How to Build a Website for a Beauty Brand
In an industry as intrinsically visual and personal as beauty, a striking and effective website is paramount for attracting and retaining customers. A website is the first window into any beauty business—from retailers and estheticians to hairstylists and makeup artists. It offers potential customers a sense of what experience they can expect and the value your client’s business offers. That’s why aesthetics, user-friendly integrations, and clear purchase options are essential for anyone looking to outshine the competition and grow their business organically.
Read on to learn more about building an effective website for a beauty brand.
Designing a beauty website that attracts customers
With native ecommerce features, customizable design options, and integrated marketing and scheduling tools, Squarespace is an all-in-one solution for beauty service providers, such as makeup artists, hairstylists, estheticians, lash and brow artists, and nail technicians. The following are foundational steps to designing a compelling website that attracts and converts customers.
Establish a design that complements your client’s brand
Your client’s website should be designed with the business’s overall branding in mind. For makeup artists, stylists, and salons, the goal is to balance aspiration with ease of booking. High-end beauty brands often mimic the look of fashion magazines. This involves using white space to let imagery breathe, clean grids to give portfolios a modern and curated feel, and simple navigation to avoid cluttering the visual experience.
Choose typography that aligns with the aesthetics of your client’s brand. While a serif font communicates luxury, tradition, and high fashion, a sans-serif font feels modern and efficient. Consider pairing a bold serif header with a light sans-serif body text to create a sophisticated and balanced look.
Color is another way to establish your client’s visual identity. Some common color combinations include:
Black, gold, and deep emerald for a high-end, luxury business offering exclusive and expensive experiences
Sage green, terracotta, and sand for an organic and natural brand selling sustainable or clean products
Nude, cream, and slate grey for a modern and minimalist salon focused on chic and timeless hair services
Neon pink and electric blue for a bold and artistic makeup artist showcasing their creativity and understanding of trends
Learn more about choosing the right color scheme for a website.
Communicate services and products clearly
Capture visitors’ attention with straightforward messaging and an intuitive path to conversion. Customers should understand your client’s specialty and offerings within a few seconds of landing on the page. The primary headline of the hero section should pair a bold value proposition with a secondary sub-headline that explicitly states the location and core service or product. This ensures the visitor knows they're in the right place before they even begin to scroll.
Add a relevant call to action (CTA) to the navigation. The sticky navigation header keeps the CTA visible at the top of the screen as visitors scroll. No matter how deep they dive into your client’s site, the ability to take action is always one click away. For service providers, this button could invite visitors to book an appointment or consultation. For retailers, it could encourage visitors to view products, check out items on sale, or join your client’s email list.
Include the essentials
Your client’s website should act as a one-stop shop, providing every detail a customer needs to move from browsing to booked. Here are elements that can keep their site comprehensive and polished:
Services and pricing: Whether your client sells special event makeup and hairstyling, massages and facials, or in-salon haircuts and coloring, include a clear menu of services and available products. For beauty professionals, transparent pricing builds immediate trust and qualifies leads before they reach out.
Frictionless purchasing: Enable customers to browse and check out without leaving the site. Use integrated tools like Squarespace Payments to create a high-end, streamlined shopping experience.
Location(s) and service area: If your client runs a brick-and-mortar business, list the physical address in the footer of every page. For mobile artists, like spray tan or bridal stylists, clearly define the service area or travel radius on both the contact page and footer to avoid booking confusion.
Hours of operation: Display hours of operation on the contact page and in the footer of the site for quick access.
Dynamic imagery: Beauty is a visual-first industry.Feature high-resolution photos and video loops throughout the site and within a dedicated portfolio to build trust, attract customers, and differentiate the brand from competitors.
The business story: Use the about page to highlight your client’s story and what makes their business unique. This is the perfect place to showcase specialized certifications, licenses, and the philosophy that sets your client apart.
Appointment scheduling: Eliminate the back-and-forth of manual booking with a dedicated scheduling page.Using a tool like Acuity Scheduling can save your client time by automating and managing their appointments, letting them focus on their craft rather than their calendar.
Make the site discoverable
Customers often discover stylists on social media or when searching on the go. This makes mobile presentation and optimization vital to the user experience (UX). With Fluid Engine, you can display the content as it appears on desktop or design the mobile layout independently on any version 7.1 website.
Social media is also a great way to interact with customers and promote products or services. Connect your client’s website to their social media profiles so visitors can quickly access the stories, images, videos, and posts related to their brand. Lastly, link their website in their social media bio. With Bio Sites, drive your client’s followers directly to their website to make a purchase or an appointment.
To make a beauty brand discoverable, you must design for traditional search engines (SEO) and AI search tools (AIO). Design your client’s site with SEO and AIO best practices in mind, such as text and page formatting, keyword usage, content structure, and site and page descriptions. A FAQ page or accordion block can help your client appear in AI-generated summaries when searchers ask questions like, “When should I book my bridal makeup?” or “How do I prepare for a spray tan?”
Implement an email marketing strategy
Email marketing is great for nurturing leads, establishing a brand, and efficiently communicating with customers. Integrate Email Campaigns to your client’s website so they can send on-brand emails with updates, upcoming offerings, and other relevant content to their audience.
Leverage promotional pop-ups and newsletter blocks to collect email addresses for your client’s mailing list. Place opt-in forms in several spots around the website to capture contacts and build your client’s mailing list.
Learn more about using Squarespace Email Campaigns.
Building a website for a beauty brand
With a beautiful, ecommerce-ready and mobile-optimized website, your beauty industry clients are positioned to thrive. From the color palette to the “book now” button, every design choice should create a seamless path to conversion. Beyond the initial build, encourage your client to amplify their reach and streamline operations with integrated tools like Email Campaigns and Acuity Scheduling. When beautiful design and great UX meet effective operations, you can help your client build their business and stay fully booked.
Pro tip: Circle partners can earn referral commissions when they add qualifying annual subscriptions to client sites. Learn more about Circle referral payments.
Related resources:
Web Design for Ecommerce: Conversion-Boosting Strategies for Squarespace Websites
From Clicks to Customers: Branding for Squarespace Ecommerce Sites
This article was originally published on January 9, 2023. It has since been updated.
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