Tips & tricks to maximize performance

1. Placement of products/widgets
2. Maximise traffic
3. How can I increase the traffic to my website?
4. Best practices for design
5. Further improvements

1) Placement of products/widgets

The placement of your Booking.com product is vital to generating reservations – not only on which page you place the information, but also where on the page. Here’s how you make decisions on placement to best catch the user’s eye.

• Which page? Through analysis of your traffic, you’ll be able to see where users are landing on your site, and what is driving them to these pages (for example, which search term they entered). Using this information you can assess the relevancy of your traffic, and place the product where it will be seen by the most relevant users.
• Where on the page? Visibility is key – most content below the fold (out of the top section of the page) will not be seen by many users. In general, web designers suggest that the top left hand side of the page will be the first viewed by users.
• What tools? The placement of different tools can have a positive or negative impact on your bookings. By using deep links in relevant sections of your website, you can offer the user the next logical step in their experience.

This example shows the ideal placement for Booking.com products & deep links. The colours, fading from dark (best) to light (worst) represent the performance of each placement.

Placing your Booking.com product and links above the fold is a good way to improve your performance, but make sure it’s easy for your visitors to find the content they’re looking for.

2) Maximise traffic

The traffic that your integration receives will dictate the maximum amount of bookings you can expect. If the placement or visibility of the integration is wrong then the number of bookings will be severely limited.

• How deep is the Booking.com product integrated on your pages? Merely offering a product or text link only on your index page will not maximise your reservations. You need to analyse your whole site for relevant opportunities to ensure the product is getting the maximum relevant traffic.
• Don’t focus only on your main page. Make sure that your most visited landing pages have a Booking.com product and numerous deep links to Booking.com as well (especially the ones with hotel content).
• Thinking of creating content for new destinations and languages?
• Our pages are available in 43+ languages.
• We offer accommodations in 133,577+ destinations worldwide.
• We are opening new accommodations and destinations on a daily basis.

3) How can I increase the traffic to my website?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques can help you increase your traffic by getting better positioning in search engine results.

• Basic advice can be found in the Google Webmaster Central.
• A helpful guide is also available here: Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

4) Best practices for design

To increase the conversion rate, you must have a good design so that the user can easily access your site. There are some basic principles you can follow:

• Size: the more obvious you make an object to users, the more attention it will get. Try to find the ideal size that will keep your content visible while showing off your Booking.com product and deep-links to Booking.com.
• Colours: using a good, visible colour scheme helps improves readability, and can help you direct users to the sections you want them to see. Use contrasting colours to highlight specific areas of your page.
• Calls to action: these are incentives that make the user click on your links or search box. The feeling of urgency is key in these buttons/links – using text such as ‘Book now!’ grabs the user's attention.
• Think like a user: This is one of the most basic design principles. Think like a user, or even get friends/family who are not familiar with your pages to try and use them as a basic form of testing.
• Unique Selling Points - use Booking.com’s Unique Selling Points to explain to your user why you’ve chosen to partner with Booking.com and how the user benefits from this deal (for example, include ‘No Booking Fees, Last Minute Availability, 28,410,301 listings’ on your page)

5) Further improvements

Booking.com, much the same as any other major commercial website, is constantly analysing its statistics and performance. As any good web designer will say, testing is key to the progression of your site. Here are some tests and tools you can use to gain insights into your performance:

• A/B testing: by creating two different versions of the same page and showing each a proportion of your traffic, you achieve a very simple and effective test that can tell you how well your design functions.
• Google Web Optimiser: the Google Web Optimiser tool is perfect for simple A/B testing and more in-depth analysis.
• Analytics tools: simple tools such as Google Analytics will provide you with a full report on your traffic and where users land on your site. As mentioned previously, this will then allow you to assess future opportunities or design changes to maximise your site’s traffic and conversion.