Offering online appointment booking directly from your WordPress site is one of the easiest ways to improve the patient experience and reduce the workload for your administrative staff. No extra plugin or coding skills required: with OneDoc, you can set up online booking in just a few minutes and connect it to your medical software.
Why integrate appointment booking on your WordPress site?
Integrating an appointment booking system directly into your WordPress site offers many advantages, including:
- Save time every day: Fewer calls to schedule, move, or cancel appointments. Your patients can book directly on your site 24/7, allowing your team to focus on welcoming and caring for them.
- Reduce missed appointments: Every appointment booked through OneDoc automatically receives an email confirmation and an SMS reminder. This can reduce no-shows by up to 75% and ease your team’s workload.
- Improve the patient experience: Your availability is displayed in real-time. Patients can choose a time slot that suits them without waiting on the phone or depending on your office hours.
- Better monitor your practice’s performance: With integration to Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, or fusedeck, you can track appointment statistics directly from your site to fine-tune your strategy (pages, messages, campaigns).
- Boost your online presence: An “actionable” site (with appointment booking) supports your local SEO strategy and can increase visits and bookings.
- Keep patients within your ecosystem: By enabling booking directly on your WordPress site, you prevent potential patients from leaving without booking or going elsewhere. The OneDoc widget helps convert existing traffic into booked appointments.
The 3 steps to install the OneDoc booking system on WordPress
Step 1: Configure your widget in OneDoc Pro
In OneDoc Pro > Settings > Widget, define:
- If the widget should be linked to a location or a practitioner
- The consultation types shown (e.g. “General practice”, “Check-up”, etc.)
- Appearance (change the color to match your branding) and filters
Step 2: Copy the code from OneDoc Pro
Once the widget is configured, click on it and copy the HTML code shown under the section “Widget code to insert on your website”.
Step 3: Paste the HTML code into WordPress to install the widget
Then log in to your WordPress dashboard. Depending on your editor (Gutenberg, Divi, Elementor or another visual editor like Avada), add an “Embed code” block (symbol </>) where you want to display the appointment booking. Paste the HTML code into this block, save your page, and that’s it!
Take advantage of the following features with the OneDoc widget:
Optimize the widget integration on your WordPress site
To get the most out of your OneDoc widget, here are some tips on managing your website. This will help you increase page traffic and the number of potential appointments booked.
1. Highlight appointment booking on your homepage
We recommend making the appointment booking widget easily accessible from your homepage. If you prefer not to embed it there, you can link to the page that contains the widget from the main menu or as a banner to catch your visitors’ attention. This way, your patients can book an appointment without having to search.
2. Create dedicated pages for each service or specialty
If you offer different types of consultations, it may be useful to create specific widgets for each one (for example, separate ones for general medicine and pediatrics if you have multiple specialists at your practice). This helps simplify the patient experience based on their needs and also makes it easier to track appointments by specialty with Google or fusedeck.
3. Improve the user experience with WordPress plugins
Your site should always be up-to-date and easy to navigate. Improve the browsing experience on your WordPress site by adding complementary plugins to boost performance and SEO. You can use tools like Yoast SEO to increase your site’s visibility in search engines or WP Rocket to speed up page loading times, for example. The WordPress plugin library is extensive, so you’ll likely find plugins that suit your needs. However, make sure to avoid overloading your site with plugins as it could slow things down. Also ensure compatibility with the WordPress theme you are using.
FAQ - What you need to know about implementing online booking on WordPress
Do I need a WordPress plugin to integrate OneDoc?
No, no plugin is needed. The OneDoc widget integrates directly via an “Embed code” block (symbol </>)
Is the OneDoc widget compliant with the nLPD?
The widget, and OneDoc in general, are designed to meet the security and privacy standards applicable to health data in Switzerland. For your site, make sure to:
- Display an up-to-date privacy policy
- Implement a proper cookie consent banner if you use trackers (e.g., Google Analytics)
- Restrict WordPress editing access to authorized users only.
How long does it take to integrate online booking into WordPress?
Once the OneDoc widget is configured, you just need to copy and paste the code into your pages—it can be done in just a few minutes.
Does the OneDoc widget slow down my WordPress site?
The widget’s impact on your site is generally very low. In any case, we recommend using a caching plugin, optimizing your images, and testing your page after integration.
Install online appointment booking on WordPress and modernize your website
Installing online appointment booking on your WordPress site is quick and easy, and offers many benefits: fewer missed appointments, improved organization, and access to detailed statistics on online bookings. Simplify your scheduling while modernizing your patients’ experience!
