Making a booking website means building a small site whose main purpose is to turn visitors into booked meetings, rather than adding a calendar to a site that exists for other reasons. This article covers that build from a blank start in Sites on the levelpartner.ai platform: which pages you need, in what order to build them, how to connect your domain, and what to leave out. Firms usually do this when the old site is slow, out of date or cannot be edited without a developer, and the fastest fix is a short, focused replacement.
What a booking website needs, and nothing more
A firm of 10 to 250 people rarely needs fifty pages to win meetings. It needs a handful of pages that each answer one buyer question and end in a booking. For most firms that is:
- a home page that says what you do, for whom, and how to start
- one page per service or per industry you serve
- an about page with real names and faces
- a booking page, used by every button on the site
- a thank-you page that says what happens next
- the legal and policy pages your footer must carry
Six to twelve pages covers most firms. Everything beyond that, such as an article library or case studies, can come later once the core pages are booking meetings.
Before you start
- Access to your domain's DNS settings, or the person who manages them.
- A list of the services or industries you will give their own pages.
- Calendars already built and tested for each meeting type the site will offer.
- Copy for each page, drafted in a document before you open the editor.
- Your logo, brand colours and a few honest photos of the team.
- Your existing policy text, carried over word for word.
How to set it up
- Agree fonts, colours, header and footer before you build pages.
- Go to Sites, then Websites, and click Edit.
- Open the Pages drawer and click Add New Page.
- Enter the Page Name and URL Path / Slug for the booking page.
- Add the Calendar element and a short explanation.
- Add a thank-you page and use its URL as each calendar's Confirmation page.
- Build the home page, pointing every call to action at booking.
- Add one page per service or industry, each ending in a call to action.
- Add the about page and the policy pages.
- Go to Sites, then Settings, then Domains.
- Click Connect a Domain, choose the product and enter your domain.
- Add the DNS records shown at your domain provider.
- Preview, publish and test a booking from a phone.
Building the booking page first is deliberate. Every other page links to it, so it must exist before you can wire anything up.
Order of build and why
Build from the end of the journey backwards. Thank-you and booking pages first, because they are short and they prove the calendar works. Service and industry pages next, because they carry most of the buying traffic. The home page after that, because it summarises the pages beneath it and is easier to write once they exist. About and policy pages last.
Say the old site has 34 pages, half of them out of date. The new site could launch with 9: home, four service pages, about, booking, thank-you and the policy pages. At that size, two weeks of part-time work is a reasonable target. Each old URL that still gets search traffic would be redirected to the closest new page, so nothing that ranks today is thrown away.
Moving from an old site
If the old site has pages that appear in search results, do not simply switch the domain over. List the old URLs, decide which new page replaces each one, and set up redirects. Pages with no traffic and no links can be dropped. Policy text should be moved exactly as written, not rewritten during the move.
For the detail of where booking sits on each page once the site exists, read placing booking across every commercial page. For the standalone page every button points to, see the booking page structure and build.
What it costs you in time
A focused site of six to twelve pages takes a few days of work once the copy is ready. The copy is the slow part, not the build. After launch, budget an hour a month to update team photos, refresh service pages and check that bookings are still arriving with the right source.
The mistake most firms make
They build the site and then decide what it is for. The pages fill up with general statements, the calls to action point at a contact form, and booking ends up as an afterthought on one page. Decide the meeting first. Every page is then written to earn that meeting.
Copying the old site's page structure into the new tool. You move all the old problems into a new design. Start from the six to twelve pages above and add pages only when there is a buyer question they answer.
When not to build a new site
If your current site loads quickly, ranks for the terms that matter and your team can edit it, do not replace it to get booking. Embed a calendar instead, as the guide to adding a calendar to an existing site explains. A rebuild is a large change to fix a small problem in that case.
Troubleshooting
The domain will not verify. The DNS records were added to the wrong host, or an old record conflicts. Remove conflicting records for the same name and allow time for DNS to update.
Pages look different on mobile. Sections were styled on desktop only. Review every page in the mobile view of the editor before publishing.
Old pages still appear in search results. Redirects are missing. Add a redirect from each old URL to its replacement, then request recrawling in your search console.
Bookings arrive but the site shows no traffic in reports. Tracking was not added to the new site. Add your analytics and confirm it records a visit before launch.
Frequently asked questions
Can a booking website and our funnels share a domain?
Yes. The website can sit on the main domain and funnels on paths or subdomains, all managed from the same Sites area.
How many pages should a booking website start with?
Six to twelve for most firms. Add pages when a buyer question needs its own answer, not to fill a menu.
Can we keep our blog on the old system?
You can, on a subdomain. Link from each article to the booking page so readers have a clear next step.
Do we need a developer to build it?
Not for the pages themselves. You may need whoever manages your domain to add the DNS records.