What Is An Online Booking System?
An online booking system will let your clients book appointments, consultations, classes, training and much more directly online without having to go back and forth via email or phone to arrange a suitable date!
What Are The Benefits Of An Online Booking System on your wordpress website?
In this digital era, an online booking system will not only increases convenience for your customers, with online booking available 24/7, therefore increasing conversions. But it will also benefit you by saving you time and reducing your workload.
Most booking systems these days have calendar integration, online payment options, real time booking and automated emails. Not only will you save time with the bookings but you can also save time chasing payments or sending reminders.
How Do You Choose The Right Booking System For Your Website?
Choosing the right option comes down to an umber of things including budget, experience, your requirements, your industry and much more. Lets look at a number of options below
1. Using An External SoftwAre System
Undoutably one of the easiest ways to add functionality of booking to your website, create account with 3rd party booking service and link to website. Here are some examples..
- Calendly is a popular scheduling tool many service users link for appointments
- OpenTable popular booking systems for restaurants
- Avvio is a popular booking system used by hotels
- ClassForKids is popular amongst kids activity providers
- Phorest is popular amongst salons
There are 2 main ways to connect to an external booking system:
1.1 Link to external site
This is a simple method most people can do without any technical knowledge, it’s not truly integrated into your site., but through customisation on the external site, it can look like an extension to your site. You can do this by adding link in a button and within the content of your website.
1.2 Embed Iframe
Some external software booking systems will give you option embedding their code within your site to make the booking system ‘more integrated’. The only downside is as it is 3rd party code you will have limited control on how it looks on your site, it may also affect performance of your site speed.
2. Use A Booking System Plugin for WordPress Site
Adding a plugin will give you instant functionality of a booking system. This is great for keeping visitors on your own site, and usually has cheaper/non existent transaction fees. There are some very user friendly easy to set up systems within the market. One of my favourites is Amelia plugin. There are a number of best wordpress booking plugins listed by hostinger including
- Amelia
- Bookly Pro
- Booking Calendar
- Gravity forms
- MotoPress Hotel Booking
- Booked
- Simply Schedule Appointment
- Woocomerce Bookgs & Appotinments
3. Add Your Own Form
If you need a quick fix on a lower budget, you can add a form to your site to request booking. The downside this is not automated, so it is not as time saving, but can help capture leads from potential customers 24/7. A form can be used to retrieve as much information as needed for creating the booking (this will save a few emails back and forth)
with WP Forms you can create a client booking form, to get as much information as you need and use the advanced tab in date/field to limit days and times that your site visitor can request to book with you.
What is the best option for your WordPress website?
This will depend on your budget and requirements.
Whilst 3rd party software can be the quickest with great functionality, however they can also be costly and you would be directing visitors away from your website.
Plugins are a great option to fully customise booking to your needs and are generally cheaper to run, but you do have to purchase the correct one, keep it up to date and ensure it doesn’t impact the performance of your site.
Forms may not save you time but are a good quick low budget option, before you have a fully bookable system in place.
