The Client – La Sheida Spa (Leesburg, VA)
The client is a spa in Leesburg, Virginia called La Sheida Spa. They offer many different spa services for both men and women. From facial services to massages, there’s a lot that La Sheida Spa can offer to help their clients feel refreshed and renewed.
The Challenge
Consumer-facing businesses, otherwise known as brick-and-mortar businesses, must have an online presence. In this digital age where it is more convenient for people to go online rather than consult a directory for different services, the necessity of having a website is not to be overlooked.
A fresh establishment such as La Sheida Spa would definitely need a website set-up in order to showcase their services. The problem was, they didn’t have any website at all. On top of that, they needed to appear in the search results if they wanted to reach more customers.
This is a challenge because as statistics have shown, more than half of consumers look up a business first before proceeding to purchase from a business. In other words, there are more than half of your potential consumers who will not be able to get in touch with you simply because you don’t have a website for your business.
Another challenge that was observed was the ability of the spa’s customers to book services online. Having such a convenience would generate a more positive response from their customers in Leesburg.
The Solution
The main goal for the website was to make it as efficient as possible to generate profit for the spa. In order to do so, there were two main strategies that had to be put in place namely efficient web design and a well-thought out SEO strategy.
What is a business website?
A business website is a kind of website that not only serves as a space where a business such as a spa can showcase general information and their contact details but also serve as an e-commerce platform for their clients and their business’ convenience.
Why is a business website important?
For a service-focused business, the business website exhibits valuable information that can help current and future clients. Among the information that could be helpful for a service-oriented business are customer reviews and of course, the prices for the services.
A business website also establishes the business’ reputation. Even though there’s an increase in responses for social media platforms, a website is still the most reliable way to create credible impressions for businesses both big and small.
Making the web design efficient and effective
Design is important because according to statistics, there is a 38% chance that a customer will leave the website if the website has poor aesthetic appeal and about 44% of customers leave the website if it doesn’t display any contact information.
But, aside from the superficial aspects of a website, consumers are also heavily influenced by how fast your page loads. To explain more deeply, here are some points that were considered to make the spa’s web design efficient.
A landing page with the most essential information
Consider the landing page your 30-second elevator pitch. Within the first few seconds that a customer sees your website, they are already making a decision whether or not they would like to purchase from you.
In the case of the spa’s website, it was important to create a flawless landing page with a considerable amount of information. To do so, it had to showcase navigation, the business’ contact information, their operating hours, a welcome note from the spa director, and of course, their services.
These elements were highlighted with the help of pleasing colors and images to re-create the ambiance of the spa itself.
Highly noticeable call-to-action buttons
While still on the landing page, there are three main call-to-action buttons that can lead customers to check the pricing of the services, schedule an appointment, and encourage them to leave reviews.
These three buttons were deemed important because of their relevance and practicality. Customers can easily view the price of services or book an appointment at just the click of a button.
Keeping in mind the goal for the website was to encourage actions from the clients and draw business, action buttons were also highlighted that prompted scheduling the services.
Specifically, on the ‘Appointments’ page, the clients can easily choose which service they would like to partake in, the spa technician who will be attending to them, as well as the specific date for their spa trip.
Not only is this convenient for the customer, but it is also convenient for the spa management’s scheduling system. Having such a user-friendly interface encourages actions from customers without them getting lost through your content.
Dynamic mobile-friendly version of the website
The website was structured to be optimized for mobile phones. According to statistics, people interact with their mobile phones twice as often so it is important to ensure that the layout is dynamic and can be viewed on any type of device whether it was a mobile phone or a tablet.
Special buttons for triggering a call or text action were also set up on the website’s contact page. This opens another way of contacting the spa aside from the usual contact form that conventional websites have.
Smart CMS and backend support
CMS or content management system and backend support focus more on what the customers don’t actually see. However, these two combined make for a big impact on the way your website comes out. Together, these two will have a huge effect on the loading time of your website.
Fast loading time
And last but certainly not the least is the speed of loading time. According to Unbounce, a specialist in optimizing key techniques to make landing pages load faster, about 70% of consumers are influenced by a website’s loading time. It just means that the faster a website loads, the higher the chance that a consumer will purchase.
How can I optimize my business website to appear on the first pages of search engines?
About 90% of consumers use the internet to find businesses accessible to them thus, creating a business website goes hand-in-hand with search engine optimization.
With the help of SEO, your business website will appear on the first pages of a search engine result. To increase the chances of appearing on the first pages of the search engine results, it is important to include keywords and the location.
For LaSheida Spa, these two points were highlighted for the website. Adding the location for the spa is important because, after all, the business is service-oriented that caters to local patrons.
The Results
Following the creation of the website, we had to measure the success of the spa’s website, there were two main things that had to be considered: (1) search engine presence and of course, (2) the number of bookings made through the website.
LaSheida Spa’s website is relatively new and even the business is still fresh, despite this, it is able to appear in the first page of search engine results. This is because the website was search engine optimized using the key strategies presented above.
On top of that, the spa saw an increase in their service bookings of 8 to 12 appointments per day. This goes to show that a search engine optimized website will not only bring awareness to your business but also create more channels for profit.