• OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) provide potential guests with many vacation rentals, B&Bs and hotels to choose from (e.g. Booking.com, Expedia).
• On one hand OTAs are sending travellers to your property. On the other hand, every night sold through an OTA rather than via your vacation rental’s website means you’re going to lose part of the revenue as you’ll have to pay them commissions.
• The „Billboard Effect“ suggests, that accomodations listed on OTA sites are more likely to generate direct bookings by driving traffic to the vacation rental website (note: the validity of this conclusion is still a topic of fierce debate).
• While some accomodation providers may not see a lot of website traffic and therefore will need OTAs to drive reservations, other vacation rental owners may be filling most of their capacity on their own.
• It is important to continuosly update and monitor your OTA listings so that potential guests are properly informed. OTA listings count as an external signal to Search Engines. Pay attention to the amenities and make sure your name, address, and phone number are all correct (NAP Consistency). Reach out to OTAs in case of incorrect statements (various OTAs don’t allow you to make customized changes to your marketing text). If a low authority site is showing incorrect information, it’s not as high a priority as a major OTA that is generating numerous bookings.
• See what OTAs are providing you with the most revenue.
• If OTAs are a major source of revenue for your property provide them with sufficient inventory.
• The images that appear on your listings can make or break your success on OTAs. Impress your potential guests with the unique things that make your place special (e.g. show your dog-friendly amenities to make it clear that you’re vacation rental is pet-friendly). Always get the largest, highest qualitiy version available. The amount of photos and their sizes will reflect your „quality score“ with OTAs, which to a small degree will affect how visible you are on these sites.
• Properties with high availability, great reviews and all their content filled out will gain a higher ranking.
• Consider paid opportunities (similar to a paid-search campaign) to bid for a top spot on OTA sites and to generate more bookings.
• Check what revenue is coming from what OTA sites to determine the time and energy you want directed into managing your listings.

(Source: via @Blue_Magnet – Get full details at https://www.bluemagnetinteractive.com/blog/2017/07/25/managing-optimizing-ota-listings/ )