What a barbershop website actually needs, in order

Rank the page by what it costs you to skip

Run out of time halfway down and you still have a site that takes bookings.

1. A book button on screen before anyone scrolls. Inside the first phone screenful, not under the hero photo, with a second one at the bottom. It is first because its absence turns an interested client into nothing.

1. Services with a price and a duration on each. Every new client wants to know what it costs and how long they are in the chair. Answer both on one line and most people book instead of messaging you.

1. Your hours, and whether you are open right now. "Open until 7pm tonight" lands differently than a table of seven rows. Show the table, but make today's line stand out. People check at 6:15pm on a Thursday.

1. Where you are, with a map link, and parking if parking is the hard part. A tap that opens their maps app with directions loaded, not a picture of a map. If your block is metered or permit only, say so in one line. A client who circles for ten minutes eats your chair time.

1. Photos of real work, yours. Your fades, your lineups, your shop. Stock photos read as fake to anyone who looks at hair for a living, and your clients look at hair too. A dozen good ones beat fifty mediocre ones. Shoot them in daylight, including the back of the head.

1. The barbers, with names. People book a person, not a shop. A name, a photo, one line on what they are known for, and their own book button if you can. Someone who saw Marcus do a skin fade wants Marcus, and "any available barber" sends them back to Instagram.

1. The policies, a sentence each. Deposit, lateness, cancellation. "A $10 deposit holds your time and comes off the price of your cut" gets understood. Three paragraphs of terms get skipped, which is how you end up arguing later.

1. A phone number that dials when tapped. Some regulars will never book online. Give them one tap, below the book button.

Prices are the one you will be tempted to leave out

Leave them in. Hiding prices moves the question to a DM you answer with scissors in your hand, and most people never send it.

Hiding your prices loses you more bookings than a high price ever will.

If a cut genuinely varies, use "from" pricing and say what moves it. "From $40, longer or thicker hair adds about 15 minutes and $10" sets the expectation before anyone sits down. What loses trust is a flat $40 that becomes $55 at the register.

The services section, written out

Point two as finished copy. Swap in your own services, times and prices.

What the page does not need

• A long about-us story. One or two sentences is plenty. Nobody picks a barber by reading paragraphs.
• A blog. An abandoned one with two posts from 2024 makes the shop look closed.
• A sliding gallery. Carousels hide most of your photos and steal the tap meant for the book button. A plain grid shows more work.
• A pop-up. They already chose to open your page. Interrupting them for an email address is how they leave.
• Music. Never auto-play anything.

None of these books a cut.

Instagram brings the traffic, the site closes it

Almost nobody types your shop name into a browser. They see your work on Instagram, or they search "barber near me" and tap a Google Maps result. Your site does not find you clients. It converts the ones who already found you.

So it has two jobs: being where your link in bio lands, which is why the top of the page is a book button and not a logo, and being the page Google sends a nearby search to. If you need the Instagram half wired up, that is its own short job.

Your Google Business Profile matters as much as the site, and it is free. Claim it, pick the right category, add your real hours and photos, and put your website address in the website field. That last part takes thirty seconds and is the most skipped step there is.

Who needs one first, and who can wait

A shop that is fully booked on regulars, with a healthy Google profile and a phone that still rings, can run a long time with no website. Four weeks of building is not that shop's highest priority. Better profile photos and a rebooking habit do more.

Build one first if you are:

• A new shop. No regulars yet, so every client is a stranger deciding from a phone screen.
• A shop with more than one barber. Clients pick a person, and your barbers need their own calendars.
• Taking deposits. A deposit needs a page that collects it and a policy the client saw first. Collecting them over DMs is where disputes start.

Then keep it small. Eight elements, one page, your own photos. BKRDY has templates designed for barbershops, the Free plan costs $0, and the booking page is yours rather than a listing that also shows the shop next door. Whatever you build it with, the order is the part that matters.

Questions