What a beauty salon website needs to fill your appointment book
The pages, menu, booking button, photos and policies an Australian beauty salon website needs, in the order clients look for them.
A salon website that fills the appointment book answers three questions within one thumb scroll: what do you offer, what does it cost, and when can I come in? Everything else on the site exists to support those answers or to get out of their way. This guide sets out the pages, the treatment menu, the booking button, the photos and the policies an Australian beauty salon website needs, in the order clients look for them. It works for a solo lash artist in a home studio and for a skin clinic with six rooms, and where a rule applies only to clinics offering cosmetic or laser treatments, we say so.
How clients decide to book
Most people find a salon on their phone. They search, tap through to a site or a Google profile, look at a few photos, check a price and decide in a minute or two. That is why the mobile version of your site matters more than the desktop one. Google itself uses the mobile version of your site 7 , crawled with its smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking.
Speed is part of the same picture. Google's web.dev guidance says the largest element on a page should load within 2.5 seconds 8 , and a tap should get a response within 200 milliseconds 8 . Those targets are measured at the 75th percentile 8 of page loads, so a site that is only fast on your salon's wifi is not fast enough. Large uncompressed photos straight from a camera are the most common cause of a slow salon site.
The practical test is simple. Hand your phone to a friend who has never seen your site and ask them to find the price of an eyebrow tint and book one. Watch where they tap. Anything they hunt for is something to move up the page.
The treatment menu comes first
Your treatment menu is the most visited part of the site after the home page, and it should read like the printed menu on your front desk. List each service with its name, duration and price, grouped the way clients think: brows, lashes, skin, nails, waxing, laser. Add one or two plain sentences under each service saying what happens and who it suits.
Write it for the client, not the supplier
Product brand names mean little to most clients. "Lash lift and tint, 60 minutes, lasts around six weeks" tells them more than a trademarked system name. If a service needs a patch test 24 or 48 hours ahead, say so on the menu, next to the service, so nobody books a lash set for tomorrow morning and gets turned away.
Keep prices current
An out-of-date price is worse than no price. It starts the appointment with an awkward conversation. Update the menu on the same day you change prices at the desk. On a managed plan, a price change is one of the content edits you ask for, so it should not wait for a quiet week.
Clinics: prices and prescription medicines
If your clinic offers cosmetic injectables, the menu needs more care. Most of those injectables are prescription-only medicines, which cannot be advertised to the public 1 under the Therapeutic Goods Act. The TGA also says that stating a price for one is likely to count as an advertisement 1 . That usually means describing the consultation service rather than listing the medicine and its price. Check the TGA's guidance, or ask an adviser, before you publish anything about injectables.
A booking button on every page
Clients should never have to look for the way to book. Put a "Book now" button in the header, repeat it at the end of each treatment section, and make it lead straight to your booking system. Most Australian salons already use a tool such as Timely, Fresha, Phorest or Kitomba. The website's role is to send people into that booking flow with as few taps as possible, ideally landing on the right service.
Some clients still prefer to call or message, particularly for a first skin consultation or a laser patch test. Show your phone number as a tap-to-call link and your hours next to it. If you only take bookings online, say that plainly so nobody leaves a voicemail that never gets returned.
The same booking link belongs on your Google Business Profile. Google lets a business add your own booking link 5 , and our Google Business Profile guide for salons covers how. If missed appointments are costing you money, the booking page is also where your deposit and cancellation terms should appear, which our guide to online booking and no-shows goes through.
The pages to build
A single-location salon rarely needs more than eight pages. Each one answers a question a client actually has. The diagram shows the structure we suggest, with the home page linking to every section and a booking button on all of them.
Show the data as a table
| Page | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Home | Is this the right salon for me? |
| Treatment menu and prices | What do you offer, how long does it take, what does it cost? |
| Book now | When can I come in? |
| About and team | Who will be doing my treatment? |
| Gallery (with consent) | What does your work look like? |
| Policies | What happens if I cancel, run late or buy a voucher? |
| Contact and location | Where are you, when are you open, where do I park? |
Home
Say what you do and where in the first line: "Brow and lash studio in Newtown". Follow it with your most booked services, a booking button, your suburb and hours. Keep the slideshow out; one strong photo of your work does more.
About and team
Clients book people as much as places. Give each therapist a photo, their specialties and the qualifications they actually hold. For clinics, name who performs which treatments, and who holds any licence your state requires.
Contact and location
Include your address, a map, parking or public transport notes, and your hours. If you work from home or travel to clients, show your service area rather than a street address.
Each kind of business shifts the emphasis. A nail salon leans on the gallery, a skin clinic on treatment explanations, and a brow and lash studio on refill timing and patch tests.
Photos, galleries and consent
Photos sell beauty treatments, and they also carry legal weight. The OAIC lists photographs can be personal information 6 when they could identify someone, and a close-up of a face usually can. Get written consent before a client's photo goes on your website or social pages, record what they agreed to, and remove the photo if they change their mind.
Photos that show a skin condition or a treatment result can also involve health information, which the OAIC says gets a higher level of protection 6 than other personal information. Store consent forms as carefully as client records.
Extra rules for cosmetic and clinical treatments
Advertising rules for regulated health services apply to anyone who advertises a regulated health service 3 , not only to doctors and nurses. For higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures, Ahpra's advertising guidelines set strict rules: no edited or enhanced images, no testimonials, and a clear statement that individual results vary 2 . Before and after photos for these treatments need both the client's consent and a check against the rules that apply to your business. If you are unsure, leave them out until you have advice. Brows, lashes and nails are generally simpler, but consent still comes first.
Policies clients read before they pay
Policies prevent more arguments than they cause, as long as clients see them before they book. Put a short policies page on the site and link it from the booking button. Cover these points in plain words:
- How much notice you need to cancel or move an appointment, and any fee for late cancellation or no-shows.
- Whether you take a deposit, when it is charged and when it is refunded.
- What happens if a client runs late: a shortened service, or rebooking.
- Patch test requirements for lash, brow tint and some skin services.
- Gift vouchers. Under the ACCC's rules, gift cards sold from November 2019 must generally be redeemable for at least 3 years 4 , so print an expiry that matches.
- How you handle client details and consultation forms.
Your terms still have to respect consumer law, whatever the page says. If you are not sure a fee or refund rule is fair and lawful, check it with the ACCC's guidance or an adviser before you publish it.
Six things to do this week
- Open your current site or booking page on your phone and time how long it takes to find a price and book.
- Write out your treatment menu with durations, prices and a one-line description for each service.
- Collect photos of your work that you own, with signed consent for any client who can be identified.
- Write your cancellation, deposit, late arrival, patch test and gift voucher policies in plain words.
- If you offer cosmetic, laser or injectable treatments, check which advertising and licensing rules apply to you.
- Make sure the same booking link, name and hours appear on your website and your Google Business Profile.
None of this needs a large budget. It needs a clear menu, a booking button that works, policies read before the booking and a site someone keeps up to date. The last one is the one that slips when the salon gets busy. That upkeep is what our plan is built around: we lay out your content, host the site and make up to five edits a month. You can see what's included or check the pricing, and if it sounds like a fit, book a call.
Questions salon owners ask
How many pages does a small salon website need?
Most single-location salons are well served by six to eight pages: home, a treatment menu with prices, booking, about and team, a gallery, policies, contact and an FAQ. A salon with several distinct services, such as lashes and skin, often gives each its own page so clients can find the one they came for.
Should I show prices on my salon website?
For most beauty services, yes. Clients compare before they book, and a menu with prices answers the first question they have. The exception is prescription-only cosmetic injectables: the TGA says a price for one is likely to count as an advertisement, and those medicines cannot be advertised to the public.
Can my booking system replace a website?
A booking page from a tool such as Timely, Fresha, Phorest or Kitomba handles appointments well, but it is built around the calendar. A website carries the things a booking page usually does not: your full treatment descriptions, your policies, your team, answers to common questions, and pages Google can show for searches like "brow lamination near me".
Do I need a privacy policy on my salon website?
If your site collects names, phone numbers or health details through a form or consultation questionnaire, you should tell clients what you collect and why. Whether the Privacy Act applies to your business depends on things like turnover and whether you provide a health service, so check with the OAIC or an adviser.
This article is general information for salon owners, not legal or regulatory advice. Rules differ by state and by who performs a treatment, so check the ones that apply to your business with the regulator or a qualified adviser.