SEO 101 For Barbers

SEO for Barber Pros: 

Your 101 Guide

Whether you’ve tried SEO before or this is the first time you’ve ever heard of the phrase, we think this blog is an excellent starting place for barbers who want larger audiences, more traffic, and a way to boost their barbering business efficiently and affordably.

First things first though, let’s consider your career as a barber for a moment.

Maybe you’re brand new to barbering, maybe you’ve done it for decades, no matter where you’re at in your career, you’ve probably already learned one simple truth—marketing yourself matters. 

Why? Because it doesn’t matter if you’re the best barber in the entire world with next-level skills that no one can touch—if nobody has ever heard of you, you’ll never build your clientele.

Marketing is the piece of the puzzle that connects you, your skills, and your talents with the people who need them or want them. And SEO is one of the most powerful ways to harness and wield that connection.

It just takes a little know-how.

In this blog, we’re going to teach you some of the SEO basics you need to know to help you drive more potential clients to your website, boost your business, and better reach your target market.

It’s effective, don’t get us wrong, but we’ll also be honest—it might take a little time to get the hang of SEO. But if you put in the work, invest the time, and make the effort, it can pay off in a very, very big way.

Welcome to your intro to SEO—we promise, it’s not going to be as scary as it sounds.

What is SEO for Barbers? 

First things first, let’s break down the word SEO—it actually stands for search engine optimization. 

SEO is—in its simplest terms—a strategy implemented across your entire online presence (blogs, website, social media platforms, etc.) that aims to help you show up as one of the first few searches on popular search engines when someone types in relevant keywords or phrases.

It’s easier to think about SEO practically. So, let’s consider an example.

What happens when you type in “best barbershop in Cleveland” into google? It’s highly likely that the first few links that show up are going to lead you to specific barber’s websites. 

Why? Well, it’s possible that they are genuinely the best—but it’s more likely that they have a kickass SEO strategy. It’s highly likely that they optimized their website in specific ways so that when someone typed that specific phrase into Google, they’d come out on top. 

And that’s important in a competitive industry like barbering, because, as you know, the higher you are at the top of the search engine results, the more likely someone is to click on a link—and that means a higher likelihood of potential clients.

Let’s Talk SEO—Why Does it Matter?

Like it or not, SEO is basically the pinnacle of digital marketing strategies. Not only can it be entirely free (or super affordable if not totally free), but it’s also the most impactful. 

Why does this matter? Because you’re a business, and as a business, your sales and your customers matter. If you’re on board with that concept but not seeing how SEO fits into that, think about it this way. 

Let’s say that you are legitimately the best barbershop in town. You know it, the locals know it, and you don’t have any issue making money in your neighborhood.

But let’s say you want to expand your target audience—maybe to a nearby community, maybe for the entire city, maybe for the entire state. Whatever your goal is, you want your audience to be bigger. 

But here’s the thing—that word-of-mouth guarantee that you’re the best is important, but it’s only going to get you so far. How can a large group of out-of-towners know that you’re the best if no local-to-you folks can tell them?

That’s where SEO comes in. 

When people want to invest in a service or buy a product, they take to the internet. If they type in “best barbershop in Ft. Lauderdale” and your shop is the first or second on the list, that means something. 

SEO has insanely high ROI, can be entirely free, and can make an enormous impact—and to us, that makes SEO seem like an absolute must in your marketing strategy. 

Simple Steps to Kickstart Your Barbering SEO 

The frustrating and fun thing about SEO is that it’s not static—in other words, SEO best practices are always going to be changing. This means you’ll need to invest time into it over and over—we know, we know, it’s frustrating, but it’s worth it.

That being said, there are some things you can do right now to improve your SEO in a snap. The first step? Do a hard-core SEO audit for your current website and start asking yourself questions like:

• How mobile-friendly is my website? If it’s not, it should be! Most users are looking you up on their mobile devices, so if your site isn’t set up to accommodate that, not only will users not enjoy your site, but the search engines will recognize that and won’t rank you any higher. 
• How hard is it to navigate my site? Easy navigation is key. Do you have a sitemap? Search engines absolutely love when you do—that way they can easily index your pages and that’s big SEO points. 
• Have I ever done and implemented keyword research? A lot of SEO has to do with keyword research and implementation. If you’ve never conducted keyword research, now’s the time to start—if you’re not sure how (or why this is necessary), we suggest reaching out to an SEO specialist or investing a lot of personal research into this part of SEO. 
• How fast does my website load? If it’s slow, a search engine will take notice. Make sure your site loads in less than three seconds. If it doesn’t fix it ASAP. 
• Do I do a good job of internal linking on my site? This is a must for SEO pints. 

Obviously, these are just a few of the thousands of SEO optimizations you can make to your site—it won’t be the end of your list, but it’s a great place to start.