The first aspect to focus on is content quality, which should always be at 100%. Carefully complete all sections of the extranet, upload at least five high-quality photos, and respond to all reviews to improve your "page score" on booking.com. The higher the page score, the better your listing's ranking in search results. However, even with 100% content quality in the extranet, you may still encounter indexing issues due to rate discrepancies. Booking.com and other OTAs penalize properties that offer more competitive rates online than in public searches. Therefore, especially during low season, it’s recommended to maintain rate parity across all online sales channels.
Lastly, after optimizing your listing content and ensuring rate parity, you can focus on creating promotions or participating in campaigns. OTAs often create programs offering discounts to members, such as the Genius program on booking.com or the Members program on Expedia. When a potential guest joins these programs and searches for accommodation, they’ll primarily see listings that are part of the program. For example, offering a 10% discount to Genius members not only increases your visibility but may also boost your chances of receiving a booking.
We mentioned that most travelers have an active profile on the major OTAs. Furthermore, the majority of them book through mobile devices: for this reason, to improve your ranking, you might also consider activating a mobile discount, which will help you gain positions in searches made via smartphone or tablet.