Implement a General Booking Form for MyListing Websites Using Book Like A Boss

While this solution could be used for Single Listings, similar to what I’ve outlined in other booking guides, this guide focuses on the website owner (or website team).

BLAB Sign Up

BLAB offers a 14-day FREE trial with no required credit card, so let’s start setting that up.

1. Visit the BLAB website.
2. Click ‘Start Free’.
3. Depending on your situation, choose either ‘Solopreneur’ or ‘Company.’ (Note: We will select the Solopreneur route for this guide.)
4. Click on the ‘BOOKME.NAME/YOUR URL’ box and enter your desired name to complete your booking URL.
5. Fill out the rest of the form and click ‘Create My Account.’

Note: Those familiar with Book Like A Boss often refer to it as ‘BLAB,’ for short, and I’ll use that abbreviation throughout this guide to keep it simple.

Account Settings

This is a critical section that should be addressed before any others due to the GDPR option. Aside from the GDPR settings, other excellent options include setting up a custom Page URL, using a Custom Domain, and more.

GDPR Compliance

If there is any chance that you must comply with GDPR, one of the first things you should do is turn on GDPR compliance options for your orders page.

1. Visit the BLAB dashboard.
2. Click on your username and select ‘Account Settings’.
3. Under the GDPR section, toggle on ‘GDPR Compliance.’

Booking Schedule

This is the area where you will set your Global Booking Availability. However, you can override these global settings at the individual Product/Service level.

1. Booking Schedule > Click ‘Add’ under each day to set your availability.
2. Repeat the previous step to set your availability for each day.

Customize Your Booking Page

1. Click on the ‘View Your Page’ link in the sidebar. (Note: This opens your page as it sits by default, in a new tab, allowing you to follow along with how it looks as you build it out.).
2. Page Settings > Profile Details: Fill out your profile, disclosing as much information as possible.
3. Page Settings > Profile Photos: Add a custom banner and photo/logo using the provided image dimensions guidelines.
4. Page Settings > Skins: Choose your desired skin. (Note: The ‘Modern Light’ skin was chosen for this guide.).
5. Page Settings > Texts, Colors, Fonts: Choose your desired settings that match your brand, personality, or combination. (Note: I recommend not going through and trying to change everything in one shot but adjusting as you go along because there are some things you may not use when building your booking page.)
6. Page Settings > Testimonials: Testimonials are a great way to promote yourself and your services, so I recommend adding some to your booking page, just in case someone stumbles upon your booking page by accident or if someone is referred to you but doesn’t quite know you all that well. (Note: These will be the Global Testimonials that are useful for more general Testimonials, but you also can add Testimonials at the ‘Booking Type’ level, which is a nice feature for getting more specific.).
7. Page Settings > FAQs: I recommend adding FAQs and being as thorough as possible to save yourself time answering questions repeatedly and help prevent any misunderstandings. (Note: These will be the Global FAQs, which are helpful for more general FAQs, but you can also add FAQs at the ‘Booking Type’ level, which is a nice feature for getting more specific.)
8. Page Settings > Gallery: I recommend adding images, especially if your brand or services can be further highlighted with a visual representation, as would be the case with photographers, graphic designers, web designers, etc.
9. Page Settings > Footer: Configure this to your liking. (Note: I chose to disable the footer by removing the default text, toggling OFF switches, etc.).

Connect Your Calendars

1. Calendar > ‘Manage Calendars’.
2. Click ‘Add Calendar’.
3. Choose your calendar provider and complete all the steps to apply the necessary authentication/permission requirements.

Booking Types

BLAB offers multiple booking types that can be added to your booking pages, such as Appointments, Products & Services, and Events. As you start working through your different booking types, there are some great features to keep in mind:

• You can overwrite your global Page Settings to create unique designs and functionality for each booking type, including photos, videos, text, fonts, testimonials, and FAQs.
• You can overwrite your global Page Settings, allowing you to create custom email messages for each booking type.
• You can add Custom Fields to require customers to agree to your Terms of Service, collect customer information (email, phone number, etc.), upload a file, and more.
• The ability to duplicate your booking types, so you don’t need to start from scratch each time.
• The ability to set reminders and follow-ups.

Appointments

This is where you set up bookings that have no cost associated with them, such as meetings, product demos, etc., and you can create as many appointment options as you need with a drag-and-drop option to put them in the order you want them to be listed.

1. Booking Pages > Appointments.
2. Click ‘Add Appointment’.
3. Configure the Appointment with the desired settings and click ‘Save Changes.’
4. At this point, a ‘Calendar Settings’ popup will appear, and you should select the calendar that applies to this particular booking item.
5. Save your changes.

Products & Services

This is where you set up bookings with a cost associated with them, such as products or services, hence the name of this booking type.

1. Booking Pages > Products & Services.
2. Click ‘Add Package’.
3. Configure a product or service with the desired settings and click ‘Save Changes.’

Events

This is where you set up one-time or recurring events, such as webinars, meet-ups, and other events with a specific date/time.

1. Booking Pages > Events.
2. Click ‘Add Event’.
3. Choose either a One-Time Event or a Recurring Event.
4. At this point, a ‘Calendar Settings’ popup will appear, and you should select the calendar that applies to this particular booking item.
5. Configure the Event with the desired settings and click ‘Save Changes.’

Pages

You can create unlimited pages that a unique URL can reference, which can help create Thank You Pages, Terms and Conditions Pages, Privacy Policies, etc.

Note: While this is a good option for those who don’t have a website, I recommend creating these types of pages on your website if you have one, not just for legal reasons, but because you will have greater control, functionality, etc. That said, this is a feature you may want to keep an eye on as it evolves, and while it may be good to keep your “legal” pages on your website, it might make sense to keep “non-legal” pages within the BLAB ecosystem.

1. Booking Pages > Pages.
2. Click ‘Add Page’.
3. Configure the Page with the desired settings and click ‘Save Changes.’

Integrations

BLAB offers a lot of integrations, and while we might add some instructions for each over time, I’ll walk through one of the integrations so that you know the basic steps of where to go to set them up and whatnot.

Integration options at the time of this writing:

• CallPage
• Dubb
• Facebook Comments
• Facebook Pixel
• Gist
• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager
• Mailchimp
• Meet
• Poptin
• YouTube
• Zapier
• Zoom

Accepting Payment

BLAB allows you to accept payments using Stripe, Square, and PayPal, and for this guide, we will only be setting up Stripe.

Stripe

1. Other Settings > Payment Options.
2. Click ‘Connect To Stripe’.
3. Select an existing Stripe account to connect to or create a new account and then click ‘Connect.’

Coupons

Coupons are an excellent marketing tool. When you use them with BLAB, a section will be added to your booking form so customers can apply a coupon to their order.

1. Other Settings > Coupons.
2. Click ‘Add Coupon’.
3. Fill in the desired settings for your coupon.
4. Click ‘ Save Coupon’.

Embedding Booking Pages

BLAB allows you to embed any of your Booking Types on any website. Configuration options include setting colors, fonts, which appointments and packages should be included in the embed, etc.

Creating The Embed

1. Other Settings > Embeds.
2. Click ‘Add Embed’.
3. Configure your desired settings. (Note: An excellent option here is to match your Booking Page branding to the website where you will be embedding.).
4. Click ‘Save Embed’.

Embed Your Booking Types Using Elementor

1. Create your booking page and edit it with Elementor.
2. Add the HTML widget to the page.
3. Copy your embed link from BLAB, paste it into the HTML widget, and save/update the page.

Social and SEO

Main Booking Page

BLAB Dashboard > Other Settings > Social and SEO

Your Booking Page is visible to search engines by default, but this section makes it easy to disable. The remaining settings in this section relate to Social Sharing (Image, Title, and Description).

Drop your main BLAB Booking Page link into one of your social networks to see how it currently appears, and then work with the settings of this section to fine-tune it as desired.

Other Booking Pages

All other Booking Pages, including your main booking page, are visible to search engines. BLAB has a cool feature where you can choose which booking pages are visible to search engines. Additionally, you can specify a unique image, title, and description for each Booking Page.

Manage

Once you start using this solution, BLAB provides an area where you can easily manage various aspects of your account.

• Orders
• Bookings
• Memberships
• Clients

Wrap Up

We are just scratching the surface of what BLAB can do, and I recommend keeping an eye on the BLAB Roadmap to see what’s on the horizon.

If you want to see an example of BLAB in action, check out my booking page.