Six tests, ten minutes
A salon website has six jobs. Each has a one-minute test on your own phone. Run them in order: the first three are the path to a booking.
1. Book a stylist in two taps
Test: open the site on your phone. Without scrolling, is there a Book button? Tap it, or open a stylist's page and tap Book-with. Live slots for that stylist within one more tap?
Pass: slots visible, stylist chosen, two taps from landing.
Fail: Book in a menu; a contact form; a platform page where you search for the salon again; no stylist pages.
Fix: a header Book button on every page and a profile per stylist with a Book-with button, deep-linked using the booking platform's staff and service parameters.
2. Appear in under two seconds
Test: private window, mobile data. Load the home page and a service page. Count.
Pass: under two seconds; Core Web Vitals Good on mobile in Search Console.
Fail: blank screen, then a slider assembling itself; Poor in Search Console.
Fix: images sized and compressed, gallery lazy-loaded, hero prioritised, slider removed, scripts trimmed, decent hosting.
3. Work inside Instagram
Test: open your Instagram on your phone, tap your bio link, tap Book, complete a booking. Then a story link if you use them.
Pass: booking completes inside Instagram's browser with confirmation.
Fail: blank widget; session lost at payment; bio link goes to the home page and Book is buried.
Fix: bio link to your booking page or a one-purpose landing page with Book first; if the embed fails in-app, link to the platform's hosted page.
4. Show current prices for every service
Test: as a stranger, find the price of a cut and colour and of the most popular men's service. Time it. Are they current?
Pass: under thirty seconds, on the service page and a fees page, matching what you charge today.
Fail: an image of a price card; "prices on request"; a PDF from last year.
Fix: prices as records the manager edits, rendered on service pages beside Book and on a fees page.
5. Show the work and the people
Test: find photos of your actual salon, your team, and your work by service. Find a stylist's specialities and Instagram.
Pass: all within a minute; real photos, consented client work, stylist profiles with what they do.
Fail: stock images; a team page with first names only; a gallery that is one slider of everything.
Fix: a photographer for half a day; a gallery by service; profiles with specialities, Instagram links and Book-with buttons.
6. Protect the diary and report what happened
Test: book as a new client. Were you asked for a card or deposit? Was the cancellation policy shown? Then ask the manager how many bookings came from the website last month, by page and source.
Pass: deposits or card capture on, policy shown, reminders sent; the manager knows the numbers.
Fail: anyone can hold a three-hour slot with no commitment; nobody knows what the site produces.
Fix: deposits and policy in the booking platform; a booking_click event on every Book button; UTM tags on the Instagram link; completed bookings by source checked monthly.
Scoring
Six of six: the site works; spend on photography and service content. Four or five: fix the failures, no rebuild. Three or fewer with 1, 2 or 3 failing: the site is losing bookings every day, and the fixes are worth more than they cost.
Where this sits
This is the launch checklist for every salon site we build and the first ten minutes of a diagnosis on an existing one. Most salon sites fail at least three, and most of the failures are fixable inside a month.