He withholds site changes unless you refer to him as "the master."
• The web designer vents endlessly about her last "super picky, totally over the top with changes" client.
• Web site design budget exceeds last year's gross revenue.
• You read your web designer's blog and you suddenly feel dirty.
• You have to change your security settings to see his personal blog.
• His eyes light up when you tell him you are a massage therapist.

Posted in General, Spa Website Design • Comment »

Reviews, reviews.  We've talked a lot about them, first when we introduced them in October, and then again last month when announcing that we had collected over 30 thousand of them on your behalf!

Currently, the number stands at almost 42,000 - a fantastic opportunity for you to showcase your favorite clients and their feedback.

I will cover how to add Reviews to your Linked in website in Part 2, but first up:

If you have a hosted dynamic website with us, adding reviews to your Events sidebar and your navigation menu (see my handy illustration to the right) is easy, and we go over it in our new help document, called "Reviews for Dynamic Websites".  Yeah, we try not to be too tricky when naming help files - all the better for you to find them, of course.  If you've considered a dynamic website from us, this is yet one more reason to hop on the wagon - up-front showcasing of those great testimonials!

You can continue to see all of your reviews from the Reports tab, whether or not you display them on your site.  Use that report to keep track of any great comments, or even identify places where you can improve in the future.  After all, your clients will tell you exactly what they want, if you just let them, and that's what we are making available to both of you.

Let us know if you have great success stories or comments on the whole Reviews feature - we'd love to hear it!

Posted in SpaBoom New Features, Spa Website Design • 7 Comments »

Episode 2: Will it attract the right attention?

Being just a pretty face simply doesn't cut it on the Web. Nothing proves that more readily than a gorgeous website that just can't seem to garner online attention or convert visitors to clients.

Why does this happen? Well, maybe there's too much Flash and not enough substance. If you've read our prior postings on how invisible Flash is to search engines, then you know we're not making this up just to be difficult. If you haven't, check out Seth's article to catch up.

Other factors in the so beautiful but terribly ineffective conundrum include heavy use of graphical text. If, for example, the name of your spa is only displayed as a graphic, rather than appearing in true text form as well, it won't be seen by search engines. It's invisible. Imagine that. Something you spent so much time and energy developing, the very essence of your business image, invisible.

While sophisticated in some ways, search engines are truly blind to the content within graphics. So don't stop using photos, by any means. Just make sure the describing text is outside of the graphic itself.

Speaking of photos… did you know that you can create your own library of photos within your SpaBoom Dynamic Website and rotate them as often as you like?

Posted in Spa Marketing, General, Spa Website Design • 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 »

A lot of our Dynamic Spa Website themes have some sort of boundary — we thought it was time to break free with the new Floating theme. Open and airy, Floating is unrestricted by the lines and boxes that define many website designs.

See an example of the Floating theme. Like all SpaBoom Dynamic Websites, it's easy to choose your own color palette and photos, add new pages and customize to your heart's content.

If you're thinking about switching themes for your Dynamic, check out the great new feature we have in Website, Settings to "Create Website Backup". It's a great idea to make a backup any time you're going to make big changes to your site.

Posted in SpaBoom New Features, Spa Website Design • 2 Comments »

Tip #3

Sell packages or services online: Most of our top sellers sell packages or gifts for services. The top quarter of our sellers have an average a higher average sale amount, which makes perfect sense. If a (possibly male) spa gift buyer does not know what to buy they generally buy a $100 gift certificate (our average sale data supports this assertion). However, if you have a nice $129 Valentine's Day package, many buyers will jump on it-and you just raised your revenue 30% on the transaction.

Posted in SpaFinder, General, Spa Website Design, Starting a Spa • 5 Comments »

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 »

What do you get when you combine TeleVox Software's communication solutions with SpaBoom's Instant Gift Certificates technology? A partnership that delivers revenue-maximizing services to salon and spa owners!

SpaBoom is now the TeleVox preferred provider of online gift certificates for spas and salons, and will be included as an option in TeleVox's custom-designed WebPlus websites. The addition of premium gift certificates is a perfect fit with the TeleVox websites, which are built by the company's in-house design team and include industry-leading hosting services.

"We are excited to work with SpaBoom to provide spas and salons with an easy-to-use tool for increasing online revenue," said Chad Greer, Vice President of TeleVox. "With today’s prevalence of e-commerce, our customers are now better able to provide comprehensive client service that includes the crucial online component."

We are delighted to be working the TeleVox, and look forward to partnering on many beautiful and highly effective websites for our spas and salons!

To learn more about TeleVox, please visit www.televox.com.

Posted in TeleVox, Spa Website Design • 4 Comments »

Squeaky wheels get the grease, especially around here. Some of you (ok lots of you) had been telling us that you GOT how cool our Dynamic Websites are, and why your spas, salons and massage therapy practices would benefit from having one, but that you just didn't want to take the project on yourselves.

We promised to hold your hands through the process, to ensure that we'd encourage and support and direct you through the process, and that we wouldn't let you get in over your heads.

You know what we heard? "We just don't have the time to take on a project like this, no matter what you say, SpaBoom."

So, in spite of the fact that we did NOT originally intend to go into the website construction business, but were content just refreshing and guiding website work, we went into the business.

We decided to charge a little, just to pay for the time required to choose a color palette, to choose a design template, to enter your service menus and content, and $299 for the soup-to-nuts creation process is what we came up with. The monthly fee of $39.95 begins 30 days after signup.

We really want you all to have Dynamic Websites. We really want you all to be able to update your content and graphics at will, no techies required. Of course Instant Gift Certificates and Appointment Requests are automatically part of each new Dynamic.

And since we really want you all to have a great website, which will help you be more visible and beautiful (from a web perspective!) we're going to do full constructions for just $99 until September 14th.

So, get on the stick if you're one of the ones who got us headed this direction (and you KNOW who you are!) and let's build your website already!

Posted in Spa Website Design • 3 Comments »

Some website designers love to use a technique that may start out looking beautiful, but can make it almost impossible to read your spa's website: use small text with too little contrast.

Here is a website example which mixes bright text along with a background image that further muddies the view:

This hardly means you need to work in black and white! Color is still useful and important to set the mood for your clients. Four examples of the same general color scheme are shown below that feature both good contrast and poor contrast - see the difference it makes in readability (image thanks to Destroy All Monsters).

When choosing your colors, do not be afraid to use vibrant hues and exciting juxtapositions, but make sure that the text leaps off the screen without giving you a headache, and you've probably struck a good balance.

Posted in General, Spa Website Design • Comment »