Your website is one of your salon’s most valuable marketing tools. Many of your new clients will find your salon through your website. Others, who may have heard of you through word of mouth or an ad you’ve placed, will likely check out your website before they call to book their first appointment.

With her “Social Beauty LIVE” presentations which are sponsored in part by CosmoProf and Schedulicity, PassionSquared’s Nina Kovner is helping salons of all shapes and sizes become more discoverable on the web. Before she takes the stage at upcoming events—the World’s Fair Hair Show in Austin, Texas, on September 7 and Fashion Focus in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 5—she chatted with SALON TODAY about 8 ways salon owners can create awesome through their websites:

About: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Take the time to craft a meaningful story that expresses your why, promise and purpose and make it easy to find on your website.”

Social: “Today’s connected customer wants to engage on their terms. Be sure your social pages are visible on your site.”

Contact: “Seems logical, but many times it’s hard to find a businesses hours, address, etc. Be sure it’s easy to find by putting the information in your site’s header or footer, so it appears on every page.”

Menu: “Having a simple and clear menu is super important for any service business and one of the most popular pages on many service biz sites.”

Reservations: “It’s 2014 and the connected customer wants to book a reservation when they want, not just when you are answering the phone.”

Measure: “Be sure to add Google Analytics to your site so you can measure and monitor traffic, popular content, and referral traffic from platforms such as Facebook and YELP.”

Responsive: “In today’s world, 50 percent of social and digital sites are visited by mobile phones and tablets. In order to have the best user experience, make sure to  move towards having a responsive site, which means it “responds” to smartphones, tablets and laptops/desktops.”

Maintenance: “It’s always good to update your website monthly. Search engines love fresh content so if you have a blog on your site, it helps a ton, as long as you are consistently blogging.”

For more information about Kovner’s upcoming appearances or to reserve your seat, click here.