Building a Website That Does More Than Look Good
Only Tans by Clare needed a website that could sell the salon experience clearly, support local search visibility and reduce the admin that often sits behind tanning bookings, consent forms, top-ups and minute tracking. The brief was not just to create a good-looking page. The business needed a connected digital journey that helped clients understand the offer, sign up quickly and manage their tanning minutes from their phone.
The finished project combined website design, mobile user experience, customer onboarding, Stripe payment integration, digital consent capture and a practical back-office admin system. That mix matters because small service businesses rarely need technology for show. They need systems that remove friction from the real customer journey.
The Brief: A Tanning-Focused Brand and a Better Customer Flow
Clare wanted Only Tans by Clare to be presented as a dedicated tanning brand rather than a generic beauty business with tanning hidden in the background. The site needed to explain courses, pay-as-you-go minutes, hybrid tanning benefits, accelerators and the route into the client app without making visitors work for the answer.
The customer flow was just as important as the marketing. New clients needed to scan a QR code, create an account, complete consent, buy minutes and come back later to check their balance. Staff needed a clearer admin view for client records, purchase history, consent status and minute adjustments.
That gave the project two connected goals: build a bright, clear tanning salon website, and build a client-facing app that made the salon easier to operate.
Website Structure Built Around What Clients Actually Need
A lot of small business websites fail because they try to say everything at once. For this project, the structure had to stay direct. Most visitors are local, mobile users. They want prices, location, reassurance, a clear explanation of the service and a fast route to the app.
The website therefore puts the commercial information in front of the visitor quickly. Course pricing is visible instead of hidden behind a message request:
- 30 minutes for GBP20
- 60 minutes for GBP40
- 90 minutes for GBP52
- 120 minutes for GBP65
- Pay as you go at GBP1 per minute
That kind of clarity helps users decide faster. It also reduces repetitive questions for the business. If someone wants a course price or a top-up route, the website gives them the answer instead of pushing them into a manual conversation.
A Stronger Brand Presentation for a Local Salon
The site needed to feel like Only Tans by Clare, not a generic template. The visual direction uses bold colour, strong sectioning and a mobile-friendly layout that feels lively without getting in the way of the key information.
That presentation work is not decoration for decoration's sake. A focused salon website should make the business look confident, memorable and easy to understand. The design supports the personality of the brand while keeping pricing, app access and contact details easy to find.
Making the Client App Part of the Journey
The client app was not treated as a separate technical bolt-on. The website actively introduces the journey: scan the QR code, complete consent, buy minutes and tan. That makes the website operational as well as promotional.
The app allows clients to create an account, verify their email, complete or update consent information, buy minutes using Stripe, check their live balance and return later to top up from their phone. Because it is mobile-first and can be saved to a phone, it behaves more like a lightweight customer portal than a static web page.
Digital Consent and Admin Tools
The admin side is where much of the practical value sits. The salon needed a better way to manage adult-only sign-up, health and consent capture, minute tracking, top-ups, client records and manual adjustments when minutes are used.
The system gives staff a clearer workspace for reviewing client details, checking consent status, seeing history, managing balances and tracking purchases. That is a major improvement over disconnected paper forms, messages and manual records.
Linked policy support was also added through a dedicated policies page covering salon use, hygiene, age restrictions, behaviour and responsibility. This gives the business a clearer public ruleset that connects back to the consent and minute system.
Stripe Payments for Tanning Minutes
Stripe checkout was integrated so clients can buy courses or pay-as-you-go minutes digitally. The payment flow supports fixed minute packages as well as smaller flexible top-ups. For clients, that means less friction. For the salon, it creates a cleaner, more inspectable payment record.
Purchase visibility was improved on the admin side too. Staff can see tracked Stripe purchases and purchase-related history, and stronger internal payment logging makes it easier to review what happened if a payment ever needs checking.
Local SEO Foundations
Because Only Tans by Clare is a local service business, the SEO work had to support practical local search intent. People are likely to search for phrases such as tanning salon in Elland, sunbeds in Elland, hybrid tanning Elland, pay as you go sunbeds and tanning minutes app.
The site was structured to support those searches naturally, with clear page titles, descriptions, crawlable text, local business structured data, mobile-friendly design and useful internal links between the homepage, app and policy pages.
The goal was not to stuff keywords into a pretty site. It was to make sure the website could be understood by people, search engines and AI systems while still sounding like a real local business.
Why Mobile Experience Was Critical
For this audience, mobile is the main experience. Some clients arrive from social media, some from local search, and some by scanning a QR code inside the salon. That shaped the whole build.
The journey had to work for quick price checks, mobile sign-up, consent completion, payment, top-ups and returning users checking balances on the go. A desktop-only mindset would have missed the point completely.
What the Project Delivered
The finished setup gave Only Tans by Clare a dedicated tanning website, visible course pricing, a stronger explanation of hybrid tanning, QR-led onboarding, digital consent capture, Stripe-powered top-ups, live client balances and a salon admin area for managing the service behind the scenes.
You can view the finished client website at https://onlytansbyclare.co.uk/.
Most importantly, the website and app now support each other. The website explains the offer and guides visitors into the right flow. The app handles the operational side. The admin system helps staff manage the real-world salon process with less manual effort.
Final Thoughts
This project is a good example of why small business websites work best when they are treated as business systems, not just design exercises. Only Tans by Clare did not need a passive brochure site. The business needed a website that sold the tanning offer clearly, reduced admin and made top-ups and minute tracking easier for clients and staff.
If your service business needs a website that does more than sit there, Hamblett Consultancy can help plan and build a setup that supports the way the business actually runs.