WHAT MAKES A GREAT MED SPA OR DAY SPA WEBSITE?
What makes a spa, medical spa or salon website great? While some owners believe it’s simply a matter of a creating the ultimate “pretty face”, the evolution of web-based marketing has taken service-industry websites well beyond the predictable beauty contest. A spa, medical spa or salon website is no different than any other “business to consumer” (B2C) website. A great website must be attractive, but also easy to find and navigate, relevant to the customer the spa is trying to attract, continually fresh and most important of all, revenue-enhancing. Let's examine several DVI Web Works spa websites that put an attractive face on very functional and practical architectures.
 In a small to medium size service-oriented business, many owners look at their website as the last item on their "to do" list. Most spa operators spend their work day on their feet, on the phone, dealing with vendors or putting out fires in their operations. The website, which never clamors for their attention, is often the most neglected element of the marketing program. Due to all the work that goes into creating a site, even a simple one, there’s a tendency to think of that project as “complete” when your site launches, and move on to other priorities. In fact, your work has just begun.
An owner may live with a website that's mediocre, incomplete, outdated, unattractive, or "out of order" for months, even years. Meanwhile, their potential customers, many of whom spend their days in front of a computer screen, are not receiving their all-important marketing message. Your ideal spa demographic, the educated, informed, and affluent customer, is shopping and comparing online. Your website is your sales presentation. A bad presentation won’t be forgiven by the discerning shopper. A mediocre or difficult to use site sends a potentially damaging message to the savvy spa-goer, just as paint peeling off your sign would do to the passerby.Your website has become your spa’s single most important marketing modality. Are you ready to get started?
Click here to request a quote to build your new spa website today!
The Ability To Be Found
Let’s be frank. What good is a beautiful and informative website if nobody knows it exists or can’t find it even when they know it exists? Arguably, the most important part of a great spa website is visibility.
Imagine Jane Doe is new to the town of Burbank, California and looking for a day spa. If Jane is like many people these days, she will run right to Google or Yahoo
and type in “Glendale CA Day Spa”. Or perhaps even more cleverly, use the zip code (“91206 Day Spa”). Would Jane find your spa using this method? Ms. Doe may locate a spa through a search engine on a directory service. But these results tend to be one- line links to the address and phone number and nothing more.
How many competitor websites appear in Google when you type in your city and a keyphrase like “day spa” and hit search?
Many business owners unwittingly leave it up to Jane to find them through a “Yellow Pages” search directory such as Yahoo! Local® or Verizon’s
Super Pages®. The web designer didn’t pay any attention to making their website “search engine friendly”: designing a website so that it’s
easily read by the search engines. For example, most search engines still have difficulty reading text from Flash-based websites (and some still have difficulty with
regular ol’ HTML websites!) On this same subject, a great spa website appears quickly when the user types in the address! If a website is hosted on a bargain-basement server, it may be too slow
for the oft-harried web surfer’s tastes. A great spa website will always be found when it's hosted on a fast, reliable server.
A Pretty Face
 Naturally, your spa website should be attractive, inviting and simple for the user to navigate. A great website makes a clean, strong first impression, reflecting the
beautiful and relaxing environment that awaits the client. You wouldn't leave garbage piled up by the front door of your spa, so why clutter up your home page with
"litter"?
If the spa is physically attractive, either inside or out, the single easiest way to start building a great website is to hire a professional photographer to do
interior and exterior shots, including a few set-ups. Set-ups can feature the staff performing massage, facials or other services. A great spa website gives the potential visitor a glimpse into the environment they will experience. This is especially helpful to male clients as spas are still strange and exotic destinations for many men with little or no spa-going experience.
Form never precludes function in a truly great spa website. A great spa website will never waste its visitor’s time by displaying pointless Flash spectacles.
When you see these “intro” Flash presentations, chances are they were simply a means for the web designer to demonstrate his or her capabilities, and land the job. Once the website has been “live” for more than a month, these mini-movies no longer serve any purpose and customers just skip by them.
Ease Of Use
A great spa website is simple for customers to navigate. It is tempting for some web designers or over-zealous spa promoters to put every advertisement, headline and
piece of information on the home page. But that hodpodge of information only serves to confuse and distract from your central message: Yours is a place to relax, heal
and unwind!
Useful Information
Numbers and directions are the most important pieces of information to communicate to your customers. Is your contact information easily accessible on your
website or hidden behind pointless Flash presentations or buried in a maze of confusing links? It’s likely that many potential clients will call instead
of further exploring your website if they are in a hurry.
Customer Interaction & Revenue Generation
This is the acid-test for a great spa website: is there any way for the customer to interact with the website, or better yet, conduct business with the spa online? If the website is seen as simply “brochureware”, what is the motivation for the customer to return to the website?
Giving the client a reason to return to your website has many obvious benefits, aside from staying current with the latest promotions, specials and news. Perhaps the spa has added a brand new cutting-edge service since the client's last visit. That information is immediately available. Thus, an interactive website is a "living entity", a reliable source for the customer's needs. Perhaps most important, the client will sense that the website itself wasn't simply designed and forgotten, but constantly reflects the dynamics of the spa.
A simple email link is practically mandatory, but a great spa website goes further to make the client’s experience a positive one. An easy-to-use customer feedback form or a targeted survey can give spa management valuable insight into the minds of their clientele. A web-based Gift Certificate ordering system enables your spa to generate revenue both during and outside your normal operating hours. Making it possible for your customers to do business with you whenever it’s convenient for them is taking the extra step toward a positive online experience. And what spa owner wouldn't like to wake up each morning and find that hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of Gift Certificates have been sold during the night?
Online product sales is another convenience you can offer your customers, while making life easier for you. The customer does much of the work (entering their order, contact and credit card information) while you simply do the fulfillment (shipping the products ordered).
Online reservations are something of the “Holy Grail” for spa websites and a few spa websites appear to offer this convenience. However, unless the reservation is actually made (entered into the spa’s reservation book, either by hand or automatically) through the website, there exists a chance of disappointing a client or potential client. There are two ways to go about offering online reservations: automatic entry into reservation software, or via a “reservation request” email from the website. Make certain if you choose to offer online reservations that there is either direct linkage to your reservation software or that your concierge is very attentive to incoming emails.
Who Are You?
A great spa website doesn’t just tell their customers who they are, it shows them. The “About Us” page is a great place to put a human face on the website. Too many times, spa websites use this page to discuss their philosophy or how they started. Perhaps this belongs on a different page (“Our Philosophy”). “About Us” should be about who works at the spa: staff photos and clearly indicated titles go a long way toward establishing a more personal connection.
Fresh And Relevant
Last and definitely not least, a great spa website does not allow itself to become stale and irrelevant. Too often, a beautiful spa website is published and left to “die on the vine”. When a client realizes a spa website never changes, they will stop checking it on a regular basis, and that website ceases to be an asset. A great spa website keeps its home page fresh with skin care tips, holiday specials and other promotions.
Now that you know that we know how to build a great spa website, why not contact us today for a customized quote?
Click here to request a quote to build your new spa website today!
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