What should a barber's website have on it?

Think about how people actually end up on a barber's site. They've seen your name on Instagram or on a map, they're on their phone, and they want to know a few things quickly. How much is a fade, are you open now, where are you, and can they get in today. If the site answers those fast, it's done most of its job. Everything else is extra, and I think a lot of it is extra in the bad sense.

So this is the list I'd start from, in roughly the order people look for things.

Booking, if you take it

If people can book a chair online, booking is the main thing on the site. It should be the first button they see and it should be there on every page, because nobody wants to scroll back to the top to find it.

There are two ways it usually goes. If you already take bookings through something like Fresha or Square, I'll point the site's Book button straight at it, so your diary stays exactly where it is. If you haven't got anything yet, I'll set booking up for you as part of a Business site, with something like Cal.com, Fresha or Square. Either way, people can book without ringing the shop while you've got clippers in your hand.

If you're walk-ins only, that's fine too. Just say so clearly, near the top, so nobody spends five minutes looking for a Book button that isn't there.

A price list people can read

Cuts, fades, beard trims, shaves, kids' cuts, with a price next to each one. That's it. It should be real text on the page, not a photo of the board on the wall, because a photo is hard to read on a phone, and you can't change one price on it without taking a new one.

Keep it short and keep it current. If a price has gone up and the site still shows the old one, somebody's going to point that out at the chair, and that's not a conversation anyone enjoys. When prices change, you can send them to me, or change them yourself with the edit it yourself add-on (there's more on that in the questions at the bottom).

If you take bookings, the price list and booking work well together. Someone sees the cut they want, taps it, and they're booking. That's how the Fade & Co. demo does it, which I'll come back to.

Where you are and when you're open

A map, your address, and your opening hours, easy to find on a phone. If you open late on a Thursday or shut on a Monday, put it in. If walk-ins are welcome, say that here too.

It sounds obvious, but this is the part people check right before they leave the house, so it needs to be right. I think out-of-date hours are one of the quickest ways to lose a customer. They turn up, find the shutter down, and I wouldn't bet on them trying again.

The team

Who's cutting, with a photo and a name. People really do ask for a barber by name, and if they've had a good cut from someone they want to be able to find them again. If booking's on the site, this is also where they pick who they want.

It doesn't need to be a big page. A photo, a name, and maybe a line about what each person's known for is plenty.

Your Instagram

Your work is probably already on Instagram, and that's the best proof you've got. So the site should link to it clearly, and I'd put that link somewhere people will actually see it, not just as a small icon at the bottom.

Showing your latest posts on the site itself is a different job. It means connecting the site to Instagram's own system, so it's an integration, which I quote rather than include. I think a lot of the time a clear link and a few of your best photos on the site do the job just as well.

What I'd leave off

This is the bit people don't usually get told. I think these make a barber's site worse, not better:

• A news page or blog you won't keep up. If the last post is from two summers ago, it makes the whole shop look quiet.
• Photos that aren't your shop. Your own chairs and your own work, even taken on a phone, beat a generic photo of somebody else's shop.
• A long story about the shop on the front page. It's nice to have, but put it further down or on an about page. People want prices and booking first.
• Pop-ups. Nobody on a phone wants to close a box before they can see your prices.
• Pages for the sake of pages. A barber's site can be a handful of pages and be really good. More pages isn't more useful if they've got nothing on them.

Starter or Business for a barber

The package comes down to one question, which is whether people book online.

If they do, it's a Business site, because that's the package online booking is set up with. Business starts at $1,999. If you're walk-ins only and people mainly need your prices, your hours and where to find you, a price list on its own fits Starter, which starts at $999. Both of those are founding prices for my first 5 clients, and they go up after that.

If you start on Starter and decide later that you want booking, what you paid for Starter comes off Business. Or if booking is the only part you want, I'll quote just that, which is often less.

The websites for barbers page has a checklist of all of this. Tick what your shop needs and it'll show you which package it lands on.

See one working

I built Fade & Co. to show how a booking site for a barber could work. It's a concept demo, so the shop is made up and nothing actually gets booked, but it's got the parts I've talked about here: a price list where tapping a price starts the booking with that cut already picked, the team, the map and the hours. Have a click around on your phone, because that's where your customers will be using yours.

If you want one like it for your shop, tell me what you've got now and what you want people to be able to do, and I'll tell you which package fits, even if it's the cheaper one.