The Most Common Mistakes Hairstylists Make On Their Websites

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. Today, we are talking about something that I have a massive love-hate relationship with. And the reason why I hate it is because it can be inconvenient, it can be stressful and overwhelming to set up.

But the reason I love it is because it is such a powerful tool, and it can make such a huge difference for you and your success as a hairstylist. It is something that can truly make or break a client deciding whether or not they actually want to come see you. It is something that can make or break if you can charge high-ticket prices or not. Like, truly, it can be so important for you.

And it can be done right, and it can be done very wrong. And that is your website. So in this episode, I'm going to be talking to you about the most common mistakes that hairstylists make with their websites. I have a beautiful community of hairstylists within my programs, and within these, uh, programs, I have a quarterly funnel audit in which, on a quarterly basis, all of my members can submit for an audit from me and some of the community and give really kind, constructive feedback about the website and improvements that they can make or celebrate things that they're doing right.

Um, and so because of this, I've seen hundreds of websites, um, and I've been able to see what people do right and what people do, do wrong, what works really well. And I teach proven frameworks within my programs that teach people exactly what is working right now and how to actually push a client into trusting you and, uh, move closer to wanting to book with you. So with all this experience that I have, I found that there are some key big, big, big, big things that can really mess up a user's experience and, and really, uh, hinder a s- a stylist's success with their website. So I'm going to be sharing with you those things today.

I'm not holding anything back. These are truly really important things and very juicy things that I'll want you to take in consideration with your own website. So make sure to stay tuned and listen to them all throughout this episode, and I think that you'll kind of be shocked at some of these, and you'll be like, "Oh, shit, I'm doing that right now?" Um, "I should probably stop doing that."

And, uh, hopefully this is helpful for you in all the ways. So, if you're ready to get into it, let's go. What's the tea, friend? My name's Hunter Donia, industry business educator for hairstylists, but my friends just call me Hunty.

Whether it be growing your clientele, making more money, or automating and streamlining your systems, in the next 20 minutes or so, you'll be hearing realistic, actionable strategies to create a beautiful career for yourself behind the chair. So if you're ready to get into it, welcome to the Modern Hairstylist podcast. All right, my friend, so the most common hairstylist website mistakes that I see. These are big make or breaks, all right?

These aren't just little things that make a little bit of a difference. A lot of these are very, very important, so make sure to tune in closely. So the first one, it actually doesn't have to do with your specific website and the content on your website. It actually has to do with what happens before the website, which is the way that you're sending traffic to that website, right?

So, before somebody gets the link to their website, they actually have to get the link somewhere. So, for example, on Instagram, a lot of the times people will have link trees, or on Google My Business, right, they have a service menu link and a general website link. So what I'm a big, firm believer in is with these links, I think you should be only sending people to your homepage, period. Like, that is it.

I don't want you to send people straight to your booking link. Don't send people straight to your new client page if you have one. Don't send people straight to your service page. They should be going straight to your homepage.

And the reason why is because you should have, and we'll talk about this in a moment, you should have set up your website to be a journey that the client goes through, pushing them closer to the decision of booking with you. It should be something where they start on the homepage, they understand the vibe of what you have going on, which will make it so they want to go through the rest of your website journey, and then they will be prepped and primed and ready for it when you do call to action for them to actually book an appointment with you. So when you send people anywhere else besides that homepage, you're missing out on the opportunity to have them walk through that journey with you, the one that you're going to be setting up very strategically, taking into consideration pain points and objections, et cetera, et cetera. And missing out on that is going to make somebody not as willing to pay a higher price or not as willing to trust you, right?

So don't just send people all over the place. Don't skip the homepage. You, uh, whenever you're giving a website link, um, wherever you're going to be putting it, you want people to go right to the homepage. That is the main call to action always, all right?

Now, that brings me really, uh, beautifully into my next point, which is your website is the decision part of your funnel, of your marketing funnel, and is the place where somebody has gotten a little bit interested in you, they heard of you in one way or another, they have some sort of trust in you one way or another to want to actually look at your website, right? But the website is going to be the make or break, because this is where somebody looks at the prices. This is where somebody is going to really get to understand your vibe wholly, and, and this is where somebody's going to decide to commit to wanting to work with you and spending money with you. So if you're just making your website too informational, and it only has the information that people need to work with you, like it has the prices, it has the location, it has a couple pictures, it has an About Us, an About Me, order products here, but it doesn't have marketable marketing and sales copy that moves the client closer to that decision of wanting to work with you, then you're going to be missing out on a lot of business.

Because the journey that somebody's having when they go onto your website is super important to take in consideration. They're on your website and certain things and, or, and thoughts are going to come up in their brain as they're going through your website, as they're looking at your prices, as they're considering your visuals, your branding, um, as they are considering the professionalism of what you have going on, right? And they're going to have those certain objections to actually clicking the Book Now button. They're going to have misconceptions.

They're going to have beliefs about your services and themselves, and predicting those things, understanding them in advance, and putting copy onto your website that removes those objections, and even visuals as well too that helps with that, is massively powerful for getting a flood of new ideal clients and services into your chair. So your website shouldn't just be this informational place. It should be something that is truly moving cl- somebody closer to the decision. I'm gonna say that a million times.

I might sound redundant 'cause I'm saying it so often, but it tru- like, at the end of the day, that truly is what this is. Okay. Another huge place of contention and confusion that comes up for clients, all right, on a hair stylist website, is on the services page. We want to remove as much confusion as possible.

We want things to be as clear and as simple as possible. And on the services page, I don't care what kind of pricing you have, I don't care whether it's hourly, whether it's session based, whether it's a la carte and traditional, there should be some copy and pictures. And the way that you format it, there needs to be multiple visuals or multiple aids that help the client understand what price they'll be paying when they go to the salon. That upfront transparency is wildly important nowadays.

It will make or break the reason why somebody may or may not come to see you. They want to know how much they're going to pay before they even contact you or go through any sort of process. And I get it, there's a ton of variables when it comes to these things. I'm a hairdresser just like you.

I work behind the chair just like you, and there are certain circumstances where you can't really guarantee a price upfront without actually knowing the person, which is understandable. But you want to try your absolute best to give your client the best idea possible that makes sense to them while in the moment, while they're on your website, when you can't talk to them. You want to make sure that your services are clear and understandable as possible, in client's language. We don't want to use too much hairdressery language, 'cause as soon as you start throwing out hairdressery terms such as toner or gloss, your client's going to be like, "I have no idea what the hell that is," and they're going to get confused, and they're going to think that they're going to possibly have to pay a lot more than what they actually have to pay.

They're going to be untrusting of you. They're already so untrusting of hair stylists nowadays because of TikTok and Instagram and the consistent poor experiences that, uh, clients are having with us, unfortunately, in this industry. And they're not going to trust that your price is going to be the price, or they're going to think that you're just going to ch- upcharge them, unless you give them a really clear understanding of what they can expect to pay, all right? The more that you can provide clarity around that, the better.

Even... I'm going to go as far as even saying, and I know there's nuance to this, there's not much that you can do to get around this sometimes, but the more that you can even not do, like, starting at or adding the plus after prices, the better, all right? The more of an exact idea you can give them, the better, all right? So let's make that service page nice and clear, and again, this is something that I break down very extensively within my programs, and I think that different pricing models do lend to this a little bit better than others.

However, I believe no matter what pricing model you have, you absolutely can make your prices make more sense in a consumer, in a general consumer way, just takes some strategy and understanding. Okay, the next thing is going to be... I get it, you may not have a branding photo shoot, you may be insecure about using your iPhone pictures because they're not as high quality as you'd like them to be, but I promise you, using your pictures, your own pictures that you have in one way or another, is so much better than using stock photos. I do not want to see a freaking stock photo.

Sometimes, it's very rare, that I will do an audit of a hair stylist website and I see stock photos that actually do work very well, but the majority of the time, they don't. And they can really create a negative experience because it feels so fake, it feels inauthentic, it doesn't feel trustworthy, right? And can look unprofessional. I would rather you have iPhone photos on your website, pictures of you, pictures of your space, pictures of your work, and pictures of you with your clients, you and your client working together.

Those pictures will outperform anything else. The more that you can put those pictures on, the better. The more of your own pictures of your own space and your own clients, et cetera, et cetera, the better. And the more that you avoid stock photos, the better, okay?

So if you're going to use stock photos, just make sure that they're really freaking good, that they don't look like stock photos and that they fit your brand really well. But I would just prefer that you avoid them altogether, all right? I hate stock photos. Sorry about it.

The next thing is using Canva images to fill content in your website. So I get it, a lot of people hate website builders. Even though they're drag-and-drop and they try to make it as simple as possible, they can be really advanced, it can be really tedious and time-consuming to create a website. So a lot of people will lean into Canva because Canva is super user friendly, and they'll create an image, they'll download it, and then they'll upload it to fill in a piece of content on their website, such as, like, your service menu, right?

Here is the tea. I highly, highly, highly discourage this, and the reason why is because first off, accessibility. So if somebody is using a screen reader, a lot of the times screen readers won't read images even if there is text within the image. So if somebody has some sort of disability in which they are unable to use their screen reader optimally, then that's going to be a poor experience to them, and I believe that inclusivity is super important, and I hope that you feel the same.

Another reason is because you're removing the opportunity for your SEO to be as optimized as possible. So you are literally saying no to more business. You are s- you aren't giving the algorithm of search engines such as Google or Google My Business the opportunity to be like, "Okay, this person has these keywords on their website that these clients, these potential new clients, are searching for." So then you're not going to show up in more search results that you could have.

So you're losing the opportunity because those, uh, those search engines aren't able to read the words within those images. They just read it as images. So using the website host's native text is really important because that HTML text is going to be able to be read by screen readers, and it's also going to be able to be read by search engines, which is going to allow you to get more traffic onto your website. Also, pictures, images can oftentimes get skewed.

The quality of the image can get skewed very easily, um, especially when it goes, when it comes to the translation of that image from different platforms to other platforms, um, such as, like, if somebody's looking on a desktop versus mobile or versus an iPad, et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes when we have text on those things, the text can get a little bit blurry and difficult to discern and read and navigate. So no Canva images on the website. Use the website's native tools to build out your website when it comes to things that are informational or there's text around.

Of course you have to put images on your website, right? But when it comes to, like, the actual layout and design of your website, the images should be a complement, they shouldn't be the core way that you're presenting the contentAll right, so, the next thing that is so wildly important, especially for hair stylists, is making sure that your website is mobile optimized. This is a massive mistake that I see a lot of people make, is not mobily optimized websites. As hair stylists, the majority of your traffic is going to be on mobile.

I promise you, go to your website host. A lot of the times they'll have analytics for you that show you what- what devices are visiting that website, and the majority of them are most likely going to be mobile. So, that means that your desktop site may be beautiful, but the translation of that to your mobile site may be messy, right? A lot of things can get s- messed up in mobile, uh, in mobile sites really easily 'cause it is, again, it's a difficult thing to have to do, to adjust the desktop site to match the mobile site, et cetera, et cetera, and vice versa.

I know it's difficult, but it truly can be a make or break. And once you set this stuff up, you can set it and forget it for the most part, right? So, don't let this stuff discourage you. I know that a website can s- can be difficult and tough and a long and tedious process, but truly, it...

I promise you, it can really make such a massive difference. But anyway, when it comes to mobile optimizations of websites, I mean, there's tons of things I can talk about, but the biggest thing, the mo- the largest mistake and the biggest make and break- make or break, or the most common thing that I see with mobile sites and mobile versions is the spacing. So, I wanna be able to see, all right, I wanna be able to see one section of content from your website within one size of a phone screen without having to scroll up or down. So, for example, if you are featuring one service on your- on your service menu, I wanna be able to see all the details of that one service within one phone screen.

Let's say that you have a bio or, like, a short paragraph bio, something like that, and you have a picture of you. I wanna be able to see that entire thing and read that entire thing within one phone screen, though... Because if you have huge margins on everything, if you have massive fonts and big photos and I have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll, it's really difficult for me and ev- and other consumers to actually navigate that website and to be able to consume that information very easily. So, just make sure that all the content on your website and the way that you break down each sections is as concise and easy to see as possible within one phone screen without having to scroll up or down.

Massive difference it can make as far as the cleanliness of your website and the willingness of a consumer to actually go ahead and read all that information. All right, so the next thing is going to be having too many pages on your website. I am a big fan of a three, four, five max page website, all right? What ends up happening is we split up information into so many different places that none of that information is gonna get read.

Um, there's a pretty- pretty specific natural way that a person will go through your website and understand and read your information, and when you have a bunch of different pages that are- that can just totally be consolidated into short, easy information to read, it just gets too messy and becomes inaccessible. Um, another way that this translates to what I don't like to see on websites is, like, when you scroll over, like when you take your mouse and you scroll over a button on somebody's navigation menu or, like, a word on somebody's na- navigation menu, and then there's a dropdown underneath of that with multiple pages underneath one of those categories, that is just... I- it just gets difficult to under- Like, a client is not gonna do that Like, a client is not gonna understand that they can get to those other pages by going to the dropdown, so don't do that, all right? I want you to consolidate your pages as much as you possibly can to a- a, you know, a reasonable degree.

What I would love to see is just, like, three to five buttons on your navigation menu and that is it, and no other, you know, crazy bullshit. I think that you could truly consolidate things to three to five pages, max, and still create a really beautiful experience online for those clients and still give everybody everything that they need. Of course, there's nuance to this. There's specific situations in which this could be changed, and- and a great way to go about this, a combat to this, a flip side to this is, on one page, create navigation for that one page if you have different sections on that one page of information, right?

So, um, like, if you have different types of services, then you could have, um, a service menu and- and you could navigate to different types of services on that same page instead of having multiple pages for one service menu. And we could talk about, you know, uh, you'd probably want to split it into two pages if you have two different types of services, et cetera, et cetera. Again, there's nuances to this, but truly trying to consolidate and keep things simple and the way that I- like the way that I teach to my students, I think is really powerful to keep things simple for the client and the user experience. Last thing, massive thing, it's simple, but I cannot believe how many people s- uh, mess this up I- I really can't.

Every si- I- I think I... Every single website that I see, this is an issue in one section of their website, all the time, every single time. It never fails. The fonts have to be legible.

I see so many illegible fonts because of color or because of the font itself. So, here's a couple tips for you. Number one, your font, th- it's so much mor- more important for the font to be simple, clear, and easy to read than it is for the font to be pretty, all right? I get it, you want it to definitely match your branding, obviously, but your- the way- when you- and this may be something you should take into consideration when you're setting up your brand as well, too.

If it's, like, some crazy cursive font, or even if it's not a cursive font, but it's just difficult to discern and clearly read in a very quick and easy, digestible way, it's going to be a make or break for whether or not your client actually cares and reads it. Like, you want people to actually read your shit, rightSo, no crazy cursiveness, especially if it's in, like, a long text format of something that you actually want them to read. Subheadings are okay most of the time, right? Like, if it's a s- a short word or short title or heading, um, then sometimes they can be super cursive-y and pretty.

But, you know, I would much rather my clients read something be, and be able to read it very easily instead of, of everything be pretty and then, then not being able to read anything at all. And I do believe that there are healthy balance fonts that are, like, cursive-y and pretty that are also more legible than others, right? So, take that into consideration as well. I'm not saying, like, you know, don't use pretty fonts.

I'm just saying make sure that the pretty fonts are, are only used in places that it makes sense and make sure that the pretty font is one that is pretty discernable and easy to read, right? So, that's one thing with the fonts. The other thing with, uh, with as far as legibility goes is the colors. You want there to be enough contrast between the, the color of the text and the background of whatever the text is on top of.

I see this a lot when it comes to people using images as a background and then a text going in front of the image. It gets really lost in the sauce. Um, I see this with when you're making your font anything other than some sort of black, because then that colored font can get blended in really easily with the background and be really difficult to read. Um, that is so, so, so important.

If you are gonna use black, this is just a simple design tip that will make your website instantly look so much more professional and all your graphics look so much more professional, it's actually such a game-changer, it's crazy: you never want to make anything absolutely black, like the blackest of black as far as text goes. You want to make it a little bit off-black, just a little bit. You don't want to make it so light that it's gray, because then you go back into, like, "I can't read this." But just a little bit of an off-black.

It is so wild how much more professional your text will look if you do decide to make your font black, which I would recommend you make the majority of your font black in one way or another if you want it to be read, um, and easy to read. Last tip is, um, and last, actually, last mistake that I see is people making their text too much aligned to the center, um, instead of left alignment. You know, our eyes and the way that we're taught to read is from left to right, right? So, like, if you're reading a book, you're reading from left to right with the paragraphs, right?

So, that's how we very easily and lazily read. Our brain wants to do the least amount of work as possible, our eyes want to do the least amount of work as possible to get information. And being able to le- read left to right with no different, um, amount of proportions as far as where the actual line of text starts from the last one and the next one is super important. So, for things in which you want your client to actually read it, this mostly goes for paragraphs and multiple sentences, right, align it to the left.

Don't have middle alignment as far as your text goes. When it comes to your headings, sure, yeah, put 'em to the middle, right? Um, but, uh, when it comes to your actual paragraphs, make sure it's aligned to the left. That was some really juicy information.

I hope that you took notes for that. Those graphic things can, again, be massive make-or-breaks for you, my friend. Okay, so, I hope that this was insightful for you. I hope that you're gonna go check out your own website and see if any of these are relevant to you and what you have going on right now.

Hopefully, you make some adjustments. If you want to know the most optimal way to build out your website, the beautiful, uh, copy that you can create to truly drive ideal traffic to your, to your chair, right? To get clients to go, who go on your website to actually want to book appointments with you, to actually want to just spend money with you, if you want to know wha- how to lay out your website in that way, I teach you how to do that within my program. So, check out my, what I have to offer on hunterdoni.

com for more information about that. So much love to you. I hope that this was a helpful episode for you. I really appreciate you listening in.

I'll catch you in the next one. So much love. Peace out, girl scout. Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2024 Hunter Donia LLC.