/ Industries · Hair salons and haircare
People stopped searching for a hair salon. They search for a specialist.
Curly, blonde, colour, extensions, men's, walk-in. Over five years, Australian searches for “hairdresser” fell by a third while searches for named treatments grew fast: hair serum 4x, hair gloss nearly 7x. The salon that says what it is best at gets found for the searches that are growing. The salon that says “all services” competes for the ones that are shrinking. Brands face the same shift: people now shop a haircare routine one step at a time, and ask AI which product to buy. This page is what we look at first.
Where they look
Four surfaces, and the salon's own site decides two of them.
1. The Maps pack.
“hair salon bondi”, “barber near me”, “curly hair salon sydney”. Three pins above every website, decided by category, services, reviews and how complete the profile is. A profile that lists one generic category and no services has nothing to match against a specialist search.
2. Instagram, then Google.
Clients find the work on Instagram, then search the salon's name to check the price, the location and the reviews. That brand search has to land on a site with the menu, the prices and a booking button, not a booking-platform page with no domain of its own.
3. Organic results for the price and treatment question.
“how much does balayage cost”, “keratin treatment cost”, “highlights vs balayage”. People read before they book, and right now price-comparison sites answer those questions because they publish prices and most salons do not.
4. AI answers.
Ask for the best hair salon in Sydney or the best hairdresser in Brisbane and AI answers link salons' own websites directly, favouring the ones that state their specialism and their press on the page. Ask what the hair trends are this season and the answer comes from US magazines.
The demand data
What Australia searches, anchored to “hair salon”.
Getting a cut is as big a search as buying product, but every generic salon word grew more slowly than haircare search overall (“shampoo” itself grew 1.75x in the same window). “Hairdresser” fell to 0.65x, “hair salon near me” to 0.78x and “balayage” to 0.59x. What rose underneath them is specific: hijab-friendly, curly, walk-in, Korean and men's hair salons, blonde specialists, mobile and kids' hairdressers, “lived in blonde balayage”. On the product side, growth is in treatments and steps, not brand names: gloss 6.8x, serum 4.0x, heat protectant 2.9x, leave-in conditioner 2.7x, and bond repair, scalp serum and sulfate-free shampoo from almost nothing in 2021.
The calendar matters. Hair loss searches peak in March and April, about 20% above their average. Extensions peak July to September. Styling tools are bought as gifts: Dyson Airwrap runs 88% above average in November. Everyday products and salon searches are flat all year.
Source: Foundlab research snapshot dated 29 September 2026. Relative indices are not search volumes, customer counts or revenue forecasts. Growth compares the last 12 months with the first 12 months of the window. The bars use a square-root scale; exact indices and growth multiples are printed alongside them.
What goes wrong
Three findings we make almost every time.
1. “All services” instead of a specialism.
The salon is known locally for curly cuts, blondes or colour correction, and the site and Google profile say “hair salon, cuts and colour”. The growing searches name the specialism, so the salon that names it gets them. The evidence is a signed-out search for each specialism plus suburb, with who wins recorded.
2. No prices on the page.
Clients ask what balayage or a keratin treatment costs before they book. When the salon's site does not say, a price-comparison or booking site answers instead, citing a national median, and the client arrives expecting that number or does not arrive. A price page with ranges per service takes the answer back, in Google and in AI.
3. The trend page nobody can find.
The salon or brand knows the season's colour before the magazines do, and posts it only on Instagram. AI answers to “hair trends” questions quote whoever published a dated, readable page, which in September 2026 was mostly US media. Brands have the same gap on comparisons: the “X vs Y” questions about their own products are answered by overseas magazines.
Findings are described in general terms. Each is from dated research or a dated engagement, and the evidence and fix are in the report, not here.
Compliance
Most hair marketing is simple. Two areas deserve a second look.
Salon marketing rarely raises questions. The two areas where we look more closely are reviews and before-and-after photos, which the ACCC publishes guidance on, and hair loss and scalp products, where the claims made can bring a product under the TGA's published guidance rather than the rules for cosmetics. We do not interpret that guidance. We read the pages, profile fields, product descriptions and captions against it and give you a flagged list with the source linked. You decide what stays, with your adviser if you use one. For hair loss in particular, the plain questions people ask (“does minoxidil work”, “why is my hair thinning”) can be answered helpfully without making product claims, and those are the pages AI answers cite.
Foundlab is a marketing service, not a legal or regulatory adviser. We check wording against the guidance the relevant regulators publish and flag what we find. Decisions about your advertising are yours.
How we help
Salons on the Local plan. Brands on the Brand plan.
Most salons fit the Local plan. We rebuild the Google profile around the salon's specialisms and services, set up review requests after appointments, write the specialist and price pages the growing searches match, and set up missed-call text-back so a call during a colour appointment is not a lost booking. From $299 a month, no setup fee, six months. The target is written into the proposal: top three in the Maps pack on named queries by an agreed month. If we miss it, the plan fee pauses until we hit it.
Haircare brands fit the Brand plan: the category mapped by treatment and by problem, one page per treatment and per problem written the way people ask, product and collection pages fixed in your theme, and the buying and comparison questions tested in AI answers every month, with sources named. From $999 a month, no setup fee, six months. The target: named in AI answers for an agreed share of your category's buying questions by month four, or months five and six are free.
Salon groups and brands with more than one name to make findable: see the Firm plan.
Proof
Australian haircare search and AI answers.
Research
September 2026. Five years of Australian search data and 30 haircare questions put to AI search: who gets cited, and why.
FAQ
Three questions salons and brands ask.
We are fully booked from Instagram. Why does Google matter?
Because Instagram sends people to Google. A client who likes your work searches your name to check the price, the location and the reviews, and books whoever looks easiest. When you want to fill a new stylist's column or a quiet Tuesday, the specialist searches are where the new clients come from.
Should we really publish our prices?
Publish ranges, per service. Clients are already reading a national median on a comparison site before they contact you. A range on your own page sets the expectation in your favour and gives Google and AI a source to quote that is you.
We are a haircare brand sold through salons and retailers. Can you get us cited instead of the stockist?
Nobody can place a brand in an AI answer. What we can do is build the pages AI answers cite, one clear page per treatment, problem and comparison, on your own domain, and measure every month which questions name you. Brands with well-built sites are cited directly. Brands without one are represented by a retailer, or not at all.
Not sure where to start?
Book a fifteen minute call. If it is not the right thing, you hear that on the call, before you pay.