The Complete Guide to Amelia: How to Create an Appointment Booking Website with WordPress

Setting up an online appointment booking system can transform your business. But if you don‘t have any technical skills, where do you start?

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Amelia is a WordPress plugin made specifically for small business owners who want to easily accept bookings on their website. No coding required.

In this comprehensive, 4500+ word guide, you‘ll learn:

  • What is Amelia and who is it best suited for
  • Step-by-step installation and setup
  • Detailed comparisons of free vs paid plans
  • How to customize the booking experience for customers
  • Tips to maximize bookings and revenue
  • And much more to leverage Amelia as an all-in-one booking solution

Whether you‘re a consultant, stylist, tutor, coach or any small business owner, Amelia can help you ditch the back-and-forth emails and start accepting seamless online bookings within minutes.

Let‘s start with the basics…

What is Amelia? An Easy Appointment Booking Plugin for WordPress

Amelia is a WordPress plugin created specifically for accepting appointment bookings on your website.

It provides an out-of-the-box solution to set up a booking system with no coding required.

Key Features and Benefits

With Amelia, you can quickly add the following booking features to your WordPress site:

For Customers

  • Online booking form to select services, dates and times
  • Syncs with Google Calendar or Outlook to automatically add bookings
  • Email and SMS reminders about upcoming appointments
  • Reschedule or cancel bookings from their customer account

For You

  • Dashboard calendar to visualize availability and manage bookings
  • Set services, staff members, locations and business hours
  • Customize booking form with colors and branding
  • Accept payments via Stripe, PayPal or WooCommerce
  • Zoom integration for video calls and virtual consultations
  • Email and SMS notifications when customers book, reschedule or cancel
  • In-depth reporting on booking performance

The key advantage of Amelia vs trying to hack together your own booking system is it just works. The setup is designed to be simple and intuitive for non-technical users.

So if you want to avoid hiring a developer to build a custom booking platform, Amelia is likely the perfect solution.

Below I‘ll walk you through exactly how to set it up.

Step-By-Step Guide: How to Install Amelia

Before installing Amelia, you need an existing WordPress site. If you don‘t have a site yet, refer to this guide on starting a WordPress website first.

There are two versions of Amelia available:

  1. Amelia Lite (free)
  2. Amelia Pro (paid)

The free version works well for simple use cases. But you‘ll likely want to upgrade to paid to access more advanced features.

I‘ll cover the differences in detail later on.

For now, let‘s walk through installing the free Amelia Lite plugin.

Install Amelia Lite in WordPress

To install Amelia Lite:

  1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New
  2. Search for "Amelia Lite"
  3. Click Install, then Activate

And you‘re done!

Amelia Lite is now installed and ready to start using.

Setting Up Amelia Lite: Initial Configuration

With the plugin activated, you‘ll see a new Amelia menu in your WordPress dashboard. This is where you‘ll configure all settings and manage bookings.

Let‘s start with some initial configuration:

1. Set Up Company Details

First, go to Amelia > Settings > Company to add your business details:

  • Company name
  • Contact name
  • Email address
  • Phone number

This information will show up on booking confirmation emails and notifications.

2. Configure Availability

Next, go to Amelia > Settings > Working Hours to set your availability for bookings:

Here you can specify:

  • Days of the week you‘re available for bookings
  • Exact hours per day that customers can book appointments
  • Lunch breaks or other times you‘re unavailable

set business hours in amelia

For example, you may be available for bookings on weekdays from 9 am – 12 pm and 1 pm – 5 pm.

Customers will only be able to select appointment times during the hours you specify here. So it ensures you don‘t get booked outside your available hours.

That covers the basic setup! Next let‘s add services and appointments types that customers can book.

Adding Booking Services in Amelia

The next step is adding the types of appointments customers can book.

For example, a personal trainer may offer 30 minute or 60 minute training sessions. A lawyer could have consultations or document review appointments.

In Amelia, you create Services to represent the booking options you want to provide.

Here‘s how to add them:

  1. Go to Amelia > Services
  2. Click the + Add Service button

In the popup, you‘ll configure details like:

  • Name
  • Description
  • Category
  • Duration
  • Price

Enter whatever types of bookings you want customers to schedule. You can add up to 4 services with the free version.

For example:

services in amelia

Now that your services are set up, it‘s time to add the booking form to your website.

Embedding an Appointment Booking Form in WordPress

To actually accept bookings, you need to embed an appointment booking form on your website.

This will allow visitors to:

  1. Select an available day/time
  2. Choose a service
  3. Enter their details

To embed the form:

  1. Create or edit the page where you want the form to appear

  2. Click on the Amelia Booking button above the editor:

    Amelia booking shortcode

  3. The booking shortcode will be automatically added

  4. Customize any additional text or elements around the form as needed

And… done! Publish or update the page and your booking form will now be live.

Here‘s an example of what it looks like:

Amelia booking form example

Now anyone visiting that page can easily book appointments with just a few clicks.

Let‘s look at what the booking experience is like for your customers vs you as the business owner.

Booking Customer Experience and Workflow

From your customer‘s perspective, here is the seamless Amelia booking workflow:

  1. Select date – customers pick an available day for their appointment

  2. Select time – a list of available times on that date appears. The customer chooses their preferred slot.

  3. Enter details – on the last form, customers fills out their name, email and any other details you require.

  4. Confirmation – after confirming, the customer receives an email and optional SMS confirming their booking. They can also add it directly to their calendar.

Throughout the process Amelia dynamically shows only available slots on your calendar, so it‘s easy for customers to self-serve.

Appointments they schedule are automatically blocked out on your calendar as booked.

Next let‘s look at managing bookings from the business owner perspective.

Managing Bookings in WordPress with Amelia

As the service provider, you have full control and visibility into all bookings from your WordPress dashboard.

Amelia gives you calendar and list views to manage appointments:

Amelia calendar view

From these interfaces you can:

  • View existing bookings
  • Block certain days/times as unavailable
  • Add custom appointments
  • Edit or cancel appointments
  • Add notes for each booking
  • Change the status
  • And more

So Amelia consolidates all your bookings into an easy-to-use system. No more scattered emails and spreadsheets!

Now that you know the basics of using Amelia Lite, let‘s compare the key limitations and benefits of upgrading to the paid versions.

Amelia Lite vs Pro: Key Differences & Features

While Amelia Lite provides core booking functionality, going Pro adds more advanced features and flexibility:

differences between Amelia lite and pro

Here are some of the key differences:

Appointment Scheduling

  • 1 staff member only – Lite only supports you as the service provider. To allow other staff to accept bookings, Pro is required.
  • Limited customization – Pro enables more options to tailor booking rules and logic

Customers & Payments

  • No customer accounts – Only Pro allows customer accounts for self-service management
  • No payments – Pro enables accepting payments with Stripe, PayPal, etc

Notifications & Reminders

  • More options like SMS and personalized reminders require Pro

Analytics & Reporting

  • Basic analytics – Pro unlocks more metrics on booking performance and conversions

And much more differences in terms of features and capability.

As you can see Lite covers the basics to validate demand. But to scale your booking operations long-term, Amelia Pro is worth the small investment.

Amelia Pricing

Here is a breakdown of current Amelia pricing (in USD $):

  • Amelia Lite – Free on WordPress.org
  • Amelia Solo
    • $79 per year
    • 1 staff member
    • For solopreneurs
  • Amelia Pro
    • $119 per year
    • Unlimited staff
    • Up to 3 sites
  • Amelia Developer
    • $249 per year
    • Unlimited staff
    • Unlimited sites
    • Aimed at developers / agencies / large teams

And for the best deal, 1 or 3 year prepaid plans are available for roughly ~20% savings compared to monthly payments.

Consider starting with the free version to validate there is demand. Once you‘re getting steady bookings, upgrade to unlock more advanced capabilities.

Next let‘s dive into some pro tips for customizing the booking experience.

Customizing Booking Forms, Emails and More

Amelia works well out of the box. But you can customize various elements to tailor it to your brand.

Here are some top areas you may want to tweak:

Styling Forms and Buttons

To match your theme design or colors, use the Amelia > Settings > Customization section.

Here you can set:

  • Primary color
  • Button color
  • Text color
  • Link color

And more styling for forms, tables, buttons and text.

Before:

Default amelia design

After:

Customized amelia design

While basic, this makes Amelia blend in instead of looking obviously "template-y".

Customizing Emails

You can customize appointment confirmation and reminder emails to match your brand too.

Go to Amelia > Settings > Emails to edit the templates.

Make sure your:

  • Logo
  • Color scheme
  • Tone and voice
  • Contact details

Match your brand identity and other emails.

Adding Headers,Footers, Etc

For even more advanced customizations, Amelia has hooks to insert additional code:

  • Headers and footers
  • Custom CSS and JavaScript
  • iFrames like calendars or forms

So developers can heavily customize the booking experience as needed.

But out of the box, you can achieve a lot without touching code.

Now let‘s shift gears into tips for converting more bookings.

Optimizing Your Booking System: More Bookings, Less No-Shows

Getting lots of bookings is great… until customers don‘t show up!

Here are some pro tips to maximize bookings while minimizing no-shows:

Offer Convenient Self-Service Options

The easier you make booking and rescheduling, the more bookings you‘ll get.

So make sure to:

  • Allow self service – Customers should be able to book online without emailing you back and forth
  • Set buffer time – Build a 10-15 minute buffer between appointments to account for no-shows
  • Remind customers – Use email and SMS reminders so customers don‘t forget

Automation is your friend here. The less manual work for you, the better.

Incentivize Bookings with Promotions

Who doesn‘t love a discount or coupon?

Run promotions to incentivize booking during slow periods.

For example target:

  • New customers
  • Weekday mornings
  • Last minute cancellations

Amelia Pro has built-in coupon code support to easily create promotions.

Make Canceling Difficult

You want booking to be easy…and canceling to be difficult!

This minimizes last minute cancelations.

Set up policies where:

  • Customers must cancel X hours before or be charged
  • Limited last minute rescheduling

By adding hurdles before canceling, you‘ll stick to a fuller calendar.

Top Amelia Alternatives & Competitors

The simplicity of Amelia is hard to beat. But here are some alternatives with different pros and cons:

  • Calendly – Very easy scheduling automation but less customization features
  • Setmore – More sales and marketing focused but overcomplicated
  • SimplyBook – Lower pricing but very basic capabilities
  • Acuity – Very popular but more expensive with far more than just scheduling

Each platform takes a somewhat different approach. But Amelia strikes a nice balance of easy to use while still customizable.

And the WordPress integration creates a seamless experience.

Conclusion & Next Steps

I hope this guide gave you clarity on using Amelia WordPress booking plugin to easily create an appointment system.

The key takeaways are:

  • Amelia makes appointment scheduling automation easy without coding
  • The free version works for basic use cases
  • But upgrading to Pro unlocks more advanced capabilities
  • Customizations are available to tailor booking forms and emails
  • With some optimization you can maximize bookings and revenue

Now you know exactly how Amelia ticks all the boxes for being an all-in-one booking solution:

FROM:

✖️ No clear way to accept bookings

✖️ Managing everything manually via calls and emails

✖️ Losing business from lack of online scheduling

TO:

✅ Beautiful booking form integrated on your website

✅ Entire process automated for customers

✅ Dashboard to easily manage appointments

✅ Increased bookings and lower no-shows

For your next steps…

Simply start by installing Amelia Lite to test it out.

Once you confirm it works for your business, upgrade to unlock more advanced capabilities.

You‘ll easily recoup the small investment from productivity gains and more bookings.

Or feel free to ask any questions you still have on the plugin below!