A prospective client asked:
“How to make a booking website, where people can get appointments online without facing the hassle of calling reception, it should not be generic but more about telling our brand story through visuals”…and that’s how the sales call started.
Instead of saying “We can help you develop and deploy a booking website
”We took a different route, helping the lead understand the steps and ways they can create a booking website.
A booking website helps businesses focus on availability hours and where they are located. If you're wondering how to make a booking website, the process involves setting up an intuitive platform where customers can directly book appointments.
Firstly, you need to identify your business and what type of booking system you need. If you're wondering how to make a booking website, consider the factors below:
Resources:
You can conduct competitor analysis through tools such as Ahrefs. This will give you a good understanding of what the competition is doing and the keywords they are ranking on.That’s what the competitor overview looks like for a hair salon in the USA
That’s what the competitor overview looks like for a hair salon in the USA
A domain name is your company’s identity in the digital world. You can purchase a domain name from websites such as Hostinger. For better understanding, we are using a sample name such as Luxe Booking.
You can purchase the domain name that you think best represents what YOU DO! Once, this is decided, you can start with your website’s design.
Once the purpose is finalized, it’s time to get started on the design.
If you're wondering how to make a booking website, pay close attention to user-friendly navigation and clear call-to-action buttons. See how the color orange is used here to highlight where they should click to ‘Book an Appointment.
To help with the conversion rate, your website should have a good content copy that accurately reflects your brand identity (couple it with trending yet readable fonts).
Use colors that evoke emotions that will encourage your target audience to click on that CTA, and make sure that your website has clear navigation.
This allows users to explore the pages and services you have to offer.
Once, the design is translated into code on the website, you can integrate it with different tools that would make the booking process easier and convenient.
Do the following:
You can use tools such as Acuity Scheduling, from where clients can directly see your availability and book appointments accordingly. It’s suitable for people from different age groups
What if a client books an appointment, but then is a no-show on the day of the appointment? This can cause unnecessary waste of resources.
The solution to this is simple, sending clients reminder messages a day before their appointment, so they can plan things accordingly. You can use the same tool as above.
You can choose from a variety of payment options such as PayPal, Stripe, credit/debit cards, and digital wallets. The more options you provide, the easier it becomes for the prospective client to make a favorable decision.
Clients should be given the option to do both.
If they are repeat customers, creating an account would be convenient for them as they would not have to re-enter their details every time they have to make a booking.
A guest booking option for those first-time clients.
Option 1: Hiring a UI/UX Designer In-house
Working with a UI/UX designer would allow you to have complete control over how you want the website to look like, given you already have an inspiration design, and you are looking for something like that.
But hiring in-house comes with its own set of costs:
You can create accounts on various freelance platforms such as Toptal, Fiverr, and Upwork to hunt for design freelancers you could potentially work with.
Here’s a snippet of the top-rated UI/UX designer on Fiverr, along with the services he offers:
There are platforms such as ThemeForest, Wix, and Envato, where you can directly download the theme and publish it on your website.
Here’s a sample website theme that you can download, and don’t worry, the content can be edited.
Once, you have decided on a template, hand over the design template to a developer so that it can become dynamic and uploaded on the domain.
Onboarding a Webflow agency can help you take website design to the next level. You would have the freedom to add custom elements to the website, such as 3D design or motion graphics.
Since a digital agency has worked with booking websites, they would already have the SOPs in place, ensuring that the work is started immediately without any delays.
What’s Next: Once, the website is developed, you should conduct regular quality checks, to ensure that the user doesn’t have any difficulty navigating through your website.
Test the website across different browsers and devices such as Android and iOS to make sure that things are running smoothly.
Hiring a Webflow agency can add a creative touch to your booking website and ensure that when prospective clients land on your homepage, they don’t click away without booking an appointment.