It’s no secret that the hair and beauty industry is fiercely competitive. New salons and spas lock horns frequently with established players for customer attention. The impact of traditional word-of-mouth marketing to attract and retain customers still plays a crucial role in the overall salon’s business. However, the importance of positive and authentic reviews is too large to overlook.
With potential clients combing heavily through online salon reviews, you should leverage handy tactics to get more online reviews for your salon. Besides, reviews can directly impact the way search engines rank your business’s website.
Authentic and personal online reviews help a salon develop credibility and boost its search engine rankings greatly. The good thing is you can leverage multiple online platforms (Yelp, Google My Business and Facebook) to curate positive reviews for your salon.
In this blog post, we discuss effective ways to leverage salon reviews to get better search engine ranking and boost revenue, afterward.
The importance of online reviews in Salon SEO
Google and other search engines prefer businesses that their target buyers engage with regularly. Through online reviews, other people know your salon and the quality of services it provides along with – genuine customer experience, reflecting customer trust.
And that’s basically the job of search engines; To help people find what they want.
A salon with enough authentic reviews would often find its place at the top of online search results. Competing salons with fewer and older reviews will be shown way below!
Online reviews also help improve SEO aspects like click-through rates. Focus on getting positive reviews on the salon’s GMB and social media profiles. That will attract target customers to those profiles. Their interaction with those profiles help increase the salon’s online ranking quickly.
Reviews serve as the fuel for local SEO
For a salon local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) works like fuel. People in your area are searching on maps and google for the service they are looking for. They’ll search for something like, “top hair salon in austin” or “best balayage in tampa”, etc.
And when there are several positive reviews posted by the past clients in your area about the same service, people are more likely to make an appointment with you.
Every salon raves about how good they are but it’s the verdict of past client experiences that makes all the difference. Reviews are just a bunch of people telling google: Hey! This is the best salon out there for facials (or any other service)
The effect of review quality on salon SEO
A salon will get different types of online reviews, naturally. All such reviews may not be positive! But then, this is what competing salons cope with, too. Search engines tend to ignore the generic reviews, preferring the detailed ones.
A good option is to ask the customers for detailed feedback. Try using diverse online channels like email, social media platforms, feedback forms, etc. Focus on using specific questions covering different services/packages to get useful reviews.
Not all clients may like filling up feedback forms or answering emails. Offering them incentives/discounts in return of the feedback- it does the trick.
Utilizing social media channels to get more reviews
Your salon probably already has a good social media presence. It’s time you begin using these digital platforms to get more reviews. This way search rankings will get a boost.
Using Social media channels like Instagram and Facebook for salon ads and promotions is fine. Why not leverage these online platforms to get more useful reviews? It’s definitely worth trying.
You should display the positive reviews on these platforms periodically. For this:
- Use a ‘top reviews of the month’ post every month.
- It’s a good idea to use Instagram carousel posts and LinkedIn Slide posts to highlight the top and recent reviews.
Try these steps to boost user interaction, and experience more quality reviews popping up soon! This helps improve salon seogreatly.
Dealing with negative reviews- what to do?
There’s no business on the face of this planet that doesn’t get negative reviews. Oftentimes, things are beyond your control and hence a few negative reviews come rolling in.
However, it’s necessary to engage with such reviewers, and figure out what upsets them. When you respond with empathy it can reverse the scenario in the brand’s favor!
Do not overlook the negative online reviews of your salon. Use the following tips to improve the scene:
- Respond without delay- Respond to the negative reviews quickly. Get to the root of the issue leading to such unfavorable reviews. Is it the experience, charges or anything else? Ask for genuine feedback. A prompt and thoughtful response will make such customers realize your concern, and Google will respond positively too.
- Use the engagement – A proper response and engagement with online salon reviews help improve customer relationships. This engagement factor helps boost the salon’s search engine ranking. Search engines prefer brands that respond to online reviews actively.
- Turn grievance into support- Not all customers posting negative reviews on the salon are beyond logic! They want a proper resolution of the core issues. Examples of clients changing an initial negative view and giving positive feedback later are aplenty!
Hiring expert SEO companies to enhance online ranking
Positive salon reviews help improve your salon’s SEO effectively. It has a positive impact on the salon’s local SEO, too. Focus on getting more positive and detailed reviews for the salon. Such reviews attract potential clients easily, improving its search result ranking visibly. These help strengthen its online reputation, eventually.
Your salon will need more than just positive online reviews to stay competitive and retain clients. It will need a well-crafted SEO strategy for the best outcome. That is why you should hire a seasoned, professional digital marketing firm.
Experience the power and reach of The Salon Marketing’s tailored SEO services. Check out our robust, well-designed SEO packages and experience a growth in your salon’s online ranking. Soon, you will see a boost in conversion rates, too.
Contact us soon to learn more about our killer SEO and digital marketing packages.
Hey, I'm Anshul and I'm a 2-comma club award winner with over a decade of experience in the digital marketing industry. I specialize in helping salon and spa businesses scale their business using proven digital marketing strategies.
Throughout my career, I've had the privilege of working with a diverse range of clients, from world-renowned motivational speaker Tony Robbins to marketing guru Russell Brunson, as well as internet sensations like Julius Dein and Dan Henry.