So I’ve made some design changes to the Beauty Lounge Website. We’ve changed the Header logo, shape and opacity, added social share icons, and added a nice call to action to the home page. We also changed up the menu a little bit and I finished the customized booking pages.

It wouldn’t be a McSwizzleStix design without some customize forms. That’s right, you guessed it. This client already had a beautiful logo so it just made the forms easier to make, aesthetically anyway.

After some password issues, you’ll notice the front end staff, and then customer areas, allowing full calendar management, without the need to provide back end access to the website. We also added a lovely testimonials section to the bottom of the Home page. I think the site is looking lovely. Feel free to checkout the previous post, if you’d like, but I’ve included it below for your convenience.

As I routinely do, I would like to go ahead and thank Elementor and Envato. They help shave hours off all our WordPress Designs. Don’t forget to reach out to Load Toad Networks for all things Tech.

Thanks again for staking the time to checkout my work. This is one of my more fun sites to work on as the owner is engaged and enthusiastic about learning her site. If you’re ever in the Tampa Bay area, be sure to stop by JC Beauty Lounge – Where Galmour Begins.

Original Post:

This website was a fun one. They are all always fun for me, but this one was extra fun. The owner insists on learning things herself. I encourage this of all my customers, but have never seen it taken to such extent. She is the only owner I have encountered that feels like its a bother to ask me for help. Bless her heart. Doesn’t matter how many times I stress I am here to help. Oh well, I’m ok either way, lol. So, for the site. This template was chosen out of about 2 or 3 others. She actually liked aspects from two separate templates, but the overall “wrapper” as I call it of this one was more appealing.

You’re greeted immediately by a huge beautiful eyeball. Once your eyes focus you realize you’re seeing some pretty detailed makeup work work, and thus teleported into a beauty salon. Initially the header was fully transparent and sticky to scroll with the viewer. She really liked the transparent header, but not so much that you couldn’t see it sometimes when scrolling. So, I temporarily added a bit of an overlay to make the text stand out more and I’ve removed the sticky.

At some point, I plan to go back and change it back to scroll with the user, yet remove the logo on scroll, or change to the circle one, and for the menu colors to be reactive to the background and adjust their color accordingly.

The ever important booking process

Lots of small business owners are perfectly content with paying yet another service to setup their appointments and calendar and offerings there, and just have their customers book appointments through the third party rather than their website. Thus creating yet another password, another redirect from your site, and another bill you have to pay.

All my customers will enjoy a fully customizable booking system integrated into their website. Their customers will be able to pay when booking, in person, or at anytime from their front end customer portal. This is particularly useful if your business allows customers to accrue a balance.

If desired, they can also convert that front end customer account into a full account with back end access to manage their appointments. I tend to advices against this unless its absolutely necessary to give the customer a full WordPress login on your account. In these cases, I often build a customized user area for customer to conduct any “back end business” on the front end. The booking area is fully customizable to the sites color schemes.

It is a tedious process however, and I usually complete that at a later date. Unless the customer requests otherwise, my main focus is always to get the site up, functioning, and serving customers as soon as possible. I think this sites owner was able to start booking appointments within 3 days of accepting my proposal.

Search Engine Optimization is always important

The owner of this site also hosts with me. Every site that I host comes standard with the free version of All in One SEO. While SEO is always import it’ll ensure the brand that you’re trying to spread, will reach the customers intended.

I offer optimization extra, but all site I build are built in such a way to maximize the optimization process. If a flat structure is a better fit for your site, I will build it that way and explain why.

Same for a tree structure, I did nothing to optimize this site and its already scoring in the excellent range according to AIO/SEO.

I provide links to instructions for customers to perform additional optimization on their own. My optimization services come at an additional cost. At some point I will be adding pricing to this site on the Services page which isn’t complete yet.

WordPress design is almost an obsession

As much as web design is indeed a revenue stream, I often find myself adding extras just because I can’t help myself. I also hate to nickel and dime my customers for small things where the cost is insignificant at most. This site features tons licensed stock photos for products and other sections. As always my end goal is to have a completely satisfied customer and help them meet the goals and dreams they’re pursuing. Trust me, I know the effect that a little help and a good deal can have on an aspiring small business owner.

As always, I welcome all comments, criticisms and critiques. Also please share on social media. I’d greatly appreciate it feel free to checkout Springboard™: by Load Toad Networks™. It’s another site I’m collaborating on. Once its complete, there will be a member area that will offer other designers an area to showcase their work.