May I join and list my spa if I don't have a website? Can I list an email address instead of a website? Why didn't you include my email address on my listing? Why won't you include my fax number?
- You're welcome to list your spa whether you have a website, or not. With a "basic listing", our most economical, we will publish your spa name, address, and telephone number. If you do not have website, however, we'd strongly encourage you to choose a "bronze listing" so that you may include a paragraph of text describing your spa and its services.
- We do strongly recommend you create, at a minimum, a single web page on a free web host/server (see below) so that your future clients have a means to click through and read basic information, and, to help them make a decision when choosing between your spa, and your competitor's spa. That said, many day spas do not yet have websites, or do not wish to devote the time or resources to creating a website.
- We have created and published websites for Day Spas using various FREE WEBSITE programs. A one time webmaster fee of $250.00 applies (which is solely for our time in creating your site). The website itself is free, the hosting is free, and you will control and edit the content on your own, as often as you wish, once it has been created.
- We do not publish email links as we cannot control spam bots from harvesting the addresses from our site and bombarding you with junk mail. Further, many spam-bots "spoof" our address and make it appear as if we are sending the email, when we are not. The best defense is simply not to provide email address links. Our readers don't use our directory to find fax numbers, which just take up more room than is necessary. If we can add one more sentence of information about your spa, by taking away the fax number, that's to your benefit. If your own website has a complete "contact us" page which makes it easy to reach you, by phone, fax, address, email, that's all you need.
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How often do you increase your listing rates?
- While we adjust our listing rates for new insertions (new listings) annually, as do most businesses to account for the increased cost of doing business, higher bandwidth, increased services, and more, this may not affect your individual listing every year.
- Listing rate increases are generally modest (the increase from the 2008 to 2009 calendar year was $20.00).
- In most cases, however, the higher listing rate is not invoiced on the first renewal period, effectively guaranteeing our rate for two (2) years. In other words, if you list a property in 2009, it will, in most cases, renew at the same rate in 2010. Currently posted rates would then apply in 2011.
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How do I edit my member listing? Why can't I edit my own listing like I can on other sites?
- Please use our contact form, and simply describe the modification required, including providing the desired text change. If the modification requires that we contact you or handle attachments, we'll respond via email as soon as possible.
- We handle the editing ourselves for two reasons. First, you've paid us for a service, and we will render that service on your behalf, rather than collecting your fee and then requiring you to do the work, yourselves. Second, it permits us to review and approve the text before it is published. We try to catch grammatical and spelling errors for you, and most importantly, we filter our banned words and our personal dislike -- superlatives. We won't permit our members to describe their massage therapists as "the best in the state" (unless there is a bonafide award to that effect, see "prohibited content" below) or to add graphics which are not appropriate or relevant to the listing.
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How often may I edit my member listing?
- Critical changes, such as changing a telephone number, address, or URL, or eliminating a service you no longer offer, will be done as often as required.
- Your listings are intended to be static for the one year listing period. Non-critical changes should be minimal so that our cached pages remain current. We request non-critical changes not be made more than once per year.
- Listings are always updated and refreshed each renewal period.
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Is there anything prohibited / I can't use in my listing?
- Yes. We do not publish or reference the following:
- Menu Prices. Many of our listings are published for more than a year, and service and program prices are adjusted on a more frequent basis. Adding prices would require an undue amount of updating and/or result in listings which are quickly out of date or present misinformation.
- Animated Graphics or Banners. Exceptions will be made for very high quality, understated logos in our sole discretion. As of this date (2009) we only have one animated client logo on our entire website. We highly discourage animated graphics and banners.
- "Best Massage in Town", "World Class" and similar self-judged superlatives. If mainstream media bestows that description -- terrific! Let us know. See below.
- "Award Winning" without accompanying data (a reference to the award, year, and giver of the award) (see more detailed description, below).
- Sexually themed descriptions and/or obvious "double entendres."
- Recreational Drug themed descriptions, e.g., "Get Stoned at the Hot Stone Spa" or "Get High at Tumbleweed Day Spa."
- Poor quality or stolen graphics, graphics which are modified to give a false impression. or graphics which are misleading. For instance, we rejected graphics from a day spa in a shopping mall, which requested we post graphics of roman baths from a historic resort facility in Italy "because the bath water is similar to ours."
- Multiple Internal Links. We will link to ONE link on your website -- your home page, or, in the case of a resort with a spa, to the spa page of a master website, if you prefer. We do not link to multiple categories, such as body treatment pages, skincare pages, massage pages, promotional pages, etc.
- Disparaging Remarks about competitors, e.g. "We are the only true spa in town, avoid going to our spa neighbor who has a lot of employee turnover." (This is an actual excerpt from an application).
- Additional data or graphics we deem objectionable, of low quality, or off topic, in our sole discretion.
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I want a different font, or a larger font, or a colored font, for my listing. Can you do that?
- All listings are prepared using Verdana Font Size 8, to present a uniform appearance and ease in formatting throughout our site. The font color is either black or white, depending on the color scheme of the listing. We do not use custom fonts or colors for text, although, we sometimes can incorporate a font into a logo if we are requested to make a logo (logo fee applies).
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Can you make a logo for my listing?
- Yes. We will quote a nominal fee and provide you with several samples for your review, upon request. We have access to talented designers, as well, and we are happy to make referrals on your behalf.
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Can you give me a SpaIndex.com email address, like, Staff@mydayspa.spaindex.com?
- No, we do not provide email services.
May I have a listing if I work as a masseuse or spa therapist out of my home?
- We tend not to publish listings for solo massage therapists [it's a better bet to list on a massage therapist directory], but otherwise, if you render spa services, of course! Provided you are a licensed provider and meet basic qualifying elements (aesthetic, body, wellness, massage, and related services). We may request a copy of your license.
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May I list myself as "mobile spa" or "spa technician" because I offer BeautiControl, Avon, MaryKay, or Arbonne Spa Parties?
- No. We do not feel MLM spa party plans are the type of "spa experience" we seek to promote on our directory. We appreciate that these parties do contribute to a pleasant afternoon or evening at home, which we fully support, but not with a membership relationship. Further, we recognize that some independent representatives of these MLM sales companies may indeed be licensed aestheticians and massage therapists, or choose to use these products in a day spa environment. Regardless, if we are asked to list an MLM independent sales representative which has, chiefly, an MLM business plan promoting these brands in a spa party environment, we will respectively decline.
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My spa hotel is only open seasonally, from March through September. Can you pro-rate the listing fee and only run the listing during those months?
- Our listing fees are competitively priced and are for an annual period. We do not offer listing packages for partial or shorter periods. We recommend you keep your listing published during closed seasonal periods, so that our readers may continue to click through and evaluate your property as a potential destination, when you are in-season. During your off-season, you are welcome to provide us with content to link to your spa facility. Consider some spa tips, or better yet, recipes for spa cuisine. Let our readers read your content and cook your healthy meals.
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Please add "Best Spa in NYC" to my listing.
- We avoid using superlatives which describe any spa as the "best in the city" or any technician as "the best esthetician" in the city. We will not reference any "award" unless there is a documented and dated source for the award. For instance, we will add "Voted Best Day Spa in NYC by Time Out Magazine, September 2005" but we will not add generic claims like "Reader's Choice", "Best in the City", "AAA Rated" or "5 Star" unless they are associated with recognized, published sources with judging criteria (e.g., Mobil, Zagat, etc), and then, we may elect not to do so, in our sole discretion. While we agree many of our spa members are indeed worthy of 5 stars, until we have personally verified this information, or have access to published judging criteria, we prefer not to use "puff phrases."
- What reasons may prevent you from listing a "Reader's Choice" type award?
  - We do not typically list awards given by competing online spa directories. Our competitors specifically exclude reference to our reviews or awards on their sites, and we do not always list their reviews or awards on ours.
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My spa has received a recognized media award. I need to tell you about it, and have it added to my listing, and broadcast far and wide.
- Congratulations! We do post MOST recognized media awards to your listing provided space is available, and, in our discretion. Please use our contact form and tell us about it. We will review the details, update the listing if appropriate, and, contact you about a press release if appropriate.
- We may also share it on SpaWire.
- We may elect not to share "media awards" which are not press-related, but are more akin to reader polls or other types of awards sponsored by our competitors in the online spa directory market, who exclude our content as well.
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Where are your member logos, so that I may add one to my website?
- See Below
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How do I notify you of a special promotion I'm having, such as a speaking engagement, limited time special, open house or similar event?
- Please use our submission form and let us know all the details! The promotion must have a spa or wellness component associated with it. For instance, a "Dinner and a Room" special must have a discounted spa service or amenity associated with it, to be considered a Spa Special.
- If you distribute a newsletter to your readers, PLEASE add us to it -- we read every one of them, and very often, will extract promotions and share them with our readers, as well. Add our newsletter email address to your mailing list:
- newsletter-at-spaindex.com
- (replace -at- with the @ symbol)
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What is a SpaFlyer Voucher?
- A "coupon" or offer designed to be viewed, printed, and redeemed by our readers, at your spa, for discounted spa services or other benefits you offer. They are usually, but not always, directed to "First Time Guests" and thus, only redeemed ONCE per person or family.
- There is no fee to associate a SpaFlyer Voucher with your listing -- it is one of the many tools we use to attract attention to your spa.
- Currently, it is optional. In the future, we plan to automatically incorporate this feature with all new listings.
- We market the offers aggressively on our family of websites, our blog, and via email and RSS feeds. Your listing will receive more exposure, if you elect to honor a voucher.
- The minimum value is $15.00 for day spas (more for hotels), but you may specify terms and restrictions (i.e., days of the week, certain services excluded, etc).
- The duration is equal to the listing period -- one year.
- The offer must be static (unchanged) during the valid period.
- The Voucher is not a gift certificate. You do NOT send the voucher to us. Keep it for your records. We take no commission, and pay no incentives associated with the voucher. You keep 100% of the income associated with the voucher, less the amount of the discount you authorized.
- You may have up to three (3) offers at any given time (we recommend they be for different types of services (skincare, body care, massage or other).
- We have answered many more SpaFlyer questions on the application, itself, so we recommend you click the link below to "Add a Coupon" and scroll to the bottom of the page to read additional FAQ and our responses.
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How do I add a SpaFlyer voucher, for a new offer?
- Add a SpaFlyer Voucher or Read More About It
- Never a fee for Spa Index Network Members. You may have up to 3 offers. Make them interesting! It's also lovely if you consider offering something for returning guests, as well.
How do I delete a SpaFlyer voucher that I no longer wish to honor?
- We would prefer you not delete the offers, as they help us market your property and will decrease the exposure we can give you. However, if you feel it necessary to cancel it, please use our contact form, and instruct us to remove the offer.
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How do I change the terms of an existing SpaFlyer voucher?
- The VALUE and the OFFER itself (i.e., $15.00 off a facial) is intended to be "static" -- valid for one year.
- The minimum offer must not be LESS than an offer already published on your site or on another site. For example, if you offer new guests a 20% discount on your own site, or another site, you may not offer a SpaFlyer coupon for less than a 20% discount. You are requested to "match" or "better" any offer presently on your site or there is no incentive for our readers to use the offer, and thus no benefit for us to publish and market the offer in addition to your listing.
- The TERMS, or restrictions, may be changed more often if those changes are reasonable.
- We submit the offers to search engines, other blogs, and a variety of coupon and special offer websites. To delete them or significantly change them before they expire creates negative feedback for our site, and your facility.
- Also, many readers print the coupons in advance of using them. If a coupon is presented to you after you have the changed the offer, problems will result. For that reason, we request that modifications of the offers be only when absolutely necessary.
- We are always willing to address restriction concerns that crop up after the program is in place. For instance, you may discover the offer is redeemed on Saturdays during your busy period, too often, and you want to restrict Saturdays. Another member discovered that her staff were permitting the offers to be used to buy gift certificates, and did not wish that to happen, so we added language to that effect.
- Reasonable restrictions can be added at any time -- we simply hope you'll leave the offer, itself, intact for one year.
- Unreasonable restrictions would be offering a $15.00 discount valid only Wednesdays, by appointment, at 12:00 noon only, with 90 days notice, with only with one therapist, and only during the months of April, September and November. You get the idea -- unfair restrictions designed to make sure the offer cannot easily be redeemed.
- Please use our contact form, and simply describe the modification required.
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Where is the job board?
- Our job board is displayed on our professional site at SpaWire, and a few random job openings are shared in our email blasts each month.
- How do I post a job to the job board?
- Visit the board at http://www.spawire.com and follow the "career" prompts.
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My spa publishes a newsletter. Should I send you a copy / put you on the mailing list?
- Yes. Please send it to host @ spaindex.com or add us to your email distribution list.
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Should / How do I share my existing press release with you?
- If the press release will affect or interest members of the spa and salon industry trade, please use the submission form on our professional site at SpaWire.
- If the press release will affect or interest your consumer audience, use our contact form and tell us about it or send it to members @ spaindex.com (remove the spaces).
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What are my click through statistics? How many impressions have I had? Do you provide traffic reports for your results?
- While we do track our most popular pages, search terms, unique visitors, and page views, we do so for our internal use.
- We do not track individual clicks or link popularity on your behalf. We prefer to keep our listings competitively priced, by not diverting our budget to either the expense of sophisticated software to track individual listings (link popularity), or, the overhead associated with paying our webmasters to generate and share reports with our more than 7,700 members. It would essentially require a full-time staff member to keep up with that degree of reporting, and, the information is usually available to you, for free, from your own site's tools.
- We will, however, use a unique click-through code that YOU provide to us, which enables you to track your inbound visitors from our site. Many of our marketing clients provide us with encoded URLs which generate reports on the receiving end, and we are happy to use these links when requested to do so.
- Site Statistic Reports are readily available to our members, on your own website, through your own webmasters, and by adding free code readily available on the internet. Bear in mind, if you add a free "stat counter" to a website, most of the free counters only track referrals inbound to the page where you have placed the code. You will need to either place the code on every page, or, in a shared border across your entire site. We frequently link to pages other than your home page (your specials, for instance), so be certain you use a site-wide stat counter to track your inbound referrals from us. Here are a few free stat counter sites, none of which we personally endorse:
  - Statcounter.com
  - Extremetracking.com
  - OneStat.com
  - Freehitcounters.net
  - Cyber-counter.com
  - Freestats.com
  - Activemeter.com
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Will my listing automatically renew each year on my credit card?
- We do not believe in recurring charges. We like to contact you when your listing is about to expire, and mail an invoice. This gives us the chance to discuss renewal options with you, update your listing with fresh information or a new logo (included in your annual fee) if you request it or we feel you need it, and check to see how we may be of assistance to you in the coming year. Your business evolves every year -- so should your listing with us. Unless it's already perfect of course!
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How do I cancel a listing?
- Email us at members-at-spaindex.com and indicate the name of your facility, location, and your desire to terminate a listing.
- Failure to pay an invoice by the renewal date does NOT automatically cancel a listing. You are responsible for any fees due for any period post-expiration of your listing, until you inform us you do not wish to renew or, until we terminate the listing of our own accord.
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Can I get a refund on my unused listing period if I close or sell my spa?
- If you have sold your spa, closed your spa, or otherwise wish to remove your listing from our directory, you may do so at any time by contacting us. We do not require signed contracts, and spas may join us at any time throughout the year. While a spa may elect not to renew, once listed, or may have a reason for terminating a listing, with one exception, we do not rebate unused listing periods. The one exception would be on those rare instances when we elect to terminate a listing of our own accord.
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What reasons would cause you to terminate a listing?
- Submitting a false positive review about your spa
- Submitting a false negative review about a competing spa
- Account issues (returned checks or consistently late payments)
- Inability to contact (changed phone number, changed address, bad email address, bad URL)
- Multiple complaints from readers which cannot be resolved with the spa
- Multiple complaints from the community (shuttering doors without notice, not honoring bonafide gift certificates)
- Activities outside of the law
- Activities outside of the accepted standards of care in the spa industry
- Inability to agree on listing content
- Providing false content for a listing
- Theft of content from competitors' websites
- Inappropriate sexually themed content
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Where do I mail a payment?
- Spa Index Media, LLC, 1511 M Sycamore, Suite 104, Hercules, CA 94547.
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What is your telephone number? Why isn't it posted?
- We communicate via email whenever possible to keep a paper trail, and, because it permits multiple staff persons to read and respond as needed. Our staff is located throughout the United States and our phone service routes calls to one central message center. For that reason, callers will always get our voice mail exchange, and not a live operator. As there is no time-savings to leaving a voicemail message over an email message, we prefer email. For those members who prefer to do so, you may leave telephone messages for us toll-free at 877-832-6169, which IS posted on our contact page.
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What forms of payment do you accept?
- All major credit cards through our secure server, echecks debited from your checking account, PayPal, and, business and personal checks. Payment by mailed paper check for new members will result in a delay in publication until the check has cleared. We recommend you use the "eCheck" option on our secure server if you prefer not to use a credit card.
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How do I use my credit card to pay for my member listing?
- If you have trouble with or cannot use the link in your emailed electronic invoice, please contact us and request that we send you an manual electronic invoice through Google Checkout. contact form
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I want to pay by telephone.
- We do not process credit card payments by telephone. Please send us a check, use PayPal, or ask for a Google checkout invoice.
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Do you give referral fees if I refer spa facilities to you?
- Yes and no. Do we pay for anyone to refer clients to us? No. But, we do apply credits to an existing spa member's own listing fees when it refers its peers to us. Rates vary by the type of listings you refer and the number of referrals.
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