Creating rental directory sites is a really hot topic now and Airbnb is probably the most successful example out there of such a site. Seeing the success that was achieved by Airbnb has got many online entrepreneurs chomping at the bit to have similar success. Today we’ll show you the best way to create an Airbnb-like booking site.
The answer to all your questions comes with an easy to use, powerful and customizable theme. There are a couple of highly used options, including Sky, SpotFinder and Dropinn – but the one theme to rule them all is Listify. Listify is not technically an “airbnb clone” script. Rather, it is a fully functional WordPress theme with most of the functionality of the leading rental listing sites.
Listify’s tagline is “The last WordPress directory theme you will ever buy.” And although this sounds really cheeky, it is largely true. There are a couple of reasons that is so, but the giveaways you can see at first glance are the number of positive reviews and the amount of sales the theme has.
Design
Digging deeper, the first thing that grabs your attention will probably be the clear design and organized layout. This makes Listify very useful – the listings will stand out, guiding the user’s attention towards the things that are really important (and the ones generating your revenue). The simple design also makes the theme perfect for any type of booking – be it apartment or hotel rentals, car rentals, restaurant bookings or vacation offers. Everything depends on your purpose. And lastly, the layout is well known by users already, making it easier to navigate and shortening the process form visit to purchase.
Functionality
Under Listify’s hood you’ll find functionalities that are as gorgeous as the outside of the theme. The theme has out-of-the-box integrations with some of the most popular booking services: Open Table, Resurva, Guestful and WooCommerce Bookings. Just insert your account information and you’ll be ready to go.
The theme uses the WP Job Manager plugin for creating and managing listings and WooCommerce for payments. Those are both well known and used plugins so you shouldn’t be worried about performance – thanks to the large user-base any bugs or incompatibilities will be taken care of in a short time. Listify supports many other plugins, so there will probably be an easy option for whatever you want to do – be it adding customer reviews, contact forms or anything else.
The theme supports schema.org microdata – which means your listings will pop out in Google searches with rich snippets, like star ratings and others. The standard increase of click-through rates for rich snippet results is about 30%, so you can expect good organic traffic.
Monetization
Of course, when you’re starting a serious we project, the question of monetization is up front and center. The creators of Listify obviously know this well and they have added many different monetization options for your consideration. You can charge users for adding listings, claiming or even viewing listings, making reservations. If your goal is to have as much listings as possible, maybe charging owners for listings wouldn’t be a good idea – thenyou can rely on Listify’s ad spaces and get advertising revenue flowing.
Verdict
Well, Listify did a pretty good job in convincing me that the theme’s tagline is not just a marketing gimmick – it’s the truth. And the best thing is that all of this comes at a more than reasonable price of $63. So stop reading and go get Listify now.
