A hair salon website, rebuilt

Every problem on this page came from real small-business sites we audited in October 2026. We anonymized them and recreated them under a fictional name.

The business

Larkspur is a four-chair salon on the South Hill. Its stylists have loyal regulars and a busy Instagram, but new clients mostly find them through Google.

A new salon client wants three things: what it costs, who will do their hair, and a way to book at 11pm without calling.

The old site was a wall of full-size photos that took 15+ seconds to load on a phone. A cookie banner covered the bottom half of the first screen. The phone number was plain text you couldn't tap, booking meant "call to schedule," and there were no prices and no hours on the home page.

What a visitor needs

• See prices before booking
• Pick a stylist
• Book after hours without calling

Before

Open the recreated before page

How we work

1. Audit. We load the site on a real phone profile, time it, check every number and link, and read the Google listing and reviews.
2. Plan. One page that answers the top three customer questions before they scroll. Everything else is one tap away.
3. Write. We write the copy. You fix what's wrong and approve it.
4. Build and launch. Plain, fast pages on your own domain. Then we update your Google listing to match.

After

Click through the prototype

Each fix, and why

1. Book button on every page. "Call to schedule" (and in one case a voicemail-only line) loses everyone who books at night. One button, every page, linked to the booking tool the salon already pays for. Seen on 2 sites we audited.
2. Prices as real text. No prices on the home page means "how much is…" DMs all day. A short text menu answers it. Seen on 8 sites we audited.
3. A phone number you can tap. The number was plain text, so on a phone you had to copy it by hand. Seen on 6 sites we audited.
4. Hours on the home page. Closed Sunday and Monday is the most common question. It sits under the name now. Seen on 4 sites we audited.
5. Photos that load. Full-size gallery images made the page 5–8 MB and the first paint 15–26 seconds. The new layout shows a few sized photos and links to Instagram for the rest. Seen on 4 sites we audited.
6. No cookie wall over the content. A consent banner covered nearly half the first phone screen. With no tracking scripts, the new site doesn't need one. Seen on 1 site we audited.
7. A site that stays up. One salon's site showed a raw PHP error after a plugin update; another hadn't changed its copyright since 2021. Care covers updates and a monthly check. Seen on 2 sites we audited.
8. Details Google can read. LocalBusiness markup carries hours, phone and address so search results and AI assistants get them right. Seen on 9 sites we audited.

What it costs

• Site you own: $900 one time. Up to 5 pages, copy written for you, Google listing cleaned up.
• Care plan: $79/month, first month free. We build it, host it, make edits within 2 business days, and check your listing and reviews monthly.
• Care + Leads: $129/month, first month free. Everything in Care, plus drafted replies to new inquiries and reviews for you to approve.