How to make your own booking website

Are you a hairdresser, personal trainer, coach, therapist, plumber, or the owner of any small business where customers book appointments? If so, a website with a built-in online booking system will make life easier for both you and your customers. And as a bonus, a good booking website attracts more customers and can increase your turnover. 

But what should a good website with online booking include, and how do you make one if you’re not a technical superhero? We answer these questions, and several others, in this guide. 

What is a booking website? 

A booking website is a page where customers can book your services online around the clock. You decide which opening hours and available time slots are shown on the booking page, but if one of your customers is awake at 3 a.m. and decides it’s time for a haircut, they can book an appointment in your salon even if you’re sound asleep.  

It’s an advantage for you for several reasons: 

• You get fewer phone calls during the day. 
• You become more accessible to your customers. 
• Your business becomes more visible in search engines. 
• You can manage all bookings in one place. 
• You can send automatic booking confirmations and reminders to your customers via email. 

What should a good booking website have? 

There are several things that are worth including to make sure you get the most out of your booking website. You should have the following on your website: 

• Clear descriptions of your services: What can you offer, and how does it help your customers? 
• A user-friendly booking system: Customers should be able to book with just a few clicks. 
• Your prices: Transparent and clear prices encourage customers to make a quick decision. 
• Opening hours and available time slots: It should be clear when customers can book an appointment. 
• Contact details: Even though you have online booking, customers may still have questions. 
• Customer testimonials: Reviews and other statements from satisfied customers build trust and increase the chances of potential customers booking an appointment with you. 
• An “about us” page: Tell the story of your business and give visitors a chance to get to know you better. 
• Cookie and privacy policies: Because you handle user data, you need to make it clear to users how you gather, protect, and use this data 
• An FAQ page: This is not mandatory, but it will help your customers find answers to common questions without having to contact you.  

How to set up your booking website  

We’ve now gone through the basic things you need to include on your booking site. Let’s move on to the actual process of creating a website with online booking. Here’s how you do it step by step: 

1. Choose a domain, hosting service, and a website builder

If you don’t already have a website, the first thing you need is a domain name (e.g. “nameofyourbusiness.co.uk”) and a website builder, i.e. the tool you use to create your site. At one.com, you can buy a combined plan that includes a domain name, email on your own domain, web hosting, a website builder and a booking system. 

The one.com Website Builder is easy for everyone to use and requires no technical skills or help from tech-savvy friends. More on that below. 

2. Create your booking website with AI or a template

You’re probably busy helping your customers, but there’s no need to stress about creating a website. It’s both quick and easy – in fact, you can build a great booking website in just a few minutes with AI. Here’s how: 

Take a shortcut with AI 

You answer a few questions about your business, and the Website Builder’s AI assistant creates a unique website – with both text and images. You can easily change everything by dragging and dropping, and you can of course also edit or rewrite the texts if you like. 

Start with a template 

If you prefer to build the site yourself, you can choose from a large selection of attractive templates. There are templates for many different industries, so whether you have a beauty salon, are a coach, therapist or plumber, you can easily find the right template for your booking website.  

Once you’ve chosen your template, you can customise it with the colours, images and texts that match your brand and target audience.   

3. Add your own content

Step three is where you can put your own personal stamp on your booking website. This step is all about branding, and about conveying your business’s style and messages with images and text. Here, for example, you can add pictures from your salon, pictures of yourself, or atmospheric images that give new visitors an impression of your business.  

If you need images, you have access to a large library of free images directly in one.com’s Website Builder. 

If you get writer’s block, the built-in AI writing assistant can help you create everything from captivating headlines to body text, about us text and CTAs. If you’ve already written some text, the writing assistant can also help you optimise it. 

4. Customise the booking system to fit your business

The booking system must be activated before you can use it. However, it only takes a moment and a few clicks in the Website Builder dashboard. 

When you’re happy with your website and have activated the booking system, you can start customising it for your business: 

• Choose your opening hours and available time slots: Your available slots will be displayed on your site in a booking calendar. If you have holidays, days off or breaks throughout the day, you can add them too, so these days and times don’t appear as available to customers wanting to book. 

• Add your services: Here, you can create the services your customers should be able to book on your website. This applies to services offered at a physical location, such as in a hair salon or a training facility, as well as consultations and guidance conducted online. 

• Set up booking rules: Here, you can decide how far in advance your customers can book or cancel an appointment. 

In this video, we show you how to set up the booking system: 

5. Do you want to sell products online?

If you want to sell products on your website, such as beauty products, training accessories, merch or gift cards, you can add an online shop component to your website. With our basic booking plan, you can sell up to three products. If you want to sell more, you can choose the Booking System + E-commerce package, where you can sell as many products as you like. 

Selling products online can boost your turnover and give potential customers an extra reason to visit your website. If you run a beauty salon, you can sell skincare products and other items so your customers can enjoy a perfect spa evening at home. If you’re a coach, perhaps you’ve published books you can sell on your website, and if you’re a personal trainer, you can sell anything from dumbbells to yoga mats with your logo to strengthen your brand – there are so many possibilities! 

6. Legal compliance with GDPR

When you have a booking page, you handle user data such as names, email addresses and payment information. That’s why it’s especially important to follow the data protection legislation so you avoid GDPR fines. In order to meet data protection requirements, you must have a cookie policy and a privacy policy on your website, describing how you collect, use and protect your visitors’ data. 

For many business owners, GDPR compliance can seem like a big task requiring expensive legal help, but it doesn’t have to be that way if you choose a good compliance solution that makes it easier to follow the rules. With Termly’s compliance solution, you can create your cookie and privacy policies, draft terms and conditions, and manage consent with a few clicks. 

Compliance isn’t just about avoiding fines, though, but also about creating a trustworthy website that your visitors feel safe using because you’re transparent about how you handle their data. 

7. Launch your new booking site

You’re almost ready to launch your website with online booking. Before you do, we recommend that you check everything one last time. Use “Preview” to see how your booking site will look when it’s live. You can also check how the page looks on mobile to make sure everything looks good on all devices. Pay special attention to the following: 

• Have you added all your services and available time slots? 
• Are your prices and descriptions correct? 
• Do all links work? 
• Do the images look good on both desktop and mobile? 
• Are there any spelling mistakes in your texts? 

Once your site is live, you can of course make changes at any time. If you add new services or change your available time slots, the changes will automatically appear on your website. 

Start accepting bookings online 

Voilà – that’s it. By following the steps in this guide, you’ve created your own website with an online booking system. Now you no longer need to pick up the phone constantly, and it becomes much easier to keep track of all your bookings in a single control panel. That means you’ll have more time to give your customers the best possible service, and you’ll probably soon discover that your booking page helps you attract more customers.