Guides
Step-by-step, plainly written, with real numbers.
How many clients does a hairdresser need to fill a chair?
Your appointments a week times the weeks between visits. A worked example in pounds and people, and how many new faces a month it takes to stay full.
Home salon: does your address have to show on Google?
No, and for most home salons it should not. Google's real test is a sign outside, not where clients sit. What its rules say and what stays private.
Should you fix your Google listing before you pay for ads?
For a salon, the SEO that matters is the free Google listing, and every ad you buy borrows from it. Why it comes first, and what to fix in an afternoon.
How to attract high-end clients to your salon
High-end clients come from places where they see your price before they message you: search, your Google listing and the clients who already pay it.
How to get clients when nobody walks past your salon
Tucked away with hardly any footfall? Why 'take more walk-ins' does not help, how Google counts distance from the person searching, and what to fix first.
How to keep your clients through maternity leave
Self-employed and pregnant, with rent still due? How to keep your clients through maternity leave: tell them early, set Google right, refill on return.
How to get more curly hair clients
Curly clients search for curls, not the nearest salon. How to be on that page: one curl page, curls on your Google listing and a small ad.
Are the ads at the top of Google Maps worth paying for?
No, you do not have to pay to appear on Google Maps. What the paid spots are, when you are charged, and whether a small salon should buy one.
Another salon is bidding on your salon's name
Yes, a rival salon can buy ads on your salon's name. What Google lets them do, the one thing you can report, and whether defending your name is worth it.
How to advertise a barbershop, and count what it brings in
The best way to advertise a barbershop starts free, on your Google listing. When paid ads are worth it, and what a walk-in shop can and cannot count.
How to fill a new stylist's column
Whose job it is, and how: her empty hours are already on your wage bill. Work out the cost, give her your overflow, and advertise the services she does.
Should a salon advertise in December or save for January?
If your December books itself, ads then mostly buy clients you already had. How to check your own diary, and how to move the money to January.
Is £100 a month enough for Google Ads for a salon?
Yes, just, if it goes on one service in one area. What £100 buys a day under Google's own rules, why £50 does not work, and how to judge it.
How to get clients as a mobile hairdresser
No shop window, no passing trade. How a stranger finds a mobile hairdresser on Google, what Google lets you list without an address, and when ads are worth it.
How to get more hair extension clients
New extension clients start on Google with the method and the town. How to be found there, which searches to refuse, and what one client is worth.
Will your booking app's website get you found on Google?
A booking app's free site helps people who already know your name. Strangers nearby find your Google listing first. Three checks to do tonight, and the fix.
Is Google's 'spend £400, get £400' worth it for a salon?
The Google Ads credit is real money, but at £100 to £150 a month it asks a salon to spend faster than planned, twice. The sum, from Google's own terms.
Should a salon advertise near the VAT threshold?
If you have decided to stay under £90,000, paying for more clients buys the thing you are avoiding. When salon ads still make sense near the VAT threshold.
There's a Fresha page for your salon and you never signed up
Fresha lists salons from public information, even ones not on Fresha. How to find your page, and whether to leave it, fix it or have it removed.
Pointing your ads at your Fresha or Treatwell booking page
You can send Google Ads to your Fresha or Treatwell booking page, but the link you paste decides whether you pay a new client fee on top of the click.
How do you know a booking came from your Google ad?
Booking by booking, mostly you cannot. What Google, Fresha and Square will actually show you, and the four numbers worth writing down each month.
How to compete with the cheap barber down the road
A cheaper barber has opened nearby. What matching his price really costs you, and how to stop paying Google to show your ad to price shoppers.
Is a Groupon deal worth it for a salon?
Groupon will not quote its commission until you have an account. Here is the half of the sum you can do tonight, and the number that decides it.
How to run Google Ads when you rent a chair
Radius targeting, whose address shows under the ad, and what £100 a month really buys when the rent falls due every week.
Google Ads or boosting Instagram posts for a salon?
If you can only fund one, here is what each actually buys, in pounds, using Google's and Meta's own rules about what takes your money.
Who gets paid when someone books from your Google listing
If a client taps Book on your Google listing, the fee depends on whose button it is. What Treatwell and Google actually say, and how to change it.
Your salon ads used to work and now they don't
The ads still run, the budget still goes out, and the enquiries have stopped. Here is the order to check things in, starting with what Google changed.
Can you get a Google listing when you rent a chair?
What Google's own rules say about listing your business at a salon address that is not yours, and the step that really decides it.
Should your salon's ads run when you are closed?
Whether to run Google Ads only during your salon's opening hours, what changed on 1 June 2026, and why your open hours are the ones you cannot pick up.
Google Ads for a barbershop with no website
Google is retiring call ads, so the usual answer no longer works. What a barbershop with no website can actually run, and the phone number catch behind it.
Is a marketing agency worth it for a salon?
What a UK marketing agency charges a month, next to what a salon's whole marketing budget actually is, and the questions to ask before you sign anything.
Is there enough demand round here for another salon?
How to check whether enough people near a new salon site are actually searching for your services, using Google's own free tool, before you sign a lease.
How long do Google Ads take to work for a salon?
A fortnight is enough to tell whether a small salon campaign is alive, and the three month answer belongs to a different kind of business.
Your salon ads get clicks but nobody rings
Clicks with no calls is usually something after the tap, not the ad itself. Here is the ten second test to run on your own phone this afternoon.
Why your salon does not show up on Google Maps
A salon missing from Maps has usually failed one of four checks Google publishes. How to work out which one, and fix it yourself.
The bookings you lose when nobody can answer the phone
Clients ring while your hands are in colour. How to count the calls you are actually missing, for free, before you buy any more of them.
Where your salon marketing budget should actually go
The order a salon marketing budget should be spent in: what costs nothing, what the paid pound buys, and where money leaks out unnoticed.
How to get more colour clients instead of just cuts
Colour clients do not come from an ad that says hairdresser. How to split a small Google Ads budget by service so the colour searches get the money.
How to fill the quiet midweek days in your salon
Why midweek gaps are a shape rather than a shortage, what an ad schedule actually does to a 300 pound budget, and what really moves a Tuesday.
What a new client should actually cost you
There is no published right answer. What one new salon client should cost is decided by two numbers already in your own book, and here they are in pounds.
The Google rep says switch to Performance Max
What Performance Max for store goals actually does with a small salon budget, what it counts as a conversion, and what to ask before you click.
Can ads really target people in the hotel round the corner?
An agency says it can put your salon in front of guests in the hotels nearby. Here is what Google Ads location targeting actually does.
When a new salon opens on your street
A new salon opened nearby and your book has gaps. How to work out what you have actually lost, and what to fix before you touch your prices.
Why your salon bookings dropped this month
The national picture, the twenty minute check on your own book, and the three things that break quietly without telling you.
Why your salon ads are not showing at all
Six reasons a salon's Google Ads stop showing, in the order that finds it fastest, including the one that leaves every status reading Eligible.
Moving off a Google Smart Campaign without losing bookings
How a salon moves from a Google Smart Campaign to a proper search campaign, in the order that keeps something live the whole time.
What happens to your bookings if you stop paying for ads
Pause and your ads stop the same day. Cancel and they stop within 24 hours. What keeps working afterwards, and what you stop paying for.
How to get salon clients without Instagram
The people who need a hairdresser this week are searching, not scrolling. Five ways to fill a salon diary without posting on Instagram.
Are Google Ads worth it for a small salon?
The honest answer, including the four cases where we say no and turn the money away, plus the sum that decides it for a small UK salon or barbershop.
Leaving Treatwell or Fresha to take your own bookings
What Treatwell and Fresha actually charge in 2026, why leaving saves less than you expect, and the one sum to do before you close the account.
Is a marketing qualification worth it when you own a salon?
What a CIM certificate actually costs, what it teaches that you already know, and the four situations where it genuinely pays for itself.
Google Ads for hairdressers: the plain-English guide
What Google Ads actually costs a salon, where the money leaks, the five pieces that make it work, and the honest maths of whether it's worth it for you.
Why your salon ads bring in students, not clients
You boosted the post, the enquiries came — and they wanted student discounts, free model sessions and apprenticeships. Here's exactly where the money went, and the blocklist that stops it.
How much should a salon spend on Google Ads?
A plain answer with real numbers: what different monthly budgets actually get a salon or barbershop, when a budget is too small to bother, and where most shops settle.
