Installation
- Download and install the latest version of WordPress on your domain. See wordpress.org for info.
- Download the WP Bookit from your members account downloads area.
- Unzip the downloaded file and upload the interior folder without the version number to your themes folder (wp-content/themes/). I recommended using FTP software such as filezilla.
- You can also upload the theme by going to your Appearance->Theme section and add new theme.
- Go to your appearance section in your WordPress admin and click themes. Look for the WP Bookit Theme and activate it.
Setting Up The Front Page
Follow the steps to create a front home page like the demo:
1. Create the Page
First you need to create a new page and select the page template called Front Page Template under page attributes. You can add content you want to place to the right of the search box in the editor area. Next, set that page as your front page under Reading Settings in your settings area of WordPress.
2. Set up Search Tracking
To add your own affiliate tracking to the search box, sign up as an affiliate of hotelscombined.com here. Once it is ready login and go to your Affiliate Links section and create a new search box.
Then choose the generic search box
You can choose your own branding after that but you do not need to worry about any customizations for the search box. Next you should see the script you are to paste into your site. Copy that full script code.
Go to your Theme Options area under Flytonic. You will see a section called Hotel, Car, and, Flight Tracking. Paste the script code inside hotel search textarea.
3. Add Featured Destinations
You have the option of showing up to 12 destinations to highlight on your front page. The demo shows three. You can choose to hide this entire section as well.
To add a destination, go to Add Featured Destination from the right sidebar area. You will want the title to be the destination title to display. Add a featured image for the destination as well as a short sent ace or few words to show on the front page as well.
Next, you will want to add the affiliate url for this destination from hotels combined affiliate. To find this url inside the affiliate program, go to Affiliate Links->Text Links. Click on destination page and find the destination you want to display hotels for. You should then be given a url to copy for that destination, copy that.
Next, paste that in the custom field area and the bottom of the destination page:
Go to item step 5 below to show how to display these on the home page.
4. Add Featured Hotels
To add up to 8 featured hotels on the front page template, please first create your hotel posts like you did your destination page. In you hotelscombined affiliate account go to Text Links->Hotel Pages and search for the hotel you want to highlight. Next you should then see the url to copy once again. Copy that url.
Add a new hotel page by clicking the Featured Hotels Post type and add new. Add the featured image, short summary text as well as title for your hotel. Towards the bottom you will see the fields, city, hotel rating, from price, and url to paste from your affiliate program. Enter all of these fields.
Go to item step 5 below to show how to display these on the home page.
5. Customizing the Front Page
Go back to your front page template and edit the page. Add a featured image for the background image behind the top search area. Make this big enough to fill the width your would like (1600 px is recommended).
Next, scroll down the the Home Page Template Options area. Go through each of these options to customize the front page. You can change section titles, show different amount of hotels and destinations by picking them from the dropdown.
Why Us Section – On the demo you will see that we added 4 columns with and icon, title and info about the site. To add your own icons enter the font-awesome code for each, example: fa-hotel. Browse icons here: https://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icons/.
Adding a Flight Search Page
Adding a flight search page is very easy. First create a new page and select the page template Flight Template. The page will be ready with default flight search.
To add your own affiliate tracking you will need to first signup as a Travel Payouts affiliate here: https://www.travelpayouts.com. Once you are ready to go, proceed to Tools-> Search forms in the top menu once logged in.
You then create a new search form and select short code script and save a get code. You then will get the script to copy.
Paste this code in your theme options area in Flytonic under the section called Hotel and Flight tracking. That is it.
Adding a Hotel Listings Page
You can add a hotel listings page that opens up the hotels combined home page inside a frame on your site if you wish, like as seen in our demo.
First create a new page and select the template called Iframe Template. Next paste your hotels combined home page affiliate url in the field at the bottom called Iframe URL Destination. You can get this url by going to your text links section and click home page link in your hotels combined affiliate area.