Every spa needs a business website. It is your online storefront and should, in many ways, resemble your actual spa, highlighting its facilities and ambiance while providing service and package details, online appointment bookings, and more.
A business website’s design is incredibly nuanced. However, it all begins with understanding what you want your site to accomplish, as this dictates its layout. Is your main goal simply to connect to your booking page, or, to maintain consistency of brand? Is it strictly to highlight your work portfolio and sell services? All the above?
Vagaro’s Design Services Team clarifies all this from the start with customers before building their customized MySite, laying down the foundation needed to get started. Below are some of the most important pages a spa should include on their website, with simple examples created by Vagaro’s designers using Vagaro’s MySite website builder.
Homepage
A well-designed website is usually the first point of contact between potential customers and your business, and its homepage is what they’ll arrive at first. As such, it will determine their first impression—and first impressions matter. Remember that most of the homepage rules also apply to your internal pages.
Accuracy
Make sure the information on your homepage is up to date. Vagaro users have an advantage here in that updates made on their Vagaro accounts regarding their businesses are seamlessly reflected on their website. That’s right—MySite websites are synced with your Vagaro account, and any changes made in your account are automatically reflected on your site.
Utilize relevant, eye-grabbing images that show your work in a positive light. Use the same high-quality portfolio images that you use on social media, brochures and other spa marketing materials for brand synchronicity. Remember, however, that using too many images can slow any page’s load time, which will increase its bounce rate (number of visitors who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page).
Navigation
Make your homepage as easy as possible for your users to navigate. Establish a clear visual hierarchy and make sure all essential information and buttons are visible.
Website headings, subheadings, and other visual elements create this visual hierarchy. Some ways to set up visual cues include:
- Size
- Color
- Proximity
- Space
- Texture
- Contrast
- Alignment
Color
In terms of color, the Vagaro Design Services Team recommends contrast. They often work with white backgrounds due to the color contrast. White space gives a page breathing room. Too many elements with too much information are overwhelming to visitors, so space things out where possible.
Always stay on brand and make choices within your brand that look easy on the eyes and create a sense of relaxation. Bright, louder colors can be paired with cooler, more soothing colors to give it balance.
Consistency with your website colors is also important for brand recognition. Always use the same fonts and color palette. Vagaro’s Design Services Team has helped many spas establish their brand with designs that are professional and eye-catching.
Service Menu Page
The spa’s service menu is its bread & butter. As with your homepage, ensure that every detail on your services menu is updated. Always be on the lookout for outdated info or typos. These can hurt your professional credibility in the eyes of potential customers. Again, Vagaro users have an advantage here in that updates made to their Vagaro accounts are reflected on their website automatically.
Your website is also a tool for search engine optimization (SEO), so be sure to tag your images with exact, SEO-friendly alt text (text that describes images on a page). Use attention-grabbing headlines that are keyword-rich so they can be effectively crawled and indexed by search engines.
Booking Page
Online booking capability on your spa’s website should be a given, and we suggest including a separate booking page. Having a “Book Now” button on its own page reduces website friction and increases the efficiency of your site by removing unnecessary steps between visitors and your booking page.
In other words, it makes it easier for customers to book services with you. That’s why MySite places a link to a booking page in the navigation menu, which allows customers to skip right to booking if they like.
Gift Card Purchase Options Page
There are always opportunities for spas to use gift certificates & gift cards. A day at the spa will always make a great birthday present, and seasonal sales (Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc.) are big opportunities to cash in on the influx of gift card purchases. With MySite, Vagaro users can also group their Daily Deals on their gift card page.
Create and use your own custom, branded designs for gift cards, certificates & promotions, or leave that to the pros, like the members of Vagaro’s Design Services Team.
Products Page
Retail is an effective and easy way for spas to diversify their revenue streams and having a good retail strategy is important to make it happen. Selling your products online is like a power retail wall does for your physical spa, a website page draws attention to the quality wellness products you sell and use in your services. Moreover, while spa memberships & packages can potentially be grouped with your services page, products logically make up their own category, and should therefore have their own page. You can place gift cards on this page as well if you don’t want to have a separate page for them.
Always use crisp, eye-catching photos of the products you sell, organized on the page in the same professional way that reputable online retailers have them. Vagaro users enjoy a nifty feature that enables them to swap out the natural background of product photos they take for your website. Your front desk might be gorgeous, but we don’t need to see it in product pictures.
As with every other internal page, make sure your products page is up to date. Vagaro customers using MySite can keep products synchronized with their Vagaro account automatically, so clients always know if you are sold out of, running low on, or have stopped carrying certain items in your inventory.
Memberships & Packages Page
While it is common for many spas to list them on their services pages, memberships, packages and subscriptions are major revenue drivers, and create consistent passive income.
For this reason, we suggest drawing as much attention to them as possible on their own page. Use the best, most alluring descriptions and photos possible to represent the total experience that you’re selling.
Client Reviews Page
Like it or not, customer reviews and testimonials matter to potential customers about as much as a positive endorsement from a trusted friend or family member. For this reason, you should highlight your complimentary reviews as much as possible.
There is no hard rule about having a separate page on your website for reviews, but the more positive reviews you have, the more you should show them. That’s why we suggest either giving them their own page or utilizing a carousel component to feature them.
Vagaro MySite FAQs
What is MySite?
MySite is our new website builder that allows you to customize every aspect of your booking & business website! It auto-syncs with any changes to your Vagaro account so it’s always up to date.
What's the difference between MySite & my Vagaro listing page?
Your free listing page can be found on the Marketplace, but can't be customized. MySite is your business’s website, you can fully customize it & it automatically updates itself when you make changes in your account.
How do I get started with MySite?
Navigate to the Website Builder tab in your Vagaro account, tap on Try New Website Builder, and start creating!
How much does MySite cost?
For your own custom business website, Vagaro MySite is only an additional $20 (US), £15 (UK), or $30 (CAN/AUS) per month.
Can I customize the link to my website?
Yes! You can either transfer your current domain (website URL) over, or you can purchase a new domain if you don’t want to go with the free one you’re given at signup.
How does the website update itself?
Because Vagaro truly is an all-in-one app, any changes you make to your Vagaro account will automatically be reflected on your MySite website.
Can I hire a designer to create a MySite for me?
The choice is yours—MySite is user-friendly if you want to create your site yourself, but if you’d rather leave it to the pros, we have an in-house Design Services Team that can create it for you!
A specific, well-defined goal ensures that a website’s parts contribute to a cohesive, navigable whole that makes sense for customers, instead of being a collection of disjointed pieces. Vagaro’s MySite enables businesses to build sleek, navigable and mobile-friendly websites—or have Vagaro’s Design Services Team do it for them. It’s another way Vagaro empowers growing businesses to stay profitable and competitive. Sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and experience what else the Vagaro platform can do for your business!
