Digital marketing for a direct-booking site

Own the keys first

Before any marketing, make sure everything it builds is in your name. A domain, a site and a hosting account can be registered to whoever set them up, and marketing then builds on something you don't own.

ASTRO judges setup help by one question: does the owner hold the keys to everything built for them? The checklist below is ASTRO's published Implementer Standard.

What to hold yourself:

• The domain, registered in your name or transferred to you on request at no charge.
• Administrator access to the site, the hosting account and the booking software.
• Software licenses in your name, or transferred to you when you leave.
• On exit, a complete site backup and the booking software's own exports.

Know what you can take with you

Your guest records and booking history live in the booking software, so the software decides what you keep if you move.

ASTRO asks every booking-software product the same question: if an owner uses it for three years and then leaves, what have they built that they get to keep? The answers are in ASTRO's booking software reviews, which use one rubric for every product.

What to ask a booking-software company:

• Can I export past and future reservations, with payment status?
• Do guest records come with their consent evidence?
• Do I get the full message history, including guest replies?
• Do my content, media and a URL map for redirects come with me?
• Are exports in open formats, such as CSV or JSON?

Where ASTRO fits

ASTRO is a neutral registry of short-term rentals, and direct booking is the only place it shows a preference for one property over another.

The Book Directly badge. A property with its own direct channel earns the badge on its ASTRO page. A property's own website counts, even without a booking engine. OTA listings never earn it.

Your direct link first. On the property's own page, the direct link is listed ahead of any OTA link. City pages, search and every other list keep their neutral order, so the badge never moves a property up a list.

Where ASTRO stops. ASTRO links to your site and stops there. It does not run your site, take bookings or process guest payments, and it receives no booking, guest or revenue data.

Getting help with the work

If you want someone else to build or run the site, write down the work first, then hold everyone you talk to against the same checklist.

The work is designing and building the site, installing and configuring the booking software, connecting your channels, and keeping it all maintained. Members can ask for an introduction from their direct-booking website program.

What to get in writing:

• Scope and pricing, before you commit.
• A written exit process and timeline, with no exit fee or lock-in beyond what you've paid.
• Which booking software they install, and whether you can buy it directly.

ASTRO publishes owner education. It does not resell any provider's product.