We have written plenty about what goes in a digital guidebook. We have never really talked about how it looks, because until recently there was only one answer. Every BetterSTR guide used the same layout, and if that layout did not quite suit your property, that was that.
Not any more. There is now a Guide Template setting on every property, and it does exactly what it sounds like: it changes the shape of your guest guide without touching a word of your content.
The two layouts
The classic
The layout every BetterSTR guide has used until now, and still the default.
- Full-screen hero photo with your property name, address and a Get Started button
- Check-in and check-out times front and centre
- On a laptop, your menu sits on the left and the section you tapped opens beside it
- On a phone, a bottom nav bar: Home, Info, Map, Ask AI, and your Store
- An interactive map of your local recommendations, with colour-coded markers you can filter by tag
- A dedicated search page across your whole guide
Single-page scroll
One long, calm page. Guests scroll instead of tapping in and out of sections.
- A calm, editorial look in your own brand colour (cream and forest green by default), with Cormorant Garamond headings
- Hero band with your welcome line, address, beds and baths, WiFi name and password, and door code, each with a one-tap copy button
- Every section is an accordion on the one page, with the first one already open
- Search floats over the page, filters as you type and jumps straight to the match
- Local Area Guide grouped by category, with directions a tap away
- Ask AI, a Contact tab pinned to the bottom, and per-section share and QR buttons
Template 3 is marked beta because we are still adding to it. The store landed on it this week, so guests on the single-page layout now get the shop icon in the top corner, the full cart and Stripe checkout, exactly like Template 1.
The same guide, both ways
Screenshots make this easier than paragraphs do. Here is one real guide, a two-bedroom apartment in Surfers Paradise, in each layout. Not a word of the content changed between them.
Same content, different clothes
This is the part worth stressing: switching layouts is not a rebuild. Both templates read the same guide you have already written. What carries across:
- Every section and sub-section you have built in the Guide Builder, in the same order, with the same icons
- Your shortcodes, so WiFi details, door codes, guest names, activities and custom widgets all still resolve
- Your translations. Guides with more than one language get the language selector in the top corner either way
- Your brand colour and link colour. Template 3 takes your saved theme colour as its accent instead of the default green and terracotta
- Guest verification, the upsell store, Ask AI, activities and weather, all unchanged
- Your links. Guide URLs, per-section share links and QR codes keep working, so nothing you have printed or sent goes stale
One honest caveat: Template 3 brings its own typography rather than your custom font choices. If you have picked specific Google Fonts for your guide, those still apply on Template 1.
How to switch
For one property: go to Members → Property, open the property, and find Guide Template. Pick Template 3, hit Preview selected to open it in a new tab exactly as a guest would see it, and save when you are happy.
For everything at once: Members → Property → Property Defaults has the same Guide Layout setting as an account default. Individual properties can still override it, so you can run Template 3 on the boutique cabin and keep Template 1 on the apartments.
It is a setting, not a migration. Change it back and your guests are on the old layout the next time they open the link.
Which one should you pick?
Stay on Template 1 if your guide has a lot of sections and guests dip in and out looking for one thing, or if the map of your local recommendations is a big part of what you offer. The menu-and-content split makes a long guide easy to navigate.
Try Template 3 if your guide is a handful of rich sections you would rather guests actually read, or if your property has a look you want the guide to match. The single scroll suits cabins, boutique stays and anything where the guide is part of the welcome rather than a manual.
If you cannot decide, preview it. That is what the button is there for, and it costs you nothing to look.
What is next
More layouts, and more polish on this one. Template 3 has been getting steady work: the store, tighter spacing on phones so content is not squeezed into a narrow column, and the search overlay. If you switch a property over and something feels off, tell us. Beta feedback is how this one gets finished.
New to BetterSTR guidebooks? The digital guidebook overview covers what they do, and the live examples page has real guides from real hosts you can open right now.