Create a website template for multiple businesses?

[Chrish12]

Hi all! I was wondering if anyone could recommend a site/programme where I could create one site as a template and then use it for multiple small businesses in the same industry?

It would require a booking system/ calender, and a few other basic pages.

Thanks in advance!

 

[fisicx]

Hi @Chrish12 and welcome to UKBF.

Not really sure what you mean. Templates can be used on multiple sites but they don’t normally contain a booking system. That’s something you add on.

You could Wordpress multi-site which lets you use the same theme/plugins on all sites.

 

[Chrish12]

Hi @Chrish12 and welcome to UKBF.

Not really sure what you mean. Templates can be used on multiple sites but they don’t normally contain a booking system. That’s something you add on.

You could Wordpress multi-site which lets you use the same theme/plugins on all sites.

Hi thanks for the reply. Ideally I was looking for something where I could have everything set up ready to go so I would only need to change the text and images every time someone wanted a website keeping the costs and time to create really low.

The business models will generally be identical, say using a pub for an example.

 

[fisicx]

You won’t find anything like that. Booking systems are quite specialised and not bundled with a theme.

What you could do is build a generic site with all the bells and whistles then clone it to the new hosting package.

But every business will be slightly different and have different needs. It’s far quicker to build sites using your favoured theme and suitable plugins. With experience you can get a Wordpress site up and running in a couple of hours. Even less for a very simple site.

 

[antropy]

You won’t find anything like that. Booking systems are quite specialised and not bundled with a theme.

Aren't there WordPress plugins that do it?

A quick Google shows there are loads of open source booking systems:
https://www.cloudways.com/blog/php-booking-systems/

You should probably contact a developer and explain what you're trying to do and they might be able to suggest something.

In the ecommerce software we use (OpenCart) you can create new "sub-stores" very easily that run on different domains but share the same product database so it would be easy enough to create something similar I'm sure.

Paul.

 

[makeusvisible]

You would be best off developing your website, and populating it for the first business. Then use a third party booking system which has an iframe embed code.

When it comes to site 2,3,4 etc, just replicate the site using something like wp-migrate, and edit the shortcode/embed code accordingly.

There are lots and lots of pitfalls when replicating sites in this way, however, so really I would advise you have a hosting provider and or/dev who is able to handle it for you, especially if you have any regard for aspects such as SEO, google my business, analytics and search console, all of which will need configuring independently for each business.

 

[fisicx]

Aren't there WordPress plugins that do it?.

Yes, but the OP wanted everything packaged together.

 

[HostXNow]

I suppose you could use Astra Starter Themes and plugin to do it.

I used the default Astra theme + Elementor to create the HostXNow website. I never got around to adding images as feel it didn't need any. But maybe I'm wrong about that ha ha.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Our web guy builds everything from scratch. We have multiple identical templated pages, one for each customer, with some added variations within. 4 small promotion/advertising blocks or 1 large, Facebook displayed or space filled with an alternative etc.,

 

[antropy]

Our web guy builds everything from scratch. We have multiple identical templated pages, one for each customer, with some added variations within. 4 small promotion/advertising blocks or 1 large, Facebook displayed or space filled with an alternative etc.,

It sounds like this sort of thing is probably what you need in this case.

Paul.