How To Get Your Hair Salon SEEN by AI Searches
Case Study:
William Guy Hairdressing - Dorset & Hampshire
What The Client Wanted
William Guy Hairdressing is a multi-award-winning salon group with locations across Hampshire and Dorset.
In December 2023, Salon Director William took over Simone Thomas Salon in Westbourne. Salon Guru had previously managed Simone's salon website with outstanding results, achieving 241 phrases in the number one slot and 339 in the top three across hairdressing and trichology services.
In early 2025, William approached Salon Guru on the recommendation of his Westbourne manager, as his existing website, whilst attractive, was not delivering results in terms of Google rankings or client visits.
He wanted a new website to showcase the salon group's brand and services alongside the latest SEO content, in order to perform better in the Google rankings.
He also wanted to develop the group's online marketing with regular newsletters and Google Business Profile updates.
Most recently, William upgraded his service to our Supercharged SEO package, to future-proof the site as people are increasingly turning to tools such as ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews to inform their choices, often before visiting a website at all.
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William Guy Hairdressing dominates Google search with 140 key hair and salon phrases at number 1
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As of June 2026, William Guy has an impressive 351 key search phrases in the top 3 places on Google
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In just over a year, William Guy Hairdressing has accumulated 20,000 website visitors - a whopping 76.5% increase on the preceding year
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Salon Guru creates interesting and inspiring newsletters for this client - so open rates now hit 48% compared to the national average of 35-40%
What Salon Guru Did
We took the elements of William's original website that the salon team valued most and designed a new, content-rich site, fully optimised for Google search.
Each of the salon's services now has a dedicated page, including a key takeaways summary and FAQs presented as structured data, which is designed to be read by Google and AI search engines.
The new website showcases beautiful imagery from William's salons as well as their Davines brand partnership. We introduced a blog highlighting salon news and trends, which is regularly updated, demonstrating to Google that the website is actively maintained and contains fresh information.
We also took over the management of all three of William's Google Business Profiles, ensuring that they are accurate, up to date, and regularly updated with posts about the individual salons in the group. This helps to maximise local search visibility.
What Our Client Has To Say About Salon Guru
The Results - 140 Key Phrases Now Ranking First on Google Searches
As of June 2026, William Guy has 140 search terms in the number one position and 351 in the top three, across 529 terms tracked.
All of the salons in the group rank highly for balayage and other hair colour-related phrases. Ringwood ranks at number one for wedding hair, which is a specialism of theirs, whilst Westbourne ranks at number one for colour correction.
The Romsey salon - which became part of the William Guy Group in late 2025, has made an excellent start in the rankings, including achieving number one for the term "top salon near me".
A Google AI search for good or best hairdressers in each of the salon locations shows William Guy in the top three, and at number one for the longer-established salons in Ringwood and Westbourne.
ChatGPT also rates both Ringwood and Westbourne at number one for hair colour in their respective locations, with Romsey coming in at number two.
Salon Guru Increased Website Visitors by 76% in One Year
The new website was launched in April 2025, and in just over a year has accumulated nearly 20,000 visits. This represents a 76.5% increase on the preceding year, when the site received 11,276 visits.
Since launch there have been 51,010 page views, of which 39,894 were unique. This represents a 135% increase over the preceding period, with average visit duration up by 155%.
Visits to the website home page have increased by 14% to 12,300, and it remains the most frequently visited entry page, followed by the individual salon contact pages, which were introduced when we restructured the site.
We have sent regular newsletters to the salon's clients since launch, featuring salon news, blog articles and service promotions. These have proved very popular, achieving an average open rate of 48%, which is outstanding for email campaigns of this type. Links within the newsletters drive additional traffic to the website.
Our management of the Google Business Profiles has seen all three salons in the group achieve strong views and interactions, with clients requesting directions, calling the salon or clicking through to the website.
Optimise Your Google Business Profile
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Advertise With Meta & Google Ads
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Increase Clients & Bookings With Showcase!
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Contact Salon Guru by emailing [email protected] so we can assess whether your website is meeting your needs.