Join us as HLM's very own Ryan Files discusses aesthetics marketing with Sheri Flasch CIDESCO, a Licensed Master Esthetician, social media influencer, & cat mom.
View the entire video on HLM's YouTube Channel here.
Also, be sure to check out Sheri's Instagram and YouTube Channel to learn more about Sheri.
Hey Ryan! Tell Us about Your Experience Helping Estheticians and Aesthetic Businesses?
Sure! So I've been with High Level Marketing for close to a decade now. I've been working exclusively in the aesthetic arena for that same period of time, working across different industries, whether that's working with spa's, medical spas, plastic surgery, dermatology... I've covered them all.
I've even worked B2B with a lot of laser manufacturers and just aesthetic manufacturers as a whole.
What's the #1 Mistake Estheticians and Aesthetics Business Owners Make When Designing & Developing Their Websites?
It's a great question. Honestly, my honest answer is one of the first things I see as estheticians do is they dive right into it without seeking a professional. Your website is either going to make or break all the other marketing that you do. It's your foundation. It's where you're going to drive all of your prospective clients to.
So it's either going to help all the other marketing you do, or it's going to hurt all of the other marketing that you do. And so I think first off, it's just really important that you take it seriously.
I see it time and time again where estheticians are wearing a million different hats, doing a million different things as a business owner, and they just build a website as fast as they can.
It ends up not looking professional. The architecture isn't built correctly, which ultimately limits how many people are going to find it. And when people do find it, are they actually going to convert, and reach out and book an appointment?
Why is a Website Better Than Just a Booking Solution if You Want to be Found on Google and Grow Your Business?
The biggest reason is simply your booking software is not going to have the ability to compete and rank in search engines.
A website, if done correctly, can.
And that's really important for a spa for a business owner that's trying to be found.
When people are looking up your services in your local community, you want to be found in search engines.
Your booking software is always going to be limited in the fact that it's not going to rank, but a website that's optimized correctly can and it can become a lead generator for you without having to do a lot of paid marketing.
So I would say that's the big advantage to it if done correctly.
What's the Best Way to Integrate Current Booking Solutions Into a Website?
Well, it all starts with what platform am I going to build my website on?
We use WordPress is our primary content management system for building aesthetics websites. And the reason that we do that is WordPress is the largest content management system in the world.
More people use WordPress than any other platform. And the benefit of that is that if you have a booking software and you need it to integrate into your website, the very first plug-in that a booking software is going to build for is WordPress.
So it's very common that your booking software will have something that we can integrate directly into our WordPress site because WordPress is the behemoth, the gorilla in the space for what websites are built on.
Tell Us What Pages You Need to Include on Your Website And Why They Help to Increase Your Visibility on Google
Another common mistake that I wanted to touch on, and I think it's important for you in the very beginning as you're thinking about a website, is what services do you offer?
Let's say a facial is the service that you focus on, and you want to rank for "facial near me."
So if someone's near you and they're searching for a facial provider, you want to show up. You need a page for that on your website.
I see it far too often where estheticians will build just one service page, one page, and they'll have all of their services on that page.
That is a cardinal sin for estheticians that I see happen all the time where they'll have one page with everything on it. That page is going to struggle to rank.
But what if you created one page focused on one service? Well, when people are searching for that service online, that page is going to have much greater likelihood to rank and Google than one service page with everything on it.
So being very focused, having your site architecture built correctly to accurately represent all of your services - that needs to be first.
That's the first thing you should think about when you're considering your website - have all of your pages, your site architecture, built out in a spreadsheet where you know exactly how big your website's going to be, exactly what pages you need
That will ultimately set you up from a foundational perspective to begin ranking on Google.
