01
Make the booking page the home page
A player arriving from a search wants 3 things: whether there is a court on Thursday at 19:00, what it costs, and how to book it. Put the live schedule on the home page, above any text. A page that opens with a paragraph about the club’s founding year is a page the player scrolls past.
Everything else goes in a short menu: classes, open play, memberships, coaches, contact. Five items at most. If the club runs 3 sports, split the schedule by sport with a tab, not with 3 separate sites.
- Live schedule with prices above the fold
- Sport tabs if there is more than one
- Menu of 5 items or fewer
02
Show the things a player checks before paying
Before entering a card, a player looks for the address, the opening hours, a photo of the actual courts, and the cancellation window. Put all 4 within one scroll of the booking button. A club that hides its cancellation policy in the terms gets fewer bookings than a club that prints it under the price.
Reviews from players belong on the same page, once there are some. Until then, a plain line about the number of courts and the court type does more than a stock photo of a stranger holding a racket.
Put the club’s phone number on the page too, even though the goal is online bookings. A visible number is read as a sign that someone is there, and most players who see it never call.
03
Put the site on the club’s own domain
A booking site on the club’s own domain is remembered, shared, and found by search. A site on a vendor’s subdomain advertises the vendor. Adding a custom domain means one record at the domain registrar, then the booking software verifies it and issues the certificate. Confirmation emails and receipts should carry the same domain, so the player never sees a name they do not recognise.
04
Test the payment path before anyone else does
Connect the club’s card payments account, then book and pay for a real court from a phone that is not on the club wifi. Check that the confirmation email arrives, the booking appears on the desk schedule, and a cancellation inside the window refunds to the card. Do the same for a class and for a membership sign-up.
The test takes 20 minutes and catches the 3 common launch mistakes: a price set on the wrong court, a cancellation window left at the default, and a confirmation email from an address nobody reads.
- A real card booking from a phone off the club network
- Confirmation email received, booking visible at the desk
- Cancellation inside the window refunded to the card
05
Run a real week before announcing anything
Give the link to 10 regulars and the coaches and ask them to book their normal week through it. Staff enter every walk-in and phone booking through the same schedule. By Sunday the site has carried a full week of real bookings and the desk has found the rough edges with people who forgive them.
Then announce it: a notice at the desk with the address, an email to the member list, and a line in the confirmation of every phone booking saying that next time they can book online. Do not switch off phone bookings. Let the website win on convenience.
Keep the old booking diary visible for lookup during that week. The desk will need to check a booking that was made on paper the week before, and a photo of the old diary on the desk computer is enough.
06
What to do in the first month after launch
Watch 2 numbers each week: the share of bookings made online against the desk, and the number of players who booked online for the first time. When the online share passes half, start asking players for reviews after their booking, and add the review line under the booking button.
Search results follow the same page. A page with the club name, the sport, the town, the address, and the live schedule ranks for the searches players actually make, and it does so without extra work if the schedule is on the home page rather than behind a button.