What does your laundromat website offer to customers when they come to visit?

For a business, a website is like your online storefront.

Even though customers can’t wash their clothes through the website, they may be doing the equivalent of window-shopping, looking for the best available laundromat in the area.

Since modern professionals look up everything online before they make a decision, your laundromat’s website can be the key to attracting customers and winning the competition for local laundry demand.

To do this, you’re going to need a smooth, attractive website design – complete with everything customers need to gather information, find your store, and arrive prepared to wash on a schedule.

We’re here to help. Your laundromat website should include a few essentials, website must-haves, that define your business, facility, services, and availability to future and returning customers.

Let’s dive into the six laundromat website must-haves to complete your website design.

1) User-Friendly Website Design – The Business Page Basics

The first place to start is a website design that your customers can relate to. For a website to act as your storefront, it needs to be as customer-friendly as a picture window – a familiar and reliable display of your business’ selling points and useful information.

A big part of a user-friendly design is following the basics.

You have likely noticed that most business websites have a few essential pages that are the same over every website.

The Home page is obvious, it’s your www.site.com home-base. Beyond that, you will also want an ‘About’, ‘Contact’, and ‘Careers’ pages as well.

From there, you can start building your content on availability, services, and locations.

Compelling Homepage

Start with an eye-catching homepage.

Your initial layout should be heavy on beautiful photographs of laundry machines, spinning dryers, and on-site amenities for customers.

A laundromat website homepage should make your online visitors know what it feels like to stand in your facility, surrounded by the machines and amenities that they might enjoy.

Your homepage will also be the place for the most quick-use information for customers who are “just checking in” before they drive over.

Interesting About Page

Every business should have an ‘About’ page. The challenge is to find the most interesting way to convey your business’s story. You can talk about the founding or you can spend a paragraph or three on your business philosophies. You can use this page to tell your favorite customer stories or just share a little about yourself as the owner or manager.

The real point of the ‘About’ page is to show curious online customers that you are a real person, or that your business is more than a facility with machines. Show the human side of your laundromat business, whatever that may be.

Quick Contact Page

Don’t forget a ‘Contacts’ page. Even if your laundromat has rarely accepted emails before, customers expect a ‘contact’ page when they come to a business website and sometimes, they have an important message to send.

Once your Contact page is up and running, you may begin to receive useful messages about lost-and-found items and questions about policies – and answering these messages can increase your customers.

Careers Page

Lastly, include a careers page. You never know when a bright new person might be looking for a job.

Your careers page is a standard part of a business website can list any current openings, provide a downloadable application, or accept online applications for a quick paperless way to gather resumes.

2) Useful and Up-to-Date Laundromat Information

Now for the content.

Once you have the basic layout for your laundromat website, it’s time to fill it with useful information that your customers are looking for. Most people seek out a laundromat website for one of three reasons:

1. To confirm that your Google Maps pin is real
2. To check your hours
3. To find out about specific machines, services, or policies

What they come for is accurate, up-to-date information that can be relied on, because fitting laundry into a busy schedule is serious business and your customers go online to make sure there are no mistakes before the laundry baskets hit the back seat.

Laundromat Hours

Start with your hours. Hours are the single most important piece of information for your laundromat customers, from new customers with a laundry emergency to returning customers confirming the shop will be open when they arrive with their hampers and laundry bags.

Place your store hours clearly displayed, and make sure they are both modern and accurate at all times. Your customers might not remember to thank you, but they will grow to rely on your accuracy above other less attentive local competition.

Machine Pricing

Pricing is another big matter. Many laundromat customers come with exact change, or at least the right number of small bills to turn into exact change.

So surprise costs can throw off an entire round of errands.

Publish your costs.

Use your homepage to let customers know what prices to expect for each machine. Include the detergent dispenser and arcade prices for bonus points.

Available Services

If your laundromat offers services like managed washing, folding, or pressing, make it known. Most people don’t expect laundry services to be available, so they don’t purchase them.

Broadcast these services on the homepage, then make a separate page detailing each available laundry service that goes beyond use of the machines.

Policies and  Rules

Finally, make sure your store policies are printed on the website. These don’t need to be on the homepage, but should be included in a FAQ or customer information page with a link in the main navigation bar.

Customers need to know if they can or can’t leave their laundry unattended, if you have detergent for sale, if there is wifi, and any other house rules that may apply.

Savvy customers go online to look up these policies before they arrive, and to ensure your policies align with their needs. Putting that info on your site can win you business!

3) Inbound Marketing Laundry Blog

You have probably heard of SEO and blogs, especially if you read our blog a lot.  A blog is one of your best ways to provide content that can attract potential customers.

So it’s time for a laundry blog.

Get creative. Share cool stain-fighting tips, customer stories, and fun ways to present each week’s lost-and-found. Share news stories that relate to your bulletin board. Each blog should be something that someone doing laundry might find interesting.

Some laundromat website blogs stay laundry-focused, some trend toward lifestyle articles that all homemakers can relate to. Whichever way you decide to go, start speaking to your audience!

4) Business Location Listings

If you have one laundromat, make sure your website includes a map to that location. this is an opportunity for a decorative panel on your home-page that confirms that your address and directions are correct for customers.

However, if you  -like many laundromats – have multiple locations in the region, then create a page that highlights each individual facility along with their map location. If the facilities have significant differences, make an individual page for each to share their unique hours, policies, or services. Use this as an opportunity for a gallery of beautiful laundromat photos, one for each additional facility.

5) Quality Laundry Machine Photographs

Speaking of photographs, most laundromat websites are very heavy images and light on text. This is practical, as a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to conveying a laundromat’s cleanliness, ambiance, and equipment in detail.

So share photographs.

Polish your machines until they clean and have a professional photo-shoot of each facility. Use these as your visually compelling website content, for the homepage and additional pages beyond the homepage.

6) Customer Service Amenities

Last but not least, highlight your amenities.

This is where you pull ahead of the competition. Many laundromats have features like arcade games, wifi, and outlets near comfortable chairs.

Most laundromat websites do not showcase these features, even though they are often the most important details to customers planning their day.

Whatever amenities you have for customer convenience, comfort, and laundry-waiting entertainment – use your website to spotlight it to new and returning customers.

Those looking for a pleasant place to wait or place they can even get work done while the laundry spins will be attracted to the amenities you offer, and will choose your laundromat over competition that doesn’t tell them what comforts they might (or might not) find.

Conclusion

Building a website for laundromat is simple. All you need is a user-friendly layout, upbeat and accurate content on each of the standard pages, and a great set of facility photos. Your web design team can do the rest.

Contact us today to talk about your laundromat website plans!