Hey everyone!
Today, we have put together a guide for those of you who are in the education industry to help you design your booking pages better. We hope that this guide will be useful to you and do not forget to share this with anyone who you know will benefit from this. So, let us get started!
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Why do you need a good booking page?
When you run a business, it is essential to showcase your business through your scheduling website in the best possible way so that not only you keep your existing customers happy, but help convert some prospective customers into new ones as well. An attractive appointment scheduling experience is in many ways undervalued among small businesses today. This experience even for appointment scheduling pages gives a sense of quality and trustworthiness to the customer in today’s internet-centric world. Therefore, it is imperative that you get your appointment scheduling page designed in the right way so that you can offer a great online experience to your customers which is convenient and attractive simultaneously.
Note: This guide will provide an overview of what you need to know while designing your appointment scheduling page in the education industry. If you need an in depth guide covering every step of the process, we recommend that you go through this
guide before continuing any further.
Why is the education industry different from the others and why do you need to follow certain guidelines while designing the booking page?
The education industry involves a substantial amount of reading and learning. Be it online or offline, you need to portray an image that the customers will be able to do these easily and effectively through your service. Unlike other industries where their online experience may have the job of just informing the customers of their services, you need to take other factors into consideration for the education industry. At the same time, you should not look too outdated either when compared to the competition. As always with every industry, there are some elements in your appointment scheduling page that needs to be designed in a certain way so that you look adapted and up to date with the best in your industry. Of course, it is not mandatory to follow these but it will be better if you do in terms of professionalism, quality and aesthetic appeal.
What do customers expect from your booking page?
The education industry is highly reliant on legibility, so, the visuals and the text on your page should be easy for your customers to read and comprehend. Every element on the page should be easy on the eyes without asking too much effort from them. They should find it easy to understand the layout of the appointment scheduling page by making it simplistic and visually pleasing. Fortunately for you, the first part has already been taken care of by us! As for the second part, we shall guide you on how to make it as pleasing as possible without putting in too much effort. Be it
Marketing, Education,
Fitness or any
other industry for that matter, having an attractive and good-looking appointment scheduling website can only work wonders for your business.
Designing your background image
Before we start with this, try to imagine how your appointment scheduling page should look like at the end. Besides that, check out other websites and pages in this field. If you observe carefully, you will notice that most of them have white as the base color on top of which most of the text is shown. Also, the most dominant color on the pages will be white as well. This is because white is the easiest color to read text on top of as well as the most peaceful and neutral of all colors. This helps us keep the attention of the reader on the text rather than the design, while complimenting it simultaneously (which is what we want on our page). Do note that if you want to go with an image-based background rather than a solid color, try to use an image that has a substantial amount of white dominating the image for the reasons that we have just discussed.
Now that we have established white as one of the primary colors in the color scheme that we are going to use, we need to pick another color that can be used in combination with white. The beauty of a color scheme that uses white is that pretty much any color can be used in combination with it. Since there are so many colors to choose from, how are we going to pick the second color for our scheme? In order to do that, try to answer the following questions in such a way that you come up with a color or two as the answer:
- What is the most dominant color in my company logo?
- If my company logo is in white, what other color is used extensively on my company website?
- What color can I use on my page so that it goes well with the white that I use and is visually calm and pleasing to my eyes?
If you have an answer to these questions, then we would suggest you to go ahead with that color as the second one that can be used on your color scheme. With the combination of these two colors in mind, try to look for a background image that incorporates these very well. This is because when this color scheme is used extensively on all elements of your appointment scheduling page, it portrays a very professional and attractive look to your appointment scheduling page. One exception to this is that if you already have a website that uses a certain color scheme, it may be better to go with that as it will give a much more complete look to the website and the booking page.
Also, you can use images that are owned by your company for its use. If not, you can look for images from websites such as Shutterstock and 123rf for photos that are being sold for this very purpose or you can go look for royalty-free images from other sources as well. Ensure that the image that you pick isn’t too cluttered with subjects so that the text that is supposed to come over it is easily visible on the appointment scheduling page. If you need to customize any image further like adding your company logo to it in addition to the default logo that will be shown on the page, please keep in mind that you may need to use tools such as Canva or advanced tools such as Photoshop for this purpose.
Now that your background image is finalized, let us go over the color customization next.
If you are still mulling over this, check out our recommendations below. Enter the hex values given under every color in the color editor in Zoho Bookings to get that exact color.
Applying the color scheme on other elements
We had mentioned earlier that the color scheme that was used should be used on other elements in the page as well. This is so that we can ensure the background and the elements go well with each other when it comes to visual aesthetics. While applying the same for the text and the button, ensure that you apply the right color that contrasts with the background color underneath it. For example, if the background color on the page over which the text is being populated is white, then the color of the text should be the other one that you have chosen in your color scheme. This is done so that you can ensure the text on your appointment scheduling page is easily visible to your customers without having to make them strain their eyes to read it. Besides this, you should also make that your company logo that is being used on your appointment scheduling page also contrasts well against the background for the same reasons. Once you have done all these, check out your page by clicking on the Go To button on the very end of the customization options to check if everything is as per what you need. Based on this, you can further decide whether you need to change or tweak anything that you have done to the page so that it looks better than before.
Writing the text on your booking page
The text on your appointment scheduling page primarily consists of two lines that you can you use as per your need. While some may use it to display phrases that are used to market their product, others may use it to provide specific instructions that should be considered while booking the appointments. So, your text that should be on the page really comes down to what you need your customers to see when they are booking the appointments with your company. You can also get creative with it if you want! Ensure that the text is simple and easy for your customers to understand so that they are clear about what they need to know before booking their appointments. Also, if you need to display additional text other than these two lines, you will need to add it to the background image by editing that image. In that case, ensure that you do not add the text on the image where the buttons are supposed to overlap so that you can avoid the buttons covering that text on the appointment scheduling page. Keep in mind that the color of that text should match the color that you use on the other text-based elements as well to ensure legibility and uniformity on the page.
The final thing to do
Take a look at the page at the end and see if you have achieved what you wanted to. We would suggest that you keep checking your page after every edit that you make so that you can make necessary changes that are needed as you go on your editing process. Overall, you should ensure that your appointment scheduling page isn’t too cluttered, is visually pleasing and very easily legible to anyone who may come across it. You should also ensure that you have provided all the necessary information that the customer should know about before booking an appointment with your company.