In this tutorial, we’ll explain how to build your own AI tools directory with WordPress. We’ll walk you through the whole process of building your directory website, from installation and customization to monetization.

Let’s dive in!

What is an AI Tools Directory?

An AI tools directory is a platform that lists and provides information about various AI software, allowing users to explore and discover new tools and find the right ones for their projects. A good example of such a site is Futurepedia.

Prerequisites for Building an AI Tools Directory

Choosing the right prerequisites is crucial when setting up your directory website. Here’s a checklist to get you started:

• Domain Name & Hosting Plan – check our article on reliable hosting providers to make an informed choice.
• WordPress Installation – most hosting providers offer a one-click WordPress installation.
• Directory Plugin – to pick a suitable plugin, feel free to check our list of the best free directory plugins.
• WordPress Theme – you can read our article on the best free directory themes.

In this tutorial, we are going to use the ListingHive directory theme on top of HivePress, a free and powerful WordPress directory plugin that will handle most of the website’s features.

Steps to Create an AI Tools Directory

Now let’s move to the tutorial part of this article, where we’ll show you how to start an AI tools directory. With everything ready, let’s kick off by installing the theme and plugin.

Install ListingHive & HivePress

Let’s start by setting up the foundation of your AI tools directory. Go to the Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme page and find ListingHive by typing its name in the search bar. Then, install and activate it. After this, you’ll be suggested to install HivePress. Simply click on the provided link to do it.

That’s it! Now let’s extend the functionality of the directory, since HivePress offers only the core features out of the box.

Install Extensions

To add some additional features, we’ll visit the HivePress > Extensions page. There are 15+ HivePress extensions that are fully compatible with each other and work perfectly with ListingHive. For example, for an AI tools directory, you might want to install:

• Reviews – allows users to review and rate tools.
• Favorites – enables users to keep a list of favorite tools.
• Tags – adds tags to listings.
• Social Login – allows users to sign in via third-party platforms.

Set Up AI Tools Categories

The next step is to add tool categories to simplify the navigation on your AI tools directory. ListingHive comes without default categories, so you can create as many custom ones as you’d like in the Listings > Categories section. First, name your category. Then, describe it if necessary and upload the category image. You can also create a hierarchy by setting a parent category, which can be helpful if you want to have subcategories. To finish, click Add Category. 

SEO Tip: Use descriptive category names that include relevant keywords naturally.

Create Custom Fields for AI Tools

Once you’re done with categories, you can create custom listing fields. They will help users obtain information about every tool. For instance, let’s add a “Pricing Model” field. Go to the Listings > Attributes > Add New page and write the field’s name. In the Editing section, you can allow users to fill in this field when adding new tools to your website. To do this, mark it as editable. Additionally, you can make it required. Also, don’t forget to choose the field type. In our case, it’ll be “Select”.

Within the Search section, you can turn your field into a search filter. Let’s mark it as filterable and sortable to allow website visitors to filter and sort tools depending on their pricing model. Also, we’ll use the “Select” field type again.

In the last section, you can set up how your custom field will appear on pages. Let’s select Block (primary) and Page (primary) as our display areas (check our doc to better understand how to set up attributes). As for the display format, we’ll use this one: %label%:%value%.

When done, hit Publish. After this, the Edit Options button will appear. Follow it to add different options, like “Free”, “Premium”, “Free Trial”, and so on.

Build Your AI Directory Homepage

Now, it’s time to create an eye-catching homepage for your AI tools directory. ListingHive is fully compatible with the WordPress native page builder, so we can use blocks to build pages. Let’s go to Pages > Add New Page and name it “Home”. After this, you should write a header text. Finally, you can start adding different blocks to the page by clicking the Plus icon and typing “HivePress”.

For example, let’s add “Listing Search Form” and “Listing Categories” blocks. Additionally, you can customize blocks using the settings column on the right side. 

When you’re finished, press the Publish button. After this, visit the Dashboard > Settings > Reading section and select this page from the drop-down list to make it a homepage.

After adding your homepage, you can customize its look and feel by going to the Appearance > Customize section and going through all the settings. You can choose colors, fonts, a header image and so on. Feel free to check this video to get a better idea of how to customize your website.

Add Your First AI Tool Listing

Now, let’s add the first tool to our AI tools directory. Note that there are two ways to do this: via the front-end as a user and via the back-end as an admin (if you want to be the only person who can add listings on your website, turn off the front-end listing submission option in the HivePress > Settings > Listings section). We’ll proceed with adding a listing via the front-end.

Visit your site and click on the Add Listing button. You’ll see a submission form, where you need to write the name of the tool, select a category, add images, and fill in custom fields you’ve created.

Once you’ve entered all the details, simply click the Submit Listing button. If manual moderation is enabled, you can then review and approve the listing in the Dashboard > Listings section. Finally, the listing will be added to your AI tools directory.

Monetization Options

So, now we’d like to show how you can make money with your AI tools directory website. There are several monetization models for directory websites, and you can find all of them in our article on how to monetize a WordPress directory website, but here, we’ll cover only two of them.

Please note that both business models require WooCommerce, the most popular e-commerce plugin, and some of the HivePress extensions.

Paid Listings

With the free HivePress Paid Listings extension, you can create several listing packages and sell them at different prices. This way, you’ll be able to charge users for adding new tools to your directory. Moreover, you’ll be able to charge users for making their listings featured (the featured listings appear at the top of the search results page). Please check this short video on how to set everything up.

Memberships

The second business model that we’d like to show you is – Membership. You can turn your AI directory into a members-only platform by restricting access to categories, single listings, or even specific details. At the same time, users will have the option to purchase a membership plan that allows them to view more tools.

Please note that this monetization model requires the HivePress Memberships extension. To set everything up, please check the screencast below, which shows the whole setup process.

Final Words

Creating an AI tools directory with WordPress is more accessible than ever, thanks to powerful plugins like HivePress and themes like ListingHive. The AI market’s explosive growth creates tremendous opportunities for well-executed directory websites.

Remember, success comes from focusing on user value first – provide genuine utility, maintain high-quality standards, and the revenue will follow. Start with a solid foundation, launch quickly, and iterate based on user feedback.

Additionally, feel free to check our article on how to create a searchable database with WordPress.

Today, we’ll show you how to create a booking website on your own without any coding skills or prior experience. 

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll use WordPress, the most popular content management system that allows you to build various types of websites, including booking ones.

Let’s get started!

What Type of Booking Website Do You Need?

Before you jump into building a booking website, let’s figure out what type you actually need. Booking websites come in different forms, depending on what you’re offering. Here are the three main types:

Service-Based Booking Websites

If you offer appointments, consultations, or services, this type is for you. It’s perfect for businesses like:

• Salons & Spas – Clients book haircuts, massages, or beauty treatments.
• Healthcare – Doctors, dentists, and therapists can schedule patient appointments online.
• Coaching & Consulting – Life coaches, business consultants, and personal trainers can let clients book sessions in advance.

These websites usually come with features like calendar integrations, time slot selection, and automated reminders to reduce no-shows (here’s a tutorial on how to create an appointment booking website).

Rental-Based Booking Websites

If you rent out spaces, equipment, or properties, this is your go-to option. Examples include:

• Vacation Rentals – Sites like Airbnb allow users to book short-term stays.
• Coworking Spaces – Businesses can list office spaces or desks for rent.
• Car & Equipment Rentals – People can book vehicles, cameras, or tools for specific dates.

A rental-based booking system typically includes availability calendars, pricing per day/hour, and payment processing for hassle-free transactions (a detailed tutorial on launching a vacation rentals website).

Event-Based Booking Websites

If you’re handling tickets, event registrations, or group bookings, an event-based system is the way to go. Common use cases:

• Concerts & Shows – Sell tickets for live performances.
• Workshops & Classes – Allow attendees to reserve spots for online or in-person events.
• Tour & Activity Bookings – Offer guided tours, adventure activities, or local experiences.

Event booking platforms often come with seat selection, countdown timers, and bulk booking options to make the process smooth for users (check out our walkthrough on starting a tour booking website).

What You Need to Get Started

Now that you know the type of booking website you need, it’s time to build it. The best part? You don’t need to hire a developer or learn how to code. With WordPress, you can set up a fully functional booking website in no time.

WordPress is the go-to platform for website building. It’s flexible, beginner-friendly, and has thousands of plugins to help you add booking functionality, payments, and custom features without any hassle.

In this article, we’ll show you how to build a booking website using WordPress, but before that, let’s check the list of prerequisites you’ll need to get started.

Domain Name & Hosting

Your domain name is your website’s address (e.g., mybookingwebsite.com). Hosting is where your website lives online. Without these, you won’t have a website at all.

• Domain – Choose something short, easy to remember, and relevant to your business (you can look for domain names on Namecheap).
• Hosting – Go for a reliable provider that supports WordPress (you can check our article on how to choose a WordPress hosting provider)

WordPress Installation

Most hosting providers offer one-click WordPress installation, so you can get your site up and running in just a few clicks. After choosing your hosting provider, they will send you a tutorial on how to install WordPress, so we won’t stop on this step here and move on.

Once you install WordPress (with the help of your hosting provider), you’ll get access to your WordPress dashboard. Here, you’ll be able to manage everything, starting from pages and posts to plugins and themes.

Booking Plugin & Theme

WordPress doesn’t come with built-in booking features, so you’ll need a booking plugin. Such a plugin adds scheduling, calendars, payments, and other must-have tools for your booking website.

Here are some of the best booking plugins out there:

• HivePress (with the Bookings extension) – Great for any type of booking or rental website.
• Amelia – Ideal for service-based businesses like salons or coaching.
• WP Simple Booking Calendar – A good option for rental-based bookings.

To get a better idea of which plugin to choose, you can check our overview of the best booking WordPress plugins.

Also, you need a WordPress theme for your website. While the plugins are responsible for the features on your site, the theme is responsible for its appearance. So it’s necessary to choose a theme that will allow you to create a booking website. To choose a proper theme, you can check our overview of the best WP booking themes.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll use HivePress along with its Bookings extension and the RentalHive, as they are all fully compatible with each other and allow you to create any type of booking and rental website.

Okay, now let’s dive into creating your booking website using WordPress.

Building a Booking Website 

At this point, you should already have a clean WordPress installation and can start installing the plugins and a theme for your booking platform.

Without any further ado, let’s move to the first step!

Installing the WordPress Theme and Plugins

First things first – you need to install RentalHive, a theme that we mentioned before, and the required plugins so your booking website has all the necessary features. 

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Navigate to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme.
3. Upload the RentalHive ZIP file (you can download it on the official website).
4. Click Install and then activate the theme.

Once the theme is activated, you’ll be suggested to install a few plugins, including HivePress, a directory plugin that will power all the booking features on your website.

Just follow the suggested link and install all the recommended plugins.

To speed things up, we recommend importing the demo content. A demo content is a pre-made design of a booking website that comes with the theme, and you can import it if you don’t want to start from scratch.

Importing the RentalHive demo is a huge time-saver. Instead of starting with a blank page, you’ll get a ready-made layout that you can customize to fit your needs and save tons of time.

To import the demo content, simply follow the screencast below.

Customizing the Booking Website

Great! Once you’ve imported the demo content, it’s time to make it your own. You can set everything up in the way you like, according to your needs and requirements. Whether you are building a website like Airbnb or a rental platform for kayaks – RentalHive has got you covered. 

First of all, let’s add new categories to your booking website.

Adding Listing Categories

You have to organize your booking website by creating listing categories. This will make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for. Since RentalHive has no predefined categories, you can add custom ones in WP Dashboard > Listings > Categories.

Please note that you can add your own categories or edit the existing ones (those that were imported with demo content)

To add a new category, you need to:

• Name your category – for example, “Apartments” or “Kayaks” (depending on your website niche).
• Add a description (optional) – a short description to explain what this category includes.
• Upload a category image – a relevant picture helps with navigation.
• Set a parent category (if needed) – this is useful if you want to create subcategories, like “Beach Houses” under “Vacation Rentals” (if it’s not relevant, simply leave it empty)

Finally, click on the Publish button. In the same way, you can add as many listing categories as you need on your booking website.

Adding Custom Listing Fields & Filters

Once you are done with listing categories on your booking website, it’s time to add custom listing fields and search filters. Simply saying, listing fields – are details that appear on each listing, for example, the “price field” or the field that shows the “number of bedrooms” in the apartments or any other key information users need.

To see how it works, let’s add one.

Let’s add the first listing field that will show website visitors the price. To do that, navigate to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Attributes section and click Add New.

Firstly, you should name it (e.g., “Price per hour”). Then, you can edit it in several different contexts.

Editing 

Here, you can set whether users can fill in this field when adding a listing (on the front-end) or only admins can do that. Also, it’s necessary to choose a field type, let’s choose the “Number” type (for our “Price per hour” field).

Search

Within this section, you can turn your field into a search filter. If you do so, users will be able to filter listings using this field. For example, if we mark our “Price per our” field as filterable and sortable, then visitors will be able to sort listings by price.

Also, it’s important to set the search field type. In our case, we’ll choose “Number Range” to let users filter listings by a price range instead of a single value.

Display

Here, you control where and how the field shows up on listing pages.

• Choose where it appears in the layout.
• Add an icon to make it visually clear.
• Set a display format. For the “Price” field,  we’ll use $%value% / hr

By following the same steps, you can add various listing fields and search filters and set them up in the way you need. To find out more on how to add new fields, you can check this doc.

Customizing Appearance

Now it’s time to set up the look and feel of your booking website. Since your website is built with WordPress, you can use the native WP Customizer to change the logo, colors, fonts, and styles of your website.

Check out the screencast below for a step-by-step guide on how to customize your website’s appearance!

Setting Everything Up

At this point, it’s important to show you the “Settings” section, where you can adjust many things on your booking website. 

Go to the WordPress Dashboard > HivePress > Settings section. There are many different tabs here, and we recommend checking them all to set everything up just the way you need. You can start with the following tabs:

• Listings – here, you’ll find all the settings related to listings. For example, you can decide whether users can submit listings (from the front end) and enable moderation to approve listings before they go live.
• Bookings – within this tab, you can set up everything relating to bookings, like time slots and availability (and many other cool features).
• Geolocation – check out this tab if you want to enable the location-based search on your booking website (check this doc if you need to set up geolocation).

These are just the basic settings that you have to check right away, but it’s important to go through all the tabs to make sure that your booking website operates smoothly. To make it easier for you, we created an overview of all the settings, so feel free to check it.

Monetizing Your Booking Website

There are a few ways to monetize your booking website. The two most common are:

• Paid & Featured Listings – you can charge users for adding new listings on your platform or making them featured for an additional fee so they appear at the top of search results.
• Commissions on Bookings – you can take a percentage or fixed fee from each successful booking that occurs on your website (for example, take a cut of 10%).

You can use one or both models depending on your business. For example, if you’re building a rental marketplace, charging commissions might be the best option. If it’s a smaller, service-based platform, you might prefer paid listings.

Additionally, you can monetize through ads or by offering extra services on your platform. To get a better idea of available monetization options, check our article.

Wrapping Up

That’s it! We hope this article on how to create a booking website without any coding skills was useful to you, and now you have a better idea of how to get started. With the right tools and a little effort, you can build a fully functional booking platform that fits your business needs. 

Please note that it is a basic tutorial, and if you want to create a more advanced booking website or dive deeper into certain settings – we recommend checking out the HivePress blog. There are tons of useful articles and tutorials that can help you.

Today, we’ll show you how to create your own coach booking website with WordPress simply and intuitively without any coding knowledge.

Let’s go!

What is a Coach Booking Website?

A coach booking website is an online platform that simplifies scheduling appointments with professional coaches. These sites can be categorized into two types:

• Single-vendor – designed for individual coaches to showcase their services online, manage appointments, and allow clients to book appointments directly.
• Multi-vendor – marketplace-style site that hosts many different coaches and allows users to browse profiles, filter by criteria like specialization and availability, and book appointments with their chosen trainer.

In this tutorial, we’ll be creating a multi-vendor website. A good example of a multi-vendor coach marketplace is Coach.me, where users can find coaches for various goals, from personal development to professional growth.

Prerequisites for Building a Coach Booking Website

Before you dive into building the platform, make sure you have these essentials ready:

• Domain name – come up with a memorable and original name.
• Hosting plan – choose a reputable hosting provider. You can check out our review of the best WordPress hosting providers.
• WordPress installation – most hosting providers provide a one-click installation option.
• WordPress theme – go for an appointment theme that matches your style (check our article on the best appointment WordPress themes).
• WordPress plugin – pick a directory plugin with the necessary features (check out the list of the best WordPress directory plugins).

Okay, now let’s move on to the tutorial part!

Steps to Create a Coach Appointment Booking Website

We’ll be using MeetingHive, an appointment booking WordPress theme, and HivePress, a multi-purpose WordPress directory plugin that will power all the marketplace and booking features.

Installing MeetingHive

Our first step is to install the theme. To do it, head to the WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme page and click on the Upload Theme button. Select the MeetingHive ZIP file, then install and activate the theme.

Once MeetingHive is activated, you’ll see a link to install recommended plugins, including HivePress. These are essential for enabling all the necessary features, so follow the link to install and activate them.

Additionally, you can import MeetingHive demo content to see how everything works behind the scenes. This screencast will guide you through quickly importing the pre-made content:

Adding Listing Categories

Okay, the tools are present. The second step is to add different listing categories to your coach booking platform to help users easily browse and find the right trainer. For example, we’ll create categories such as Life Coaches, Business Coaches, Health Coaches, and Fitness Coaches.

To add a new category, navigate to the Dashboard > Listings > Categories section. Here, you can name your category, enter a description, and select a suitable category icon. You can also create a hierarchy by selecting a parent category.

Once you’ve configured everything, click the Add Category button. You can repeat these steps to add as many categories as you need.

Adding Listing and Profile Fields

Now, we need to create custom fields to let coaches provide specific information about themselves and their services, making it easier for users to connect with the right trainer quickly.

Adding Custom Listing Fields

For instance, you can add listing fields like “Hourly Rate,” “Contact Info,” “Specialization”, etc. Let’s create a “Specialization” field so coaches can indicate their specific areas of expertise. To create a new listing field, navigate to Dashboard > Listings > Attributes and click Add New. 

First, write its name. In the Editing section, mark your field as editable to allow coaches to fill it out when they list their service. Then, choose the field type. For this particular field, we’ll pick “Checkboxes” to add different options later. Finally, decide if it should be a required field and set your moderation preferences.

In the Search section, we’ll turn this field into a search filter to allow users to filter listings. To do this, mark it as filterable so that it appears in the listing filter form. The field type would be “Checkboxes” as in the previous section.

Lastly, the Display section lets you select the template areas where this attribute will be displayed. You can also set its display format using the available tokens and choose an appropriate icon for it (to learn how to set up attributes, refer to this doc). For example, let’s select Block (secondary) and Page (secondary) as display areas and set this display format: %icon% %value%

Note that you can make attributes category-specific, and that’s what we’re going to do with the “Specialization” field. For example, let’s assign it to the Business Coaches category and then press the Publish button.

After this, the new Edit Options button will appear in the Editing section. We need to follow it and add different business specializations for coaches to choose from. We’ll add something like this:

And that’s it! Use this example as a starting point for your own listing fields, and keep in mind that there is no limit to the number of fields you can add.

Adding Coach Profile Fields

Additionally, consider adding coach profile fields to let users see more information about each trainer. For example, to show how many years of experience a particular coach has, we’ll add an “Experience” profile field. To do this, go to Dashboard > Vendors > Attributes > Add New.

It’s no different than setting up the listing fields, so we won’t cover it in detail. Just a heads up: for this field, it’s better to set the “Select” field type so that only one option can be chosen.

Creating a Homepage

Let’s move on to the next step. At this point, you need to create a homepage for your coach booking appointment platform. To get started, go to Dashboard > Pages > Add New Page and name the created page.

Now, you can start building the page’s layout. First, write a headline that will welcome website users. Then click the Plus icon and type “HivePress” in the search bar to find all available HivePress blocks. For instance, let’s add “Listing Search Form” and “Listing Categories” blocks. You can also customize HivePress blocks using the settings column on the right. Click Publish once you’re done.

Next, go to Dashboard > Settings > Reading and select this page as your homepage from the dropdown list. You should also do this for your blog page once you create it.

You can make further changes to the look and feel of your platform by visiting the Dashboard > Appearance > Customize section. Check out this video for instructions on customizing MeetingHive:

Extending Functionality & Setting Up HivePress

There are more than 15 HivePress add-ons that you can use to enhance your coach booking website. 

Installing Add-ons

All of the available HivePress extensions can be found in the Dashboard > HivePress > Extensions section. 

For example, the Geolocation extension allows users to find coaches based on their location, while the Social Login add-on enables them to log in through third-party platforms. Additionally, the Social Links extension allows coaches to add their social media profiles to their listings. To install any of the extensions, simply click the Install button.

Configuring HivePress Settings

To get your coach booking platform running smoothly and working the way you expect it to, you’ll need to adjust the settings in the Dashboard > HivePress > Settings section. 

For example, if you’re planning to launch a single-vendor platform, the first thing you’d want to do is go to the Listings tab and turn off front-end listing submission. This way, only the admin will be able to list services.

Vice versa, for a multi-vendor platform, be sure to enable direct vendor registration in the Vendors tab to simplify the registration process for coaches (by default, HivePress requires you to add at least one listing to become a vendor).  You’ll also need to add a link on your site for trainers to sign up – check this doc on how to do it.

Then, you should take a moment to set up the booking functionality in the Bookings tab. For example, you can enable time-based bookings instead of daily ones, allowing coaches to specify their availability in precise time slots. Besides that, you can set up calendar synchronization with services like Google Calendar. To learn more about setting up booking functionality, check these docs.

Registering a Coach Profile and Listing a Service

Finally, let’s try registering a new profile and adding a new listing to see how it works.

Registering a Coach Profile

To sign up as a coach, visit your site from the front-end and simply click on the vendor registration link you created earlier (if not, refer to this doc). Then, fill out all the fields, including the custom ones, and press Save Changes.

Great! The profile is ready, so let’s proceed to add the first listing.

Listing a Service

Click the List a Service button to open the submission page, where you’ll see default fields like title and description, as well as custom fields you’ve created and those added by different HivePress extensions. Start filling out the fields and when you’re done, click Submit Listing. 

The listing will now be submitted for review and can be approved by an admin in the Dashboard > Listings section. However, you can always disable manual listing moderation in HivePress > Settings > Listings. Once approved, the listing will be visible on your platform.

From now on, users will be able to book an appointment with this coach in a few clicks. All they have to do is select the available date and time and click Book Now. They will then be redirected to the confirmation page, which is the last step remaining before the appointment is scheduled. Simple as that!

The coach will see the booking in their dashboard, with the option to accept or decline it. In addition, each trainer will have the ability to manage a personalized calendar that will show them each successful reservation as well as the available dates.

Ways to Monetize your Coach Booking Platform

Congrats, your website is already in action. So, lastly, let’s quickly discuss how you can make money from it. First of all, you need to install WooCommerce to be able to accept payments.

Then, there are two primary monetization methods that are popular among booking websites.

Taking Commissions 

The simplest way to earn is by taking a commission from each successful booking. Commissions can be applied to coaches, clients, or both. For this to work, you’ll need to install the HivePress Marketplace extension that comes with the MeetingHive theme.

Download the Marketplace extension from your MeetingHive purchase email and install it in the Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin section. Next, navigate to Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Vendors section to set your commission rates, which can be either a percentage, a flat fee, or both. To set up commissions for customers, visit the Users tab, where the exact settings are available. 

For a visual guide, you can also watch our video tutorial on setting up commissions:

Listing Packages

Now let’s talk about the second monetization model for a coach booking website. Using the free HivePress Paid Listings extension, you can create different listing packages with varied prices. Simply saying, you might offer a basic free package for adding a single listing, while premium packages could allow for multiple listings and other features. 

Additionally, the Paid Listings extension lets you charge vendors for advertising. For a certain fee, they can make their listings show up at the top of the search results.

For a detailed walkthrough on setting up listing packages, watch the video below:

Wrapping Up

And that concludes our tutorial on creating a coach booking website with WordPress. We hope you found it helpful and now have a better idea of how to launch an appointment booking platform for coaches.

If you’re still unsure which theme to choose, consider trying MeetingHive. It’s a feature-rich appointment booking WordPress theme that comes with all the necessary features right out of the box.

Additionally, feel free to check our articles on how to:

• Create a website like Booksy with WordPress
• Launch a lawyer appointment booking platform

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create a website for beauty services like Booksy using WordPress. Whether you’re a beauty professional looking to expand your reach or an entrepreneur with the idea of creating a multi-vendor marketplace, this guide will provide you with the knowledge you need to get started.

Let’s dive in!

A Few Words About Beauty Services Booking Websites

Such websites are online platforms where clients can find and book beauty services like hairdressing, manicures, spas, and massages. They typically fall into two categories:

• Single-vendor websites – a website dedicated to one beauty salon or spa where customers can book services with specific providers. It’s ideal for local businesses looking to make their booking process more accessible.

• Marketplaces – these platforms host multiple beauty professionals across various niches. Clients can browse different providers, read reviews, compare prices, and book appointments. A great example is Booksy, which became popular for offering a wide range of beauty services in one place.

Prerequisites for Launching a Beauty Services Booking Website

Before diving into the creation of your website for booking beauty services, ensure you have the following essentials:

• Domain name –  go for a catchy domain name.
• Hosting plan – select a reliable hosting provider. Our list of popular WordPress hosting providers can help you choose.
• WordPress installation – a one-click WP installation feature is offered by most hosting providers.
• WordPress theme – pick a theme that aligns with your brand and style. Check out our overview of the best appointment booking WordPress themes.
• WordPress plugin – choose a directory plugin with all necessary features (here’s a list of best directory plugins for WordPress).

We recommend using MeetingHive, a modern appointment booking WordPress theme, alongside HivePress, a multi-purpose WordPress plugin that will power your booking and marketplace features.

Now, let’s move on to the tutorial part!

Steps to Create a Beauty Services Booking Platform

The starting point is to install the necessary tools. First, let’s install the MeetingHive theme.

Installing MeetingHive

Navigate to WP Dashboard > Appearance > Themes. Click the Upload Theme button and select the MeetingHive ZIP file. Once uploaded, proceed to install and activate the theme.

After installing MeetingHive, you’ll see a prompt to install recommended plugins, including HivePress. These plugins are essential for your website’s functionality, so simply click on the link to install and activate them all.

For a visual guide, check out the video below, which demonstrates how to install MeetingHive and the necessary plugins.

Adding Beauty Service Categories

To make your beauty services website organized and user-friendly, it’s important to create different categories for different beauty services. For this tutorial, we’ll add categories such as “Hair Salon,” “Nail Salon,” “Skin Care,” and “Massage”. 

Navigate to the Dashboard > Listings > Categories section. Here you can name your category, enter a description, choose an appropriate icon, and set a color. You can also create a category hierarchy by selecting a parent one. When you’re done, click Add Category.

Remember, you can add as many categories as you need by following the same steps.

Adding Custom Fields

Next, you should add some custom fields to let beauty professionals provide detailed information about their services. With MeetingHive, you can add unlimited custom fields and search filters. For example, let’s create a “Payment Method” field to let professionals indicate whether they accept payments in cash, via credit card, or both.

To create a new custom field, go to Dashboard > Listings > Attributes > Add New, and start by naming a field. In the Editing section, mark your field as editable so professionals can fill it in when listing their service. Then, you need to set a field type. In the case at hand, we’ll pick the “Checkboxes” field type to allow selecting multiple options. Lastly, decide if this field should be required. In the Search section, turn the field into a search filter so clients can use it to filter listings by marking it as filterable. Then, use the “Checkboxes” field type again.

Finally, in the Display section, you can choose which template areas to show this field in and set the display format using available tokens. Also, you can select a suitable icon to display alongside the field. For instance, we’ll set Block (secondary) and Page (secondary) as display areas and use %icon% %value% as the display format. If you prefer not to show the icon, use %label%: %value% instead.

When you’re finished, press the Publish button. After this, a new Edit Options button will appear in the Editing section. We’ll follow it to add two options: “Cash” and “Card,” and vendors will be able to choose one method or both.

That’s it! This field will now appear in the listing submission form. Remember to add other vital fields, like “Contact Number” or “House Call.”

Adding Vendor Fields

Clients will want more details about beauty professionals before booking an appointment. That’s why you should also add vendor profile fields in the Dashboard > Vendors > Attributes > Add New section. You can do this the same way we added listing fields. 

For example, let’s add the “Experience” field to let specialists provide information about their experience period. However, this time, using the “Select” field type is better since vendors can pick only one option. Also, it’s not necessary to make a vendor field searchable unless you’re going to allow search for vendors alongside listings. Finally, don’t forget to visit the Edit Options button and add experience period options, such as “1-5 Years”, “5-10 Years”, and so on.

Creating a Homepage

It’s time to create a homepage for your beauty services website. We’ll be using WordPress native page builder, Gutenberg, since MeetingHive and HivePress are seamlessly integrated with it. To create a new page, go to Dashboard > Pages > Add New Page and name it, for example, “Home”.

Begin by adding a catchy header text to draw users in. Then, you can start adding different HivePress blocks by clicking the plus icon and searching for “HivePress”. For instance, let’s place the “Listing Search Form” and “Listing Categories” blocks below the header. Also, you can customize them using the settings column on the right. When you’re happy with the result, click Publish.

To set this page as your homepage, go to the Dashboard > Settings > Reading section and select it from the dropdown list. Note that your future blog page can also be assigned here.

Keep in mind that you can customize the look and feel of your site at any time. For tips on customizing the MeetingHive theme, watch this video.

Extending Functionality

By the way, you can always install additional HivePress add-ons to further enhance the functionality of your beauty appointment platform. Even though MeetingHive comes with six of them out of the box, there’s still room for development. Overall, HivePress offers over 15 extensions that are fully compatible with each other. You can find them in the Dashboard > HivePress > Extensions section.

For instance, you might want to install the Geolocation extension to allow users to find beauty professionals based on their location. Besides that, the Opening Hours add-on can add working hours to listings. Additionally, the Social Links extension can allow beauty professionals to add their social media links to their listings and profiles. To install an extension, simply click the Install button.

Setting Everything Up

Next, it’s important to fine-tune the settings so that everything works just the way you intended. First of all, if you plan to launch a single-vendor platform (meaning that only the admin will be able to post listings), you should turn off the front-end listing submission option in the Listings tab. Otherwise, keep this option checked. Additionally, you can disable manual listing moderation here.

In the Vendors tab, you can enable direct vendor registration. This feature is essential for a multi-vendor beauty service booking platform as it allows beauty professionals to sign up as vendors instantly. By default, HivePress requires a user to add at least one listing to become a vendor, but direct registration simplifies this process. 

Please note that if you decide to enable direct vendor registration, you’ll also need to add a vendor registration form to your platform – you can learn how to do it in this doc.

The Bookings tab is one of the most important settings for an appointment booking platform because it determines how appointments are managed and scheduled on your website for booking beauty services. For example, you can enable time-based bookings, allowing beauty professionals to specify their availability in precise time slots. You can also set up calendar synchronization with external services such as Google Calendar. For tips on setting up bookings, please refer to these docs.

Note that the number of settings increases as you install more extensions. It’s really important to review all of the tabs and configure settings according to your specific needs to ensure that your platform runs how you want.

Creating a Profile & Listing a Service

At this point, everything should work properly, so let’s go ahead and test the functionality.

Creating a Profile 

First, ensure that you’ve added a vendor registration link to your platform. Then, simply follow it. You’ll be redirected to the registration form, which includes all the previously created custom vendor fields. Fill them in and proceed by clicking Save Changes.

Listing a Beauty Service

Now that the profile is completed, the next step is to add the first beauty service listing. To do it, click the List a Service button in the right corner. You’ll see the submission page, where you’ll find default fields like title and description, along with the custom fields you added earlier. Other fields, like booking options, are added by different HivePress add-ons. Also, don’t forget that you can always customize this form as you need. 

Fill out all the required fields and click Submit Listing. The listing will now be submitted for review and can be approved by an admin in the Dashboard > Listings section. As we said, to disable manual approval, you can uncheck the manual moderation option in Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Listings. Once approved, the listing will appear on the front end.

Booking an Appointment

Finally, let’s test the booking functionality and schedule an appointment. To do this, simply select the desired date and time, then press Book Now.

You’ll be taken to the confirmation page, where you may preview your reservation and leave any comments you may have. If everything seems to be in order, all you have to do is click the Confirm Booking button.

That’s it! As soon as the client clicks the button, a beauty professional is notified of the new booking. In addition, specialists have access to a built-in calendar feature to keep track of their appointments. They can block or unblock certain dates and times to let clients know of their schedule availability. This helps ensure smooth scheduling and prevents booking conflicts.

Monetizing your Beauty Services Booking Website

Last but not least, let’s talk about how you can make money from your beauty platform. Please note that in order to enable payments on your website, you’ll need to install WooCommerce and some of the HivePress extensions. Also, for more detailed guidance on this topic, check out our article on monetizing a service marketplace.

We’ll briefly cover two main ways to generate revenue from your beauty services booking website:

Taking Commissions

One of the simplest ways to earn from your platform is to take a cut from each successful booking. You can apply commissions to specialists, clients, and even both.

First, you’ll need to download the HivePress Marketplace extension from your MeetingHive purchase email and install it through Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin. After that, go to the Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Vendors section, where you can define your commission rates, whether they’re a percentage or a flat fee. It can also be both a percentage and a flat fee at the same time.

To set up commissions on the customers’ side, visit the Users tab, where you’ll see the exact same settings. Additionally, you can watch a video tutorial on setting up commissions.

Charging Specialists for Listing Services

Another monetization model is about offering paid listing packages, which can be done using the free HivePress Paid Listings extension. For example, you can create a free package that lets beauty specialists post only one listing and premium packages for more listings. This allows you to charge professionals for listing their services on your platform. 

Additionally, with the Paid Listings extension, you can allow beauty professionals to advertise their services for a certain fee. Featured listings appear at the top of search results, increasing their chances of being noticed by potential customers. At the same time, you’ll be earning money from offering a featured status for a fixed price.

For detailed instructions on creating listing packages and setting up featured status in MeetingHive, feel free to watch our video tutorial.

Final Words

And that wraps it up! We hope this tutorial on how to create an appointment booking website for beauty services with WordPress was helpful to you and that your Booksy analog will be able to reach a top position in the future. 

If you’re uncertain about which theme to choose, we strongly suggest MeetingHive. It comes with all the essential features right out of the box, so you can start building your beauty platform the day you decide to.

Additionally, you can check our article on how to create an appointment booking website with WordPress.

In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through creating a fully functional, searchable database using WordPress without any coding skills.

Let’s start!

Who May Need a Searchable Database?

A searchable database website can be helpful to a wide range of individuals and organizations. For example:

• Businesses can use it to create a product catalog that allows customers to search for items by category, price, or specifications. 
• Educational institutions can develop resource libraries where students and faculty can quickly find research papers, textbooks, or course materials. 
• Non-profit organizations and community groups can use it to list events and resources for their members. 
• Companies will benefit from creating a member database or staff directory.
• Real estate, healthcare, or legal professionals can also benefit from such directories that help find specialists and service providers. 

In fact, anyone who needs to organize and provide easy access to large amounts of information can make use of a searchable database.

Prerequisites for Building a Searchable Database

First of all, you’ll need some common prerequisites:

• Domain name
• Hosting plan
• WordPress installation
• WordPress directory theme
• WordPress directory plugin 

While it’s relatively easy to choose a domain name, find a hosting provider, and install WordPress, selecting the right theme and plugin can be a daunting task. To simplify this process, we recommend checking our overviews of the most popular free directory WordPress themes and the best directory WordPress plugins. 

Steps to Create a Searchable Database

For this tutorial, we’ll use HivePress, a free and versatile directory plugin, paired with ListingHive, a lightweight and clean directory WordPress theme that seamlessly integrates with HivePress. As an example, we’re going to create a database of local professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, or real estate agents. However, the steps we provide are suitable for any other type of searchable database.

Also, before diving into the tutorial part, we’d like to show you a preview of our final result, which can give you an idea of the look you can achieve using HivePress and ListingHive.

Installing ListingHive & HivePress

The first step is to install the tools. ListingHive is a free theme, so you can easily install it by going to the WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Themes > Add New section. Simply find ListingHive by typing its name in the search bar and then proceed to install and activate it.

Once ListingHive is installed, you’ll see a suggestion for installing the HivePress plugin, which will power all the directory features on your website. So, click on the provided link to install and activate it as well.

Adding Categories

To create a comprehensive database, you must divide it into different listing or vendor categories first. Since our example concerns individual professionals, we’ll add vendor categories. To do this, go to the Dashboard > Vendors > Categories section. 

Here, you can name the categories, provide a description, and create a hierarchy by selecting a parent category. Keep in mind that you can create as many categories and subcategories as you need to build an extensive database. In our case, we’ll add “Lawyers”, “Doctors”, “Real Estate Agents”, and “Financial Advisors”.

Adding Custom Fields

After adding categories, you should focus on adding custom fields specific to your database niche. You can create different profile fields to display specific details about a specialist, such as email, phone number, experience, and so on. For instance, let’s add an “Experience” field. To do it, go to the Vendors > Attributes > Add New section and name it. 

Check the Editable option to allow front-end editing and let vendors provide their experience. Then, choose the “Select” field type so that vendors can pick their expertise period from the list of options. Finally, you can make any field required by checking the appropriate box.

In the Search section, you can turn your field into a search filter. Let’s make our field filterable so it appears in the filter form. As for the field type, we’ll pick “Checkboxes” to let users check several options at once.

Finally, the Display section lets you define where your field will be displayed on pages by choosing template areas and setting its display format. Let’s choose Block (primary), Page (primary), and set this display format: %label%: %value%

When everything’s ready, press the Publish button. After this, you’ll see the Edit Options button. Simply follow it to add different experience options. Also, don’t forget to add other vital fields, like “Email” or “Phone Number”.

Installing Extensions

Now, let’s enhance the database with some additional features to improve the user experience. There are 15+ HivePress extensions that are fully compatible with each other. You can find them in the Dashboard > HivePress > Extensions section.

For example, you might want to install the Favorites extension to let website visitors keep a list of favorite specialists or the Messages add-on to let them contact vendors right on your site. The Reviews extension can also be helpful, allowing customers to leave reviews and rate professionals. To install any extension, just click on the Install button.

Creating a Page

The next step is to create a page where all the experts will be displayed. Since ListingHive is integrated with WordPress native page builder, we can do it easily using blocks. 

Go to Dashboard > Pages > Add New. First, write the page’s title. Then, we can start creating a layout. To do this, click on the Plus sign and type “HivePress” to see all HivePress-specific blocks. For example, let’s add a “Vendor Search Form” block and a “Vendors” one that will display all the professionals. When you’re finished, click Publish.

After that, head to the Dashboard > Settings > Reading section and set the newly created page as a Homepage. Finally, press the Save Changes button.

Additionally, keep in mind that you can customize the overall visual appearance of your database further. Feel free to take a look at the ListingHive customization tutorial below.

Setting Up

Now, we need to ensure everything will work correctly. First, navigate to Dashboard > HivePress > Settings. 

In the Vendors tab, set a Vendors page where all specialists will be displayed. You can choose your homepage if you want all experts to be shown there. Additionally, enable direct vendor registration to allow professionals to list their profiles from the front-end. Don’t forget to save the changes.

After this, we must add a registration link to the front end so experts can sign up directly and list their profiles. To do it, go to Dashboard > Appearance > Menus > Manage with Live Preview. Here, click Create New Menu. Write a name, assign it to the Header, and proceed by clicking Next.Then, visit the Add items > Custom Links section and add the registration link using the following structure: your domain/register-vendor. Finally, click Publish.

That’s it! Now, there’s a registration link in the header, allowing specialists to list their profiles almost instantly.

Adding Specialists

Okay, now let’s try to list the first profile in your database. There are two ways to add a profile – via the back end and via the front end. For example, as an admin, you can add new specialists from the back end in the Vendors > Add New section. However, we’ll do it from the front-end to see how it’ll look like for users. 

Just go to your site and follow the vendor registration link you added earlier. You’ll be redirected to the registration form you need to fill out, including custom fields you’ve added.

When everything’s filled out, simply hit the Save Changes button. Now, the first profile is already in your database and, you’re ready to continue developing your database on your own.

Wrapping Up

And that wraps up our guide on creating a searchable database using WordPress. We hope you found this tutorial helpful and now have a solid grasp of the process.

If you are thinking about launching a directory website, you can use HivePress with its ListingHive theme. They come with all the essential features, so you can just plug and play. Whether you’re building a searchable database or any other type of listing site, these tools will make the process a breeze.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the entire process of building an online tutoring website using WordPress, starting from installation and customization and ending up with monetization.

So, let’s dive in!

What is a Tutoring Website?

A tutor booking platform is a handy way for students to connect with the right tutors for their learning needs. Tutors list their services, and students can search for them, choose the right one, and schedule a session – all in one place. Preply is a great example of this concept working perfectly.

Prerequisites for Building a Tutor Booking Platform

Before you start building your tutor booking platform, make sure you have all the right nuts and bolts in place:

• Domain name – it’s better to choose a catchy and unique one.
• Hosting plan – pick a reliable hosting provider. Our overview of the best WordPress hosting providers can help you make a decision.
• WordPress installation – most hosting providers have a one-click installation option.
• WordPress theme – choose a functional theme that fits your style (check our article on the best appointment WordPress themes).
• WordPress plugin – select a directory plugin with the needed features (check out the list of the best WordPress directory plugins).

For this tutorial, we’ll be using MeetingHive, a clean appointment-booking WordPress theme, and HivePress, a multi-purpose WordPress directory plugin that will take care of all the booking and marketplace functions.

Steps to Create a Tutor Booking Platform

So, let’s get started on building a tutoring website with WordPress!

Installing MeetingHive

First, we need to install the theme. Go to the WP Dashboard > Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme page, and click on the Upload Theme button. Select the MeetingHive ZIP file, then install and activate the theme.

Once MeetingHive is installed, you’ll be prompted to install recommended plugins, including HivePress. These plugins are essential for getting all the features on your site up and running, so just click on the link to install and activate them.

If you want to get the full lowdown on how to install MeetingHive and the necessary plugins, check out the video below:

Additionally, if you first want to see how everything works behind the curtains, you can import the MeetingHive demo content, making your site look just like the MeetingHive demo one in a few clicks. Take a look at this screencast to learn how you can quickly import the pre-made content:

Adding Tutoring Categories

The next thing to do is add different listing categories to your tutor booking platform. This will make it easier for users to browse through dozens of tutors and eventually find the right one. For example, we’ll add “Math Tutors,” “Science Tutors,” “Language Tutors,” and “History Tutors” as listing categories. 

To add a new category, go to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Categories section. Here, you can name your category, describe it, and choose a category icon. You can also create a hierarchy of categories by selecting the parent one.

Once you have finished setting up the category, click on the Add Category button. Remember, by following these steps, you can add as many categories as you need for your tutor booking website.

Adding Listing and Tutor Profile Fields

Now, we need to create some custom fields so you can collect and display specific information about each tutor, allowing students to find the right match almost instantly. 

Adding Custom Listing Fields

Essentially, you should add different custom listing fields such as “Hourly Rate,” “Contact Info,” or “Subjects Taught.” For instance, let’s create a “Learning Format” field so tutors can indicate whether they offer their services online, in person, or both.

To create a new listing field, go to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Attributes section and click Add New. First, write its name. In the Editing section, mark your field as editable to allow tutors to fill it up when they list their service. Then, decide if it should be a required field and set your moderation preferences. Finally, choose the field type. We’ll use the “Checkboxes” field type since there can be several options.

In the Search section, you can turn your field into a search filter so users can filter tutor listings. Let’s flag this attribute as filterable so it shows up in the listing filter form. As for the field type, it would also be “Checkboxes.”

Finally, in the Display section, you can select the template areas where this attribute will be displayed. You can also set its display format using available tokens and choose a suitable icon for it (check this doc to better understand how to set up attributes). For example, let’s set Block (secondary) and Page (secondary) as display areas and %icon% %value% as display format.

Once you’re done, press Publish. After this, an Edit Options button will appear. We’ll follow it to add two learning formats: “Online” and “Offline.” That’s it! This field will now show up in the listing submission form. Meanwhile, you can add more fields using this example as a reference.

Adding Tutor Profile Fields

It would be a good bonus if users could see some personal info about the tutor. So, you’ll want to create custom fields for tutor profiles, too, such as “Experience” or “Education.” The process is the same as for the listing fields. 

Let’s go to the WP Dashboard > Vendors > Attributes > Add New page and create the “Experience” field. Just a quick note: in this case, we set the “Select” field type because tutors have to choose only one option.

Installing Add-ons and Setting Up HivePress

MeetingHive is integrated with HivePress, so you can easily add more features to your tutoring website by installing different HivePress extensions.

Installing Extensions

For a tutor booking platform, you might want to install extensions like Geolocation, which lets users search tutors based on their location, or Social Login, which allows users to log in via third-party platforms. To install an add-on, simply click on the Install button and then activate the extension.

Checking the Settings

Next, it’s important to visit the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Settings section to set everything up exactly as you need it. For instance, in the Listings tab, you can decide whether you want your tutoring website to be single-vendor (only the admin can add listings) or multi-vendor (tutors can sign up and submit service listings) by checking or unchecking the listing submission option.

Then, in the Vendors tab, you can enable direct vendor registration, which allows tutors to sign up as vendors right away. It may be useful if you’re aiming for a multi-vendor tutor booking platform since, by default, HivePress requires you to add at least one listing to become a vendor.

Furthermore, you should pay attention to the Bookings tab, where you can set up the booking functionality. Options include allowing syncing with external calendars or enabling time-based bookings. For detailed instructions, please refer to these docs.

Also, note that the number of settings increases with the addition of new extensions. So, for example, if you installed the Geolocation extension, a new tab with the same name will appear where you need to set it up.

Overall, be sure to review all the settings and set everything up according to your needs.

Creating a Homepage

Now, it’s time to create a homepage for your tutoring website. MeetingHive is seamlessly integrated with Gutenberg, so we can avoid coding and use blocks to do this. To create a new page, go to WP Dashboard > Pages > Add New Page.

Start by naming the page “Home” and adding a header text. Then, click the Plus icon and type “HivePress” in the search bar to see all the available HivePress blocks. For instance, let’s add the “Listing Search Form” and “Listing Categories” blocks. Also, you can tweak these blocks using the settings column on the right. Once you’re done, just click Publish.

Next, go to WP Dashboard > Settings > Reading and choose this page as your homepage from the dropdown list. You can also assign the blog page here when you create it.

What’s more, you can always make further changes to your site’s pages if you need to. Check out this video to see how you can customize your tutoring website.

Creating a Tutor Profile and Adding a Listing

Next, let’s create a detailed tutor profile to add a service listing later, just to show you how everything works. 

Creating a Tutor Profile

But before that, you need to add a link to the tutor registration form (e.g., “Create a Tutor Profile”) to your site if you’ve enabled direct vendor registration in HivePress > Settings. Here, you can learn how to do it.

Once it’s done, visit your site, follow the link you’ve created, and create a tutor profile. You’ll see that the registration form includes the previously created custom vendor fields. 

When everything’s filled in, click Save Changes. The profile is published, so visit it and check if the fields are displayed correctly. If all the required information is present, the tutor can finally add the first listing.

Adding a Listing

To add a listing, click the List a Service button in the right corner. This will take you to the listing submission page, where you’ll see default fields like title and description, as well as the custom fields you added earlier. Additionally, some fields, such as booking options, are added by HivePress add-ons. Remember, you can always customize this submission form to suit your needs.

Simply fill out all the required fields, then click Submit Listing, and the listing will then be submitted for review. An admin can review and approve it in the WP Dashboard > Listings section. If you prefer not to manually approve listings, you can disable moderation in the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Listings section.

Once approved, the listing will appear on the front end.

Scheduling an Appointment

Good news! Your online tutoring platform is up and running. So, lastly, let’s take a look at how the booking process works and make sure it’s as easy as possible for users. On the listing page, simply choose the date and time you want and click Book Now.

You’ll see the confirmation page, where you can review your booking and leave any extra notes you might have. If everything looks good, just click the Confirm Booking button.

That’s it! A tutor will see this booking, and then you can get in touch. Additionally, service providers can use the handy calendar feature to keep track of their availability. They can block or unblock specific dates and times to let users know when they’re free.

Monetization Options

That was the last piece of the tutorial part. However, we would also like to briefly explain how to monetize your tutoring website and what business models are the best. Please note that they require installing WooCommerce to make payments on your website possible, and some of the HivePress extensions. Additionally, we have a full article on how to monetize a service marketplace, so feel free to check it out.

In general, there are two main ways to make money from your tutor booking platform – commissions and paid listings. Let’s cover each of them.

Commissions

The most straightforward monetization model is to charge a percentage of each successful booking made on your tutoring website. You’ll need to install the HivePress Marketplace extension, which comes with the MeetingHive theme. Just download it from your purchase email and install it in the WP Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin section.

Then, visit the HivePress > Settings > Vendors section, where you can set two types of commissions: Commission Rate (e.g., 10%) and Commission Fee (e.g., 10$). You can also apply commissions to users in the Users tab. 

To have a better idea of how everything works, please check the screenscast below where we’re explaining how the commissions work and how to set them up properly.

Listing Packages

With the free HivePress Paid Listings extension, you can create different listing packages and sell them at different prices. For example, you can offer a free package that lets tutors add only one listing and a premium package for those who want to list more. This way, you can charge service providers for adding new listings to your tutoring website. Moreover, this add-on allows you to charge tutors for making listings featured (featured listings will show up at the top of the search results, which means more chances of getting clients).

Please check the short video below, which shows how to create listings packages to charge users for adding new listings.

Final Words

That wraps up our tutorial on how to create a tutoring website with WordPress. We hope it was helpful to you and now you know how to start your own appointment booking platform for tutors.

If you are still doubting which theme to choose, you can give MeetingHive a shot. It’s a feature-packed appointment booking WordPress theme that has all the necessary feature right out of the box, so feel free to check it out one more time.

Additionally, you may want to check our article on how to launch a lawyer booking marketplace with WordPress.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create a lawyer appointment website using WordPress without any coding skills. This tutorial will be useful for both lawyers who want to create their own scheduling platform and people who want to start a multi-vendor lawyer booking marketplace.

So, let’s get started!

A Few Words About Lawyer Appointment Websites

A lawyer booking website is an online platform where clients can schedule appointments with legal professionals. As we mentioned, such websites can work in two ways:

• A single-vendor website – it can be an appointment booking website for one particular lawyer or law company;
• A multi-vendor website – in this scenario, many different lawyers can list their services on the website, while users can choose a professional and book an appointment.

A great example is LegalMatch, a lawyer appointment booking marketplace where you can search for attorneys based on your case, pricing preferences, and location.

Prerequisites for Launching a Lawyer Booking Website

Before you begin creating your lawyer booking platform, make sure you have all the necessary prerequisites:

• Domain name – make it memorable and distinctive.
• Hosting plan – choose a reliable hosting provider. Feel free to check our overview of the best WordPress hosting providers.
• WordPress installation – most hosting providers offer a one-click installation.
• WordPress theme – pick a theme that matches your brand (check our article on the top appointment WordPress themes).
• WordPress plugin – select a plugin with the right features for your website.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll use MeetingHive, a sleek and efficient appointment-booking WordPress theme, and HivePress, a versatile WordPress plugin that will power all booking and marketplace functionalities.

Now, let’s get to work and build your lawyer booking website with WordPress!

Steps to Create an Attorney Scheduling Platform

In the next steps we’ll show you how to install all the necessary plugins, set them up and finally monetize your lawyer appointment website. First of all, we need to install the MeetingHive theme.

1. Installing MeetingHive

Go to the WP Dashboard > Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme section. Here, click on the Upload Theme button and upload the MeetingHive ZIP file. Then, proceed to install and activate the theme.

After installing MeetingHive, you’ll be prompted to install recommended plugins, including HivePress. These plugins are essential for powering all the features on your website, so simply click on the provided link to install and activate them.

Additionally, you can import the MeetingHive demo content to see how everything works and learn the functionality. This way, everything would look just like on the MeetingHive demo site from the start. To import the pre-made content, please check the screencast below:

2. Adding Listing Categories

Now, we need to add different listing categories to create a structured layout and simplify user navigation. This will allow users to find lawyers based on the field of law. For example, let’s add categories such as Criminal Law, Business Law, Real Estate Law, and Healthcare Law. 

To do that, go to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Categories section and name your first category. You can also enter a description, add an icon, pick a suitable color, and organize categories in a hierarchy by selecting the parent category. 

When you’re finished, click the Add Category button. Remember, following the same steps, you can add as many categories as you need for your lawyer appointment website.

3. Adding Custom Listing Fields

Next, we need to create custom listing fields to allow users to filter attorneys and view details about them. With MeetingHive, you can add as many custom fields and search filters as you want to tailor the site to your needs. For example, to help users understand whether the consultation is online or in-person, let’s add a “Setting” field.

To create a new listing field, navigate to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Attributes section and click Add New. This page lets you customize your listing field in three contexts: Editing, Search, and Display, so we’ll cover each. Additionally, you can check this doc on how to set up listing fields.

Editing

The first section, Editing, lets you make a field editable to allow front-end editing. Then, you need to select the field type. In our example, it’ll be “Select”. Finally, you can choose whether your field should be required or optional. 

Search

In the Search section, you can turn your field into a search filter, allowing users to filter listings based on its value. We’ll mark our field as filterable and searchable and pick the “Select” field type again. 

Display

In the last section, Display, you can define how your field will appear on the pages of your website by setting the display areas, display format, and icon. Let’s choose Block (secondary) and Page (secondary) as display areas, pick a suitable icon, and set the following display format: %icon% %value%

Also, note that you can make any field category-specific by selecting a category in which you want it to appear. If you want it to appear in all categories, leave the checkboxes empty. When you’re finished, press Publish.

As soon as you click Publish, you’ll see the Edit Options button appear. That’s because we created a field with a “Select” field type. So, let’s follow the Edit Options button and add two options: “In-Person” and “Online”.

Congrats! This field will now show up in the listing submission form. Don’t hesitate to follow these steps to create additional custom fields on your attorney scheduling platform, such as “Free Consultation”, “Contact Info”, and so on. 

4. Adding Vendor Profile Fields

Okay, we’ve added the listing fields. Now, let’s focus on the vendor fields since some personal information about each lawyer is also needed to make a decision about booking an appointment with them. For instance, let’s create the “Experience” profile field, which will require lawyers to specify their work experience when registering. The process is similar to what we did with the listing fields.

Go to WP Dashboard > Vendors > Attributes > Add New and write a field’s name. In the Editing section, enable front-end editing, set the field type to “Select”, and mark this field as required. In the Search section, allow users to use this attribute as a search filter by marking it as filterable and sortable and again selecting the “Select” field type. Finally, in the Display section, define how the custom field will appear on pages by assigning it to specific areas and setting its display format. For the “Experience” field, we’ll choose Block (primary) and Page (primary), select an icon, and use the same display format as for the listing fields: %icon% %value%

After the field is published, click the Edit Options button to add options for the experience time, such as “1+ Years,” “5+ Years,” and so on. Don’t forget that you can add as many other fields and search filters as you need, like “Languages Spoken”, “Education”, etc.

5. Extending Functionality

At this point, you can enhance the functionality of your lawyer appointment platform a bit. To do that, visit the HivePress > Extensions page, where you can find more than 15 HivePress extensions that are fully compatible with each other. For a lawyer booking platform, you may want to install:

• Geolocation – enables users to search lawyers based on location;
• Social login – allows users to sign in via third-party platforms;
• Social Links – adds social links to listings and profiles;

6. Setting Up

Next, let’s review some important settings in HivePress > Settings to ensure everything will work just as needed. For instance, in the Listings tab, you can disable new listing submissions if you prefer to be the only person adding listings to your appointment platform (if you’re creating a single-vendor lawyer appointment website). Similarly, you can disable manual listing moderation.

Let’s proceed to the Vendors tab. By default, HivePress requires you to add at least one listing to become a vendor. However, you can enable direct vendor registration here, allowing lawyers to sign up as vendors immediately.

Next up we have the Users tab. Here, we recommend enabling email address verification to ensure all newly registered users aren’t bots.

Moving on, it’s necessary to visit the Bookings tab to set up the booking functionality according to your needs. For example, you can turn on syncing with external calendars or enable time-based booking slots. For detailed instructions, please refer to these docs.

Finally, if you decide to add the Geolocation extension, it’s important to set it up. You can choose between Google Maps and Mapbox as your map provider, but we recommend Mapbox due to its easy setup. Please refer to this doc for detailed instructions.

That’s it! We’ve only shown you the main settings to which you should pay attention, but it’s advisable to go through all the other settings as well.

7. Creating a Homepage

The next step is to create a homepage for your lawyer appointment website. MeetingHive is fully integrated with Gutenberg, allowing you to easily create an attractive layout using blocks. To create a new page, go to WP Dashboard > Pages > Add New. 

Firstly, name the page “Home” and come up with a header text. Then you can start adding HivePress blocks by clicking the plus icon and typing “HivePress” in the search bar. For example, let’s add the “Listing Search Form” and “Listing Categories” blocks. You can also customize these blocks using the settings column on the right. Click Publish to make the page live.

Then, you have to go to the Dashboard > Settings > Reading section and set this page as your homepage by selecting it from the dropdown list. Later, you can also assign the blog page here.

Keep in mind that you can further customize the pages of your site. Feel free to watch this video for some MeetingHive customization tips: 

8. Creating a Lawyer Profile

Now, let’s look at how it all works from a lawyer’s perspective. First, if you’ve enabled direct vendor registration in HivePress > Settings, you will need to add a lawyer registration form to your site. This form includes the required and optional fields we’ve added earlier. Check this doc to learn how to add it. 

When it’s ready, visit your website from the front-end and complete the registration form.

After entering all the details, press Save Changes to finish the registration process. Let’s now visit the lawyer’s profile to see what it looks like. Note that all the custom fields are working and displaying as we intended. Also, you can see that there are no listings at the moment, but we’ll change this in the next step.

9. Listing a Service

Finally, let’s add the first legal service listing to your website. As an admin, you can add new listings via the WP dashboard or through the front-end submission form. Let’s add a new listing via the front end.

To add a new listing, go to your site’s homepage and click the List a Service button. You’ll be taken to the listing submission page, where you’ll see common fields like title and description, along with the custom fields you added earlier. In addition, some fields, such as booking options, are added by different HivePress add-ons. Also, you can turn on manual booking moderation. Remember, this submission form is fully customizable. 

Simply fill out all the fields, then click the Submit Listing button, and the listing will be submitted for review. An admin can then approve or disapprove it in the WP Dashboard > Listings section. As we mentioned, if you prefer not to manually approve listings, you can disable moderation in the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Listings section.

Once approved, the listing will appear on the front end.

10. Scheduling an Appointment

Since your website’s main purpose is to book appointments with lawyers, let’s test how it works. To do that, visit the listing page and select the desired day and time for an appointment.

After this, click the Request to Book button. You’ll be redirected to the confirmation page, where you can review your booking request and leave additional notes. If everything’s correct, simply click Send Request.

Once it’s done, attorneys will see booking requests in their dashboards. Then, he can either accept, decline or send a message for additional information. Simple as that.

What’s more, lawyers can efficiently manage their availability with the built-in calendar feature. They can block or unblock specific dates and times, giving them precise control over their schedules. 

11. Monetizing an Attorney Appointment Website

Okay, let’s monetize this lawyer appointment booking marketplace. There are two primary monetization methods for service marketplaces. We’ll take a look at the two most common:

• Paid Listings & Featured Listings – you can charge lawyers for adding new listings to your platform, as well as featuring their listings for an additional fee.
• Taking Commissions – another option is to earn revenue by taking a percentage of each transaction made on your platform.

Charging Lawyers for Adding Listings

First, you’ll need to install the free HivePress Paid Listing add-on. Head to the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Extensions section and complete the installation. Additionally, you’ll need WooCommerce to enable payments on your website. Navigate to the WP Dashboard > Plugins > Add New section and install the plugin.

Now, we have to create WooCommerce products that will be used for payments. Let’s add the first product, which will be used to charge lawyers for adding new listings. Go to WooCommerce > Products > Add New, provide a name (for example, “Premium Package), set the price, and mark it as “Virtual”.

After this, click Publish. Now, you need to repeat the same steps to add another product that will be used to charge users for featuring their listings.

Okay, let’s add some listing packages to make it possible to charge lawyers when they add new listings. Go to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Packages section and click Add New. You can create many packages with different restrictions and prices, but for this tutorial, let’s create two of them: Free and Premium. 

We’ll start with a Premium one. Name the package, add a description, and specify the number of listings allowed. Also, you can set the listing expiration period. Then, select the corresponding WooCommerce product created earlier for packages. Finally, click Publish.

In the same way, add a Free package without selecting a WooCommerce product.

Now, let’s check how it works by going to our website and clicking the List a Service button. After clicking the Submit Listing button, you’ll be redirected to the package selection page and if you select the Premium package, you’ll be taken to the checkout page. 

That’s how you can charge lawyers for adding new listings. Now, let’s go to the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Listings section and select our second WooCommerce product that will be used for the featured status in the corresponding field. Also, you can set the featuring period here.

After saving changes, you can check how it works. Go to your website, visit the user dashboard, and click on the star icon near any listing to make it featured. Again, you’ll be redirected to the checkout page.

Taking Commissions

Now, we’ll quickly guide you through setting up commissions for each successful booking on your website. To begin, install the HivePress Marketplace add-on, which is included with your MeetingHive theme. You can download it from your purchase email and install it in the WP Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin section.

Once activated, go to HivePress > Settings > Vendors. Here, you can set two types of commissions:

• Commission Rate – a percentage that will be deducted from each successful transaction, like 5%;
• Commission Fee – a flat fee that will be charged for each booking, like 10$.

You can use either type or both at the same time. Additionally, you can apply these commissions to customers, too. To do this, visit the Users tab in HivePress > Settings.

Once you set up commissions, you’ll be able to take a cut from each successful transaction on your website. To learn more on how to set up commissions on your website, please check this doc.

Wrapping Up

And that’s it! We hope this tutorial was useful to you and now you know how to launch a lawyer appointment website with WordPress. If you’re still on the fence about what theme to choose, you may consider using MeetingHive. It offers a comprehensive solution that is ready to use out of the box.

Additionally, you may want to check our articles on:

• How to create an appointment booking website with WordPress
• How to launch a tutoring website with WordPress

In this article, we’ll show you how to create an appointment booking website with WordPress without any coding skills. We’ll walk you through the whole process, from selecting the right plugins to monetizing your website.

Please note that this article will be useful for people who want to create an appointment booking website for their own business and for those who want to start their own multi-vendor marketplace.

Without any further ado, let’s get started!

A Few Words About Appointment Scheduling Platforms

An appointment booking website is a platform where customers can schedule appointments with different specialists like tutors, barbers, doctors, and so on. There are two types of such websites:

• A single-vendor website – it can be an appointment booking website for a local barbershop, where you can select a specialist and choose an available hour;
• Marketplace – in this case, many different specialists within one niche list their services on this website, and users can choose a professional they like and book an appointment with.

Such platforms allow clients to schedule, reschedule, or cancel appointments with businesses online by providing an interface for users to view available time slots and services in real time. A great example is a marketplace of doctors – Zocdoc. It allows you to find a doctor you need and book an appointment or get an online consultation.

Prerequisites for Launching an Appointment Platform

Now, let’s talk about some prerequisites you need to have to create an appointment booking website with WordPress.

• Domain name – you should come up with a catchy and easy-to-remember domain name;
• Hosting plan – a reliable hosting provider is a must for your new website. You can check our list of the most popular WordPress hosting providers;
• WordPress installation – most hosting providers offer a 1-click WP installation, so feel free to use this feature;
• WordPress theme – select a suitable theme that matches your brand and style (check out our article on the best appointment booking WordPress themes);
• WordPress plugin – choose a directory plugin that has all the necessary features.

We recommend using MeetingHive, a clean and lightweight appointment booking WordPress theme, and HivePress, a multi-purpose WordPress plugin that will power all the booking and marketplace features. 

So, let’s move to the tutorial part of this article and create an appointment booking website with WordPress!

Steps to Create an Appointment Booking Website with WordPress

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll use the MeetingHive theme and the HivePress plugin since they are already packed with all the required features out of the box.

1. Installing MeetingHive

The first step is installing a WordPress theme. To do that, go to the WP Dashboard > Appearance > Themes section and click the Upload Theme button. Next, choose the MeetingHive ZIP file and upload it. Finally, install and activate the theme.

Once you install MeetingHive, you’ll be prompted to install recommended plugins, including HivePress. Since they power all the features on your website, it’s necessary to install and activate all of them. Simply click on the recommended plugin’s link and proceed with the installation. 

You can check the video below, which shows how to install MeetingHive and the necessary plugins.

Also, if you want to keep things simple, you may proceed with importing MeetingHive demo content. In that case, you’ll get pre-made content that you can customize to better understand how everything works. Check the screencast below if you want to import demo content.

2. Adding Listing Categories

The next step is to add different listing categories to your appointment booking platform to make it more structured and easier for users to navigate. 

To add a new listing category, go to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Categories section. Here, you’ll be able to name your category (e.g., let’s add a “Tutoring” category), describe it, add a category icon and even create a hierarchy of categories.

For the sake of this tutorial, let’s add “Tutoring”, “Mentoring”, “Consulting” and “Coaching” listing categories. Keep in mind that you can add as many categories as you need for your appointment booking website by following these steps.

Once you finish setting up your category, click on the Add Category button.

3. Adding Custom Listing Fields

Now, we’d like to show you how to create custom listing fields. By default, any listing has only title and description fields, but with MeetingHive, you can add your own fields and search filters. It allows you to customize the website to your needs and requirements since each site is unique and different details may be required.

To create a new listing attribute, go to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Attributes section and click Add New. On this page, you’ll be able to customize your listing field in three different contexts: editing, searching and displaying. We’ll discuss each of these contexts below.

For example, let’s add a “Format” custom field so service providers can indicate whether they offer their service one-on-one or in groups. 

Editing

In the first section, you can mark your field as editable to allow front-end editing (i.e., to allow vendors to fill it up when they list a new service). Then, choose whether it should be a mandatory field and set the moderation preferences. Finally, select the field type, in the case at hand, we’ll use the “Select” field type.

Search

Here, you can turn your field into a search filter so users can filter different listings based on the attribute’s value. We’ll mark this attribute as filterable and searchable so it appears in the listing filter form. Also, we’ll set the “Select” field type here.

Display

Within this section, you can define how your field will look on the front end. You can set its template areas and display format as well as choose a specific icon for it. To get a better understanding of how to set up attributes, check this doc.

By the way, note that you can make any field “category-specific” by selecting listing categories where it should be applied. Once you finish customizing everything, click on the Publish button.

Since we added an attribute with a “Select” field type, we need to set some options to choose from. That’s why you have to click on the Edit Options button and add different options (we’ll add “One-on-One” and “Group”).

That’s it! This field will now appear in the listing submission form. By following the same steps, you can create many other custom fields, like “Hourly Rate,” “Setting,” etc. There are no limits, so feel free to add as many as required for your appointment booking website.

4. Adding a Service Listing

At this point, let’s add a first service listing to your website. As a website admin, you can add new listings via the WP dashboard or via the front-end listing submission form. Let’s add a new listing via the front end to get a better understanding of how it works for regular users.

To add a new listing, go to your website’s front page and click on the List a Service button. You’ll be redirected to the listing submission page.

Here, you’ll see some common fields like title and description and many custom fields that you added in previous steps (e.g., on the screenshot, you can see a “Format” field that we added previously). Also, some fields, like booking fields, will be added by different HivePress add-ons. 

Please note that this submission form is fully customizable, so you can add, change or remove different fields according to your website niche.

To add a listing, simply fill out all the fields and click on the Submit Listing button. Now the listing is submitted for review, and an admin can approve or disapprove it in the WP Dashboard > Listings section. But if you don’t want to accept new listings manually, you can simply disable moderation in the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Listings section.

Once the listing is approved, it will appear on the front end.

5. Creating a Homepage

The next step is to add a homepage for your appointment booking website. Since MeetingHive is fully integrated with Gutenberg, you’ll be able to create a stunning layout using blocks. 

To add a new page, go to the WP Dashboard > Pages > Add New section. Here, you’ll be able to add different layout blocks by clicking on the “➕” icon. For example, you can add a “Search Form” block so users can search listings from the front page or add a “Category” block to display all the listing categories.

To make it easier, you can simply type “HivePress” in the block search form, and it will show you all the HivePress-specific blocks that you can add. 

Once you finish customizing your page, you can simply click on the Publish button. Then, you have to go to the WP Dashboard > Settings > Reading section and set your newly created page as a homepage.

That’s it! Now, you can check out how it looks on the front end.

Additionally, we recommend checking all the customization options in the WP Dashboard > Appearance > Customize section to set up your website look and feel in the way you like.

6. Extending Functionality 

Now, we’d like to show you how to enhance your appointment booking website with additional features. There are 15+ add-ons that you can use with MeetingHive to extend the core functionality. Simply navigate to WP Dashboard > HivePress > Extensions section to check the whole list of available add-ons.

For example, you can install the Social Login add-on to allow website visitors to register on your website via third-party websites like Google or Facebook. Also, you may want to install the Geolocation extension to enable the location-based search on your scheduling platform. It may be helpful in many niches that offer services offline and have a brick-and-mortar place (e.g., spa salons, barbershops, etc.).

To install any add-on, please check this doc. 

7. Monetizing a Scheduling Platform 

Finally, let’s talk about monetization of your service marketplace. With MeetingHive, you can monetize your website in a few different ways and below will show you two of them, namely:

• Paid listings & Featured listings – charging users for adding new listings and making them featured for an additional fee;
• Commissions – taking a cut from each transaction that appears on your platform.

So, let’s start with the “Paid listings” model.

Charging Users for Adding Listings

The starting point is to install the free HivePress Paid Listing add-on. To do that, go to the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Extensions section and proceed with the installation. Also, it’s necessary to install WooCommerce to enable payments on your website, so go to the WP Dashboard > Plugins > Add New section and install the plugin.

Once you have everything in place, you need to create WooCommerce products that will be used for payments. Simply go to the WooCommerce > Products > Add New section and fill in all the fields marked in the screenshot below.

After filling out all the details, click on the Publish button. We added the first product, which will be used to charge users for making their listings featured. Now, you have to add one more product by following the same steps, which will be used to charge users for adding new listings (e.g., name it “Premium package”). 

Next, go to the WP Dashboard> HivePress > Settings > Listings section and select your newly-created product in the corresponding field, as shown in the screenshot below.

After saving changes, you can check how everything works. Go to your website and proceed to the user dashboard, then pick any listing and click on the star icon to make it featured. You’ll be redirected to the checkout page where you have to fill in all the necessary details and make a payment. The listing status will be changed automatically once the payment is made.

Alright, now let’s add a few listing packages so you can charge website visitors when they add new listings. To do that, go to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Packages section and click Add New.

You make many different packages with various restrictions and prices. Just for the sake of this tutorial, we’ll create two types:

• Premium 
• Free

Let’s start with a premium one. You have to name it, then add a description of your package and set how many listings are allowed to be added with this package (e.g., 10 listings). Then you have to select a WooCommerce product that you added before, specially for packages. Finally, click on the Publish button.

Similarly, add a free package but without selecting any WooCommerce product.

Now, you can check how it works by visiting your website and clicking the List a Service button. Once you fill in the listing submission form and click the Submit Listing button, you’ll have to choose one of the packages.

That’s it! Users who select a premium package will be redirected to the checkout page, and their listing will be published only after making the payment.

Taking Commissions

In this section, we’ll show you how to take commissions from each successful booking on your website. For example, if you have a marketplace for tutors, you can take a 10% commission from each lesson’s price that was booked via your platform.

To enable this business model, you have to install the HivePress Marketplace add-on. It was sent to you with your MeetingHive theme, so you don’t have to purchase it separately. You can simply download it from your purchase email and install it in the WP Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin section.

Once the extension is installed and activated, navigate to the HivePress > Settings > Vendors section. Here, you can set two different types of commissions:

• Commission Rate – this one allows you to set a percentage that will be deducted from each successful transaction (e.g., 10%);
• Commission Fee – here, you can set a flat fee that will be charged for each booking (e.g., $3).

You can choose any type or use both of them at once. Also, you can set the same commissions for customers. Meaning that the commission will taken from the customer side. To do that, simply go to the HivePress > Settings > Users tab, and you’ll see the same settings for vendors.

That’s it! Now, you can take a commission from each transaction that is made on your appointment booking platform.

Final Words

That wraps up our article on how to create an appointment booking website with WordPress. We hope that was helpful to you and now you have a better idea of how to start your own scheduling platform.

If you haven’t chosen the theme yet, you can check a MeetingHive overview article to get a better idea of its features. It’s a fully-featured appointment booking WordPress theme that comes with everything you need to start your website. Just plug and play.

Additionally, you may want to check our articles on:

• How to create an Airbnb-like website with WordPress
• How to create a Fiverr-like platform with WordPress
• How to create an appointment booking website for beauty services with WordPress
• How to create a coach appointment booking website

In this walkthrough, we’ll explain how to create a WordPress directory website, set it up and successfully monetize it. However, before we move to the tutorial part of this article, we’d like to explain in detail what exactly a directory website is, how it works, what types of directory listing websites are there and so on.

To be more precise, we’ll cover the following topics:

What is a Directory Website?

Simply put, a directory website is a searchable catalog of different items like companies, events, real estate properties, classified ads, and so on. The main purpose of such websites is to help people find services, properties, places, etc., that they are looking for.

For example, Tripadvisor, Yelp, and Foursquare are some of the most popular directory websites you might have heard of. However, there are millions of other niche or local business directories around the internet. Such websites are extremely popular since they allow you easily find a restaurant in your area, check out upcoming concerts or simply contact a plumber if you have a leaky faucet.

What Niches of Directory Websites Are There?

When building a directory website, you are not limited to one or two types. Instead, there’s a variety of different niches, and you can choose any of them. For example, you can launch one of the following websites:

• Business Directory Website. You can list specialists or businesses from different industries, like lawyers, doctors, plumbers, car repair shops and more. Also, you can easily create different industry-specific categories or group all listings depending on location or use any other criteria;
• Restaurant Directory. Create a list of different restaurants in your area or even in the whole region or country. Group restaurants by type of cuisine, price, location and allow users to submit reviews and rate them;
• Real Estate Directory. This type of directory is just for you if you run a real estate business or simply want to start a website where people can list their properties for rent or sale;
• Event Directory. If you know everything about upcoming events in your town, you can launch your own website and share this information with others, as well as sell tickets and make money on commissions;
• Coupon Website. It’s another great niche for a directory website. You can list coupons and best deals on your website and earn money from affiliate partnerships;
• Product Catalog Website. Also, you can create a product catalog website for your business to showcase your products and attract new customers.

To get a better idea of the available directory types, feel free to check our post on WordPress directory niches.

Things to Do Before Launching a Directory Listing Website

Before moving to the tutorial part of this article, make sure that you have the following prerequisites:

Before moving to the tutorial part of this article, make sure that you have the following prerequisites:

• Domain Name & Hosting Plan – check our article on reliable hosting providers to get a better understanding of the options available on the market;
• WordPress Installation;
• Directory Plugin – you can check our list of the best free directory plugins and our tutorial on how to choose a directory plugin;
• WordPress Theme – to choose a directory theme, feel free to read our article on the best free directory themes.

We recommend using the HivePress directory plugin. It’s already packed with all the necessary features for building a directory website and is trusted by 10,000++ website owners worldwide. Also, combine it with ListingHive, the most popular free WordPress theme in the WordPress.org repository.

Okay, now we can move on and try to create a directory website with WordPress.

Building a Directory Website with WordPress

In the next 7 steps, we’ll show you how to create a directory website using WordPress and the ListingHive theme along with the HivePress plugin.

1. Installing ListingHive

Since ListingHive is a free theme, it’s available in the WordPress repository, and you can install it directly from your WP Dashboard by going to the Appearance > Themes > Add New section. Then, use the search box to find it and proceed by installing and activating the theme.

Please check out the screencast below if you are having trouble installing ListingHive.

After the ListingHive installation, you’ll get a suggestion to install HivePress. It’s crucial to install and activate it since HivePress will power most of the directory features on your website. So simply click on the recommended link and install HivePress.

2. Installing Extensions

While HivePress offers the core functionality for building a directory website, you may want to install some extensions depending on the type of directory website you wish to build.

There are 15+ HivePress extensions that are fully optimized to work hand in hand with the ListingHive theme, so you can install any of them by going to the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Extensions section.

If you want to create a sought-after directory website, you should take care of the user experience and find ways to make it better by providing all the possible features. For example, you may consider installing the following add-ons:

• Geolocation – It enables the location-based search of listings.
• Social Login – This extension allows users to sign in via third-party services.
• Reviews – This one enables reviews and ratings on your directory website.

There are many other different extensions that can help your directory website stand out from the crowd. Just keep in mind that there’s always room for improvement, and there are many opportunities to deliver a better experience to your website visitors.

3. Adding Listing Categories

The next step is to split your WordPress directory website into different listing categories to make your site easier to navigate. Since ListingHive goes without any predetermined categories, you can create custom ones in the WP Dashboard > Listings > Categories section.

First of all, name your category and describe it if necessary. Then there’s an option to upload the category image. Also, you can build a hierarchy of categories by setting a parent category. It may be helpful if you want to have subcategories and make your directory more specific.

4. Adding Custom Fields

Once you are done with categories, you can go ahead and create custom listing fields. Thanks to the HivePress plugin, you can create custom listing fields and search filters for various uses. Simply navigate to the WP Dashboard > Listings > Attributes > Add New section to create your first custom field.

Keep in mind that each custom field can be customized in several different contexts, so let’s briefly cover each of them on the example of a “Price” custom field:

• Editing – In this section, you can define whether your field can be edited via the front-end by marking it as editable (i.e., allow users to fill it in when adding new listings on your website). Also, here you can select the field type, like “Text”, “URL”, “Checkbox”, and so on. For example, for the “Price” field, we recommend marking it as editable and using the “Number” field type. 
• Search – Within this section, you can turn your field into a search filter. For the “Price” field, you can mark it as filterable and sortable to allow website visitors to filter and sort listings depending on the price. Also, we’ll use the “Number Range” search field type to allow filtering results by price range instead of some specific value.
• Display – In the last section, you can set up how your custom field will appear on listing pages. Meaning that you can select page template areas where it will appear, choose an icon and set its display format. For the “Price” field, we’ll use this display format $%value%.

Once you set up your custom field, simply click on the Publish button.

5. Setting up a Front-page

Now you can create a front page for your WordPress directory website. Since the ListingHive theme is compatible with the Gutenberg page builder, creating a stunning layout won’t be an issue because you can use blocks. To create a new page, go to the WP Dashboard > Pages > Add New section.

Firstly, enter the page title, e.g., “Homepage”. Then you can start adding layout blocks by clicking on the ➕ sign and selecting a block you want to add. For example, you can add the Listing Search form, Categories block, Recent Listings block and so on.

Once you are done with layout blocks, click on the Publish button.

If you want to use this page as a homepage of your directory website, navigate to the WP Dashboard > Settings > Reading section and select your newly created page from the drop-down list.

6. Setting Things Up

At this point, we recommend going through all the HivePress settings in the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Settings section to ensure your site works in the way you want.

Also, navigate to the WP Dashboard > Appearance > Customize section and go through the appearance settings, such as primary and secondary colors, heading and body fonts, logo, and background images, etc., to customize the look and feel of your site. If you want to create a directory website that drives traffic, then the nice appearance of your website is a must.

7. Adding Listings

Congrats, you’ve reached the last step of our tutorial. Finally, we’d like to show you the whole workflow of adding new listings to your WordPress directory. With ListingHive, you can do this both via the front-end as a user and via the back-end as an admin, so we’ll briefly cover both ways:

Front-end Listing Submission

To add a new listing, users have to navigate to your website, click on the Add Listing button and select one of the categories. After that, they’ll be taken to the listing submission form, where they need to fill out all the details like title, description, add images, etc.

Keep in mind that as a website owner, you can customize the listing submission form by adding or removing any fields. For example, if you added the “Price” field in the 4th step of this guide, it will appear in the listing submission form, and users will have to fill it out.

Once a user clicks on the Submit Listing button, the site admin has to approve it in the WP Dashboard > Listings section and only after that, a new listing will appear on your directory website.

Back-end Listing Submission

If you don’t want to allow users to submit listings, you can disable the Listing Submission feature in the WP Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Listings section. Then, only website admins will be able to add new listings in the WP Dashboard > Listings > Add New section.

Monetizing a Directory Website

This section is optional since not everyone uses their site to make money. However, if you want to turn your directory website into a profitable business, this chapter may be useful for you.

In the beginning, we mentioned different monetization models for directory websites, but now we’d like to briefly explain how those models can be applied to HivePress-powered directories:

• Selling Placements & Promoting Listings – With the Paid Listings extension, you can create several listing packages and sell them at different prices (e.g., “Standard” and “Premium”). Also, this extension allows you to mark certain listings as featured, and they will appear at the top of the search results page, so you can offer this service for an extra fee.
• Claiming Listings – Using the Claim Listings extension, you’ll be able to charge business owners for claiming listings.
• Membership Fees – If you want to create a members-only directory, then you can use the Memberships extension that allows you to charge users for viewing listings. Also, you’ll be able to restrict access to the whole categories, single listings, specific details, etc., so only members can view them.

So, once your directory website starts getting some decent traffic, you can start monetizing it, using any of the mentioned models or several at once.

Now you might be thinking, how to get traffic to my new website? We prepared some advice on that matter, so let’s move on to the next section.

How to Promote Your Directory Listing Website?

In order to bring traffic to your website and entice new visitors, you have to promote it in a proper way. Keep in mind that you have to attract two types of users: those looking for listings and those looking to list something. That’s why you should think about what works for both audiences when creating your marketing plan. Here are some common tips on promoting your WordPress directory website:

Launch a Blog

You can’t go wrong if you launch a blog on your directory website and start delivering great content to your website visitors. You can write tutorials, overviews, lists, interviews, and so on. It all depends on the niche and the audience that you want to attract.

If you lack ideas for your blog, check out what people are searching for, what questions they ask, what problems they face in your industry. For example, you can use the Google Keyword Planner to get a better understanding of the most popular searches in your niche.

Also, you can try using Soovle, which is an absolutely incredible tool. It unites the autocomplete suggestions from all the major providers like Google, YouTube and Yahoo in one place. Just type a word from your niche, and it will show you dozens of suggestions (some of them can be great topics for your future posts).

Additionally, there’s an excellent tool called AnswerThePublic that shows you the most popular questions with provided words or a phrase. For example, if you type “restaurant”, it’ll show 80+ questions that people ask about restaurants, and you can answer those questions in your blog posts.

Run a Google Ads Campaign

One more way of attracting website visitors to your directory is by running an advertisement campaign. If you are not selling anything yet, you can run promotional campaigns to get lots of traffic. If you have a budget to run ads, it may be a highly effective way to promote your newly-created website.

Start a YouTube Channel

It’s often an undervalued way of attracting new customers that may be effective for many niches. You can start making short videos about your products or some kind of overviews, etc. If your channel brings value to users, you can rest assured that sooner or later, it will drive some decent traffic to your directory website.

There are many other ways of promoting your website, like partnerships, affiliates, Facebook ads. However, you can start with the above-mentioned ones and complement them later with new ideas.

Take Your WordPress Directory to the Next Level

Finally, after you create a directory website, you should take care of the user experience. You can find dozens of ideas for improving UX on your website, but we’ll give you two recommendations to start with:

• Make sure that your website loading speed is high. It’s one of the crucial ranking factors, so your directory should be optimized. If you have some loading issues, you can check our tutorial on how to speed up a WordPress website without any coding knowledge.
• Remember about existing customers. Many website owners are so focused on attracting new visitors that they often forget about existing ones. Try adding some features that help users, like search alerts, notifications, mailing lists with useful topics, etc. All those minor things can increase user engagement on your website and keep loyal customers.

Final Words

That’s it! It often seems impossible until it’s done, isn’t it? We hope it was a helpful article, and some of the tips outlined above will help get your site up and running.

Bear in mind that you can easily create a directory website with WordPress, using the ListingHive theme and the HivePress plugin. They are both free, easy-to-use, and allow you to build directory websites for any niche.

You can take a look at the ListingHive demo to decide whether it’s suitable for your next directory website. Also, feel free to check a detailed ListingHive overview to get a better idea of the available features.

Let’s get started!

What is a Salon Directory?

Simply put, a salon directory is a digital platform that lists various salons in a particular area, be it beauty salons, spas, barbershops, or wellness centers. It includes essential information about businesses, giving users the opportunity to read reviews, view photos, and check other details before deciding to make a visit. An excellent example of a salon directory website is StyleSeat.

Prerequisites for Starting a Salon Directory

Before jumping into the tutorial part, we’d like to highlight the essential elements you need to begin creating your site:

• Domain name – choose a distinctive domain name that’s easy to remember.
• Hosting plan – feel free to check our overview of the best WordPress hosting providers to make an informed decision.
• WordPress installation – a significant part of hosting providers offer a one-click WordPress installation.
• WordPress directory plugin – you’ll need a WordPress directory plugin that will be able to handle the required website’s features.
• WordPress directory theme – lastly, an appealing directory theme is needed to make your website look professional.

In this guide, we’ll be using ListingHive, a free and clean WordPress directory theme, on top of HivePress, a powerful multipurpose directory plugin.

Steps to Create a Salon Directory

Okay, let’s start by installing the ListingHive theme and the HivePress plugin.

Installing ListingHive & HivePress

Visit the Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme page, and type “ListingHive” in the search box. Then, install and activate it.

Once ListingHive is successfully installed and activated, you’ll get a message suggesting that you install HivePress, a plugin that will enhance the theme’s potential and let you take full advantage of the site’s features. Just follow the link to install and activate it.

Extending Functionality

Good, we’ve laid all the basics. Now, we can add some additional features to enhance the functionality of this WordPress salon directory. To do that, we’ll visit the HivePress > Extensions page to install some useful add-ons. There are more than 15 HivePress extensions that are fully compatible with each other, but for a salon directory, we’ll focus on these as an example:

• Geolocation – allows users to search salons based on their location;
• Messages – users will be able to send private messages;
• Favorites – allows users to add listings to favorites;
• Reviews – enables users to rate and review listings;
• Opening Hours – adds opening hours to listings.

To install an extension, simply click the Install button. After this, you need to activate it.

Please note that you can also install the HivePress Bookings extension if you want to allow users to book appointments and turn your website into an appointment booking platform.

Setting Everything Up

After you install any extensions, it’s advisable to go through the settings in the HivePress > Settings tab because the number of settings increases as new extensions are added. Also, there are some basic settings that we’d like to show you. Let’s start with the Listings tab and its listing submission option. If you want to be the only person who adds salon listings to your website, keep this option checked. But if you aim to create a multivendor directory where anyone can add salon listings, you should uncheck this option. Furthermore, if you’d like to approve any new submission manually, you should also check the moderation option. 

Once you reviewed all settings in the Listings tab, proceed to the Users tab. Here, you can enable email address verification to ensure all newly registered users aren’t bots.

These are the basic settings. Now, if you installed the Geolocation extension before this step, you must also set it up. In the Geolocation tab, you can choose between Google Maps and Mapbox as your map provider, but we recommend using Mapbox since it’s easier to set up. Check this document for further instructions.

We showed you only a few sections, but we recommend going through all the available settings to make sure that everything is set up correctly and according to your requirements.
To get a quick overview of all the sections, feel free to check this video.

Adding Salon Categories

Good, all tools are present, and settings are configured. Now, we need to take the first steps towards making the directory user-friendly. Thus, let’s divide the directory into categories to make it easier to browse salon listings. To do this, go to Listings > Categories, where you can name your first category, enter a description, and upload a category image. You can also create a hierarchy by selecting a parent category, if necessary. To finish, click Add Category.

In the same way, you can add as many listing categories and subcategories as required for your WordPress salon directory website.

Adding Custom Listing Fields

The next step is to add listing fields so users can gain important information about salons. HivePress is a customizable plugin, so you can easily create as many different custom fields and search filters as you need. For example, let’s create a “Contact Number” field that will display the phone numbers of salon managers. Go to Listings > Attributes and click Add New. After writing the field’s name, proceed to the Editing section, where you can define whether your field can be edited via the front-end by marking it as editable. Also, we’ll select the “Phone” field type and make this field required.

In the Search section, you can turn your field into a search filter by marking it as filterable and searchable, but it’s not needed for the phone number. However, it would make sense for a field like “Price”. Finally, in the Display section, you can define how your custom field will be displayed on the listing pages. For example, let’s assign it to Block (primary) and Page (primary), select a suitable icon, and use this display format: %icon% %label%: $%value%

When everything’s ready, click on the Publish button. As we mentioned before, there are no limits, so you can add as many listing fields as you want.

Creating a Homepage

An attractive homepage is an essential part of your website’s success story. Thanks to HivePress’s seamless integration with the WordPress block editor, creating and editing pages is very simple. To begin creating our homepage, let’s go to Pages > Add New Page and name it “Home”. Then, come up with some welcome text. After this, you can begin adding different HivePress blocks by pressing on the Plus icon and typing “HivePress” in the search bar. For example, let’s add “Listing Search Form” and “Listing Categories” below. By the way, you can customize blocks in the settings column to the right.

Press Publish to make this page go live.

When finished, head to Dashboard > Settings > Reading, where you need to select this page as the website’s homepage.

Also, note that the pages of your site can be further customized. Check out this video on how to set up the look and feel of your website.

Listing a Salon

Now, let’s check what we’ve achieved so far and try to add the very first salon listing. An admin can do it either from the back-end in Listings > Add New or via the front-end if you decide to make your directory multivendor. Visit your site from the WordPress Dashboard and click Add Listing. Here, provide salon details and fill in all the fields that were previously created.

Also, if you have the previously mentioned Opening Hours and Bookings extensions installed, you’ll see the corresponding fields as well.

When everything’s ready, hit Submit Listing. If the manual moderation is enabled, approve this listing in Dashboard > Listings. Finally, the listing will be visible on the site.

Congrats! If you correctly followed the steps, you should see your listing. But we have one more important thing to mention.

Monetizatizing a Salon Directory

As a website owner, it’s apparent that you would like to generate revenue after all. So, we’d like to show you a couple of monetization options available in HivePress that you can easily incorporate into your salon directory.

Claiming Listings

If you’re the only person adding listings to the directory, the best monetization model would be listing claiming. In this scenario, you can charge salon owners for claiming their salon’s listings, giving them access to edit them and respond to user reviews and messages. This way, you will earn money while relevant information is consistently displayed on your platform. In order to set up this monetization model, you’ll need to install the HivePress Claim Listings extension and WooCommerce plugin.

Once you install both plugins, go to WooCommerce > Products > Add New, name it “Claim”, mark it as virtual, set a desired price, and click Publish.

Then, navigate to HivePress > Settings > Claims, where you need to select this WooCommerce product from the dropdown list. Don’t forget to save the changes.

After this, users will be able to press the Claim Listing button on the listing page and purchase the owner’s rights. Simple as that.

Charging Listing Fees

The next monetization option is eligible if you’re building a multivendor salon directory – if you allow front-end listing submission, you can charge users for adding listings and making them featured. To achieve this, you need to install the Paid Listings extension, which will allow you to create different listing packages. The process is similar to the previous model: create a WooCommerce product (or several) that will correspond to the premium package. Then, in the HivePress > Listings > Packages, create free and premium packages. The premium one must be linked to the WooCommerce product.

Publish them. Now, you can go ahead and test how they work by visiting the site and submitting a listing. From now on, when the user wants to add a listing, they will see a screen asking what package they would like to choose after pressing Submit Listing.

Additionally, as we said, you can charge users for promoting their salons. Featured listings appear at the top of search results, gaining more traction. This monetization trick is as old as the hills, but it always works.

Final Words

That’s it! We hope that now you can create a WordPress salon directory that serves as a valuable resource for people seeking professional beauty services and helps grow businesses in this industry.

If you’re still unsure about your WordPress toolkit, consider HivePress and ListingHive. This powerful duo can provide you with an excellent foundation for your project, offering ease of use and a wide range of features to create a thriving salon directory.