In this 5-minute read:
- Getting started with Google My Business
- Promoting your salon with Google Ads
- Using search engine optimization to promote organic traffic
Yellow pages is old news, and social media can only get you so far. So, how does a salon get more customers in this modern digital world? Try the first place that customers are searching for a new service—Google! With more than 63,000 searches every second, it’s no wonder that there’s such a large emphasis on this internet giant.
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How do you go about promoting your hair or nail salon on Google? It can seem like a daunting task, but we’re here to break it down into bite-sized pieces for you. Let’s start with the basics.
Google My Business
The number one place your salon should be listed on is Google My Business. This is how businesses show up in Google Maps, so the next time someone does a search on their phone for a “nail salon near me” you can make sure that your business shows up. The best part about this tool is that it’s completely free!
While creating your Google My Business listing, be sure to include at least all of the following information:
- The name of your salon
- Category (i.e. “nail salon,” “hair salon,” “beauty salon”)
- Phone number
- Address
- Website
- Lots of photos
These will help customers get a feel for your salon before ever stepping foot into it. And in today’s world, we all love to research all of our options before making a decision—so make sure you’re in the running!
Once you’ve listed and claimed your business on Google, you’re off to a great start. But this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll show up on the first page of Google, so here are some more promotion opportunities for you to try.
Google Ads
Google Ads is an advertising platform where individuals pay to display their advertisements on Google—usually on the first page of the search results. This is a great way to promote your salon on Google if you’re just starting up or if your business isn’t showing up in the top results. Paying for ads will get you to the top of page one immediately, but that’s the caveat—you have to pay.
Each time someone clicks on one of your Google Ads, you will have to pay for that click. You can allocate a daily and monthly spending limit for your ads so that you don’t go over your marketing budget, but these can get expensive to run over time, especially in a competitive market.
One thing that you will want to be certain of before continuing to pay for Google Ads long term is that you’re getting a good return on your investment. If you end up paying $2 per click, but only acquire a customer every 20 clicks, you’re going to be losing money on a $35 manicure. Sometimes this can take several weeks of testing out before finding that sweet spot.
If you think Google Ads could be profitable for your salon, here are three options that might work well for you.
1. Search Ads
These are the most common type of Google Ads that you come across when conducting a Google search. These results typically show up above the Google map results and the regular listings and have a little “ad” indicator to the left of the URL.
For these ads, you should choose compelling wording to entice people to click on your ads, and ultimately call for your services. This is a great place to list promotions and other deals that you have going on.
2. Mobile Ads
With more than 60 percent of Google searches being conducted on cell phones and other mobile devices, mobile advertisements provide a great opportunity for salons to promote their businesses on Google.
Google’s call-only ads are similar to the search ads, but they only appear on mobile devices and use the phone number of the business as the headline to encourage customers to call. All it takes is the tap of a finger.
3. Display Ads
Google’s display ads are the ads that you see on other websites that are relevant to recent searches you’ve conducted or websites that you’ve visited. These typically require an image and a link to your website, and Google will do the rest—finding the best placements according to your objectives.
The two types of display ads that would work great for a salon are demographic targeting and remarketing. Demographic targeting allows you to choose the age, gender, location, and language of your target audience. If you want to target more women between the ages of 25 and 50, this is how you can do that. Remarketing allows you to target people who have already visited your website. So if they’re still shopping around or haven’t made a decision yet, you are consistently showing up to remind them that you are there.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is how a website or Google My Business listing shows up organically on Google. It can be quite a beast, but it’s the best way to help your salon show up on Google without having to pay for ads forever. One thing to remember, SEO is a long-term strategy and can take several months before you start seeing a return from it.
Now, before scaring you away from SEO, here are a few ways that you can boost your own SEO:
1. Get positive customer reviews
Customer reviews on your Google listing hold a lot of weight with Google and can help your Google My Business listing rank well on Google Maps. The important thing here is to continue getting positive reviews at a steady rate. You always want fresh reviews coming in for new customers to see.
2. Get into a local news article
Think public relations and news articles. If your salon is new to the area, try to get the local news to do promotion piece on their website, but make sure they link back to your website within their article. Links to your website from reputable sources like this can really help to boost the authority of your website with Google. So keep an eye out for mentions of your salon online and ask anyone who mentions you to link back to your website.
3. Write a blog
Google loves fresh new content on websites, especially content that is helpful and engages your website visitors. Once or twice a month you could produce an article or a video with beauty tips or tutorials that your visitors will share (and maybe even link to).
Go deeper: 15 free tips to improve local SEO
Need help attracting customers and getting more reviews? Try our reputation management software to get feedback from happy customers, monitor your reviews, and help more customers find you on Google. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!