Does your salon need a website if bookings come through Instagram?
Your Instagram is working. The question is who it never reaches. Written for salons, brow and lash studios across Richmond, Burnaby and the Lower Mainland.
The short answer: keep Instagram, and add a small website. 67 percent of 18 to 24 year olds use Instagram to look up local businesses, but 72 percent of everyone uses Google, and Google cannot properly read what you post on Instagram. A one page site with your services, prices, hours and booking link catches the half of your future clients who search instead of scroll.
What Instagram genuinely does better
The portfolio. Balayage in motion beats balayage described, and your feed is doing work no static page can: showing the current work, the room, the person behind the chair. Among 18 to 24 year olds, 67 percent use Instagram to look up local businesses, and 37 percent of consumers overall use it to find local reviews. Nothing below is an argument for posting less.
Where it stops
Four places, and every salon owner has felt at least three. One link. Everything you want to show routes through a single bio link. Prices live in DMs. “How much for a full set?” asked forty times a week, answered forty times. The algorithm decides your reach, and it does not owe you tomorrow what it gave you last month. And Google cannot read your posts. When someone in Richmond types “lash lift price Richmond”, your three years of beautiful posts are invisible to that search. The person who typed it books wherever the answer loads.
There is a quieter fifth: the account is not yours the way a website is. Locked out, hacked, or flagged, and the whole presence is gone while you argue with a support bot. We wrote about what owning your web presence means in do you own your website.
Instagram alone, or Instagram plus a small site
| Instagram + a small website | Instagram alone | |
|---|---|---|
| Found by Google searches | Yesservices and prices readable by search | Barely. Posts don’t rank |
| Prices without a DM | On the page | Asked and answered in DMs, daily |
| Booking | One tap from either place | One bio link doing every job |
| Who controls reach | Youthe page is always there | The algorithm |
| If the account is lost | The website stands | Everything goes with it |
What the site needs, and it is less than you think
One page can carry it: services with prices, hours, the booking link you already use, six of your best photos, and a link straight back to your Instagram. That last part matters, the two feed each other. The site catches the Google search and answers the price question; the feed closes the style decision. Most salons do not need more pages than that on day one.
What it costs
With us: $499 one time. $699 and we shoot the salon and your work properly, usually on a closed day so no client ends up in the background. $999 adds video, which is the format your feed loves anyway. No monthly fees, live in about a week, and you own the site and every photo. Websites anywhere in Canada; shoots across Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley and Abbotsford. Numbers in full in the price guide.
Common questions from salons
Yes, a small one. Instagram reaches the scrollers; the website catches the searchers. 72 percent of people use Google to look up local businesses.
No, and it should not. The feed does the portfolio work. The site does the search, price and booking work.
Services with prices, hours, your booking link, a few best photos, and a link to your Instagram.
Keep it. The site links to the tool you already use; we do not rebuild booking, because that is monthly software you do not need from us.
$499 one time, $699 with a photoshoot, $999 with video. No monthly fees, and you own everything.
Sources
- BrightLocal, local SEO statistics: platform use by age
- Backlinko, local search statistics
- Local SEO statistics 2026, data points
Keep reading: what a barber shop website needs · what business photos cost
Tired of answering “how much?” in DMs?
Book a 15 minute call. A one page site with your prices, live in about a week, from $499.
Book your call