Basic data

The required data to create a site is divided into 5 steps. Each step contains questions to be answered by you. After completing each step click at the 'Save & next ->' button at the bottom of the active step.

After you clicked 'Save & next ->' your anwers are saved and you can go Back to the dashboard or Logout.

Photo

Select the highest resolution photo you have available.

This photo is the most important part of your website!

A bad photo will degrade your site and people will decline your offer at first sight, and leave your site without reading further.

The photo will be automatically optimized for publishing on the internet. Don´t worry about file size and loading times.

Latitude

Please note that multiple notation styles are used, the required notation is like: 48.8588897 or 0.69859743

You can find the exact location of your property on this site: https://www.mapcoordinates.net/en

Characteristics

Select the features of your accommodation.

Website

The required data to create a site is divided into 5 steps. Each step contains questions to be answered by you. After completing each step click at the 'Save & next ->' button at the bottom of the active step.

After you clicked 'Save & next ->' your anwers are saved and you can go Back to the dashboard or Logout.

Language settings

Main language

This will be the initial language in which your site will be visible. Mostly English is a good choice, unless you target another language. Your clients can select another language, if you add other languages in the next steps.

Content language

This is the language in which the original content is written. Select your mother tongue or the language that you know best.

Site name

Enter the name of your property or accommodation.

A short name is better.

Booka.place search bar

If you have a Booka.place Pro account you can choose to add the Booka.place Search bar automatically placed below your site name.

This is common design on multiple well known sites, so your visitors are used to it.

Texts

Enter a short introduction of your property, a description of your accommodations and a description of the area.

All text area's are Markdown compatible.
Please see the 2-Cheatsheet

Get an AI generated text

To prevent a writers block or just to give you an idea, you can use Microsoft Copilot artificial intelligence to create an example text for you.

The generated text needs to be checked and adapted!

To do so:

  1. click the 'Automatic description of ...' button
  2. wait until Copilot created the text
  3. search the copy icon below the created text
  4. copy the text
  5. close the window
  6. paste the text into the 'Introduce your site' text field.

Description of your accommodation(s)

In this text field you can use the following Booka.place shortcodes:

[booka-list] to insert a compact list of all your accommodations. Each accommodation has a short description, a small photo slider and a booking button.

[booka-acc 1] to add availability calendar with booking button (pro) or only an availability calendar (lite). The number corresponds with the number of your accommodation. So use [booka-acc 2] for your second accommodation, etc.

Photos

Select the highest resolution photos you have available.

The photos will be automatically optimized for publishing on the internet. Don´t worry about file size and loading times.

The photos are grouped in a so called gallery and each photo can be clicked to be shown at full size.

Contact form

A contact form can lower the barrier to contact you.

Enter your e-mail address (this will not be publicly visible) and enter the instructions you want to show above the form. For example, what minimal information you need and on what timeframe the questioner will receive an answer.

Address and directions

This information will be publicly visible on your site. (you can use the form to hide your email address)

Reviews

For publishing the reviews you received from your clients. You can also quote reviews you received on other platforms.

You can also use Markdown to make quotes.

Map

Tick this option if you want to integrate an Open Street Maps based interactive map of your accommodation (and unlike other maps, of your accommodation only)

The exact location of your accommodation is shown with a marker, based on the Lat/Long coordinates you entered in step 1.

House rules

Use this field to introduce the rules that apply on your site and in your accommodation(s).

Social media

Here you can make links to social media accounts you use.

A link starts with https://facebook.com/ or https://x.com/

Layout & Design

At this moment there are 2 lay-outs available.

screenshots

You can switch with 1 click, all content will be automatically adapted to fit the chosen lay-out.

Bootswatch themes

Select the Bootswatch theme for your site.

Click here for an overview of the different themes

International

Here you can decide in which languages your website will be shown.

Fully translated text alternatives of the base text are created to help your site fully use the higher SEO score.

Creating translations is easy with pre-filled links to deepL and Google Translate.

Select languages

Click the green button.

Select the languages you will use. You can select up to 7 languages.

For each language a set of corresponding fields will be opened below.

Language translation

Click at one of the languages you want to translate.

The sections you found at the 'Website' tab will fold open.

The translation for each section can be entered in the corresponding text areas.

These fields are Markdown compatible too.

The source language of the corresponding selected section is always used as source for the translation if you use the red 'Get DeepL/Google translation' text buttons.

The languages at the translation services are automatically set right if you use the red 'Get DeepL/Google translation' text buttons.

For example:

English - introduce your site

Enter an English translation of the text your entered earlier at 'Site introduction' at step 3 'Website'.

To get a DeepL/Google translation

  • Click the text 'Get DeepL translation'
  • A popup will open with the text to be translated already filled out in the left part of the window. The right source language is automatically selected.
  • in the right part of the popup window you'll see the translation into English.
  • scroll down to the copy icon and click it to copy the result text to the clipboard.
  • close the popup.
  • Click in the field and paste the text from the clipboard (ctrl+v or cmd+v)
  • Read the translation to correct any errors.
  • Repeat these steps for the other sections and other languages

Click 'Save & Next ->' to continue to the last step.

Publication

You can publish your site in a sub-directory or own your own hosting account connected to your own domain.

Publish in subdirectory

If you have never published before, you can enter your desired name here. Provided it is not already in use. This name can not be changed afterwards.

As this name will be part of the URL address of your site you can only use a-z and 0-9.

After you have published once, the next publications will automatically be published in the once chosen sub-directory.

Publish with domain name

To maximize the benefits of having your own website, it is recommended to register your own domain name and rent hosting space.

This need not be expensive, e.g. at OVH a domain name costs the first year from €1.99 including 100 Mb hosting space (which is sufficient).

https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/domains/

FTP data

The hosting provider provides the necessary FTP data, which you should copy meticulously into the fields. If you make a mistake here, your site will not be published.

If you need help with this, you should contact the hosting provider.

Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor.

Markdown is widely used for blogging and instant messaging, and also used elsewhere in online forums, collaborative software, documentation pages, and readme files.

So you don't waist your time by learning some basic rules ;-)

Cheatsheet

This Markdown cheat sheet provides a quick overview of all the Markdown syntax elements. It can’t cover every edge case, so if you need more information about any of these elements, refer to the reference guides for basic syntax and extended syntax.

Basic Syntax

Element Markdown Syntax
Heading # H1
## H2
### H3
Bold **bold text**
Italic *italicized text*
Blockquote > blockquote
Ordered List 1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item
Unordered List - First item
- Second item
- Third item
Code `code`
Horizontal Rule ---
Link [title](https://www.example.com)
Image ![alt text](image.jpg)

Extended Syntax

These elements extend the basic syntax by adding additional features. Not all Markdown applications support these elements.

Element Markdown Syntax
Table | Syntax | Description |
| ----------- | ----------- |
| Header | Title |
| Paragraph | Text |
Fenced Code Block ```
{
  "firstName": "John",
  "lastName": "Smith",
  "age": 25
}
```
Footnote Here's a sentence with a footnote. [^1]

[^1]: This is the footnote.
Heading ID ### My Great Heading {#custom-id}
Definition List term
: definition
Strikethrough ~~The world is flat.~~
Task List - [x] Write the press release
- [ ] Update the website
- [ ] Contact the media
Emoji
(see also Copying and Pasting Emoji)
That is so funny! :joy:
Highlight I need to highlight these ==very important words==.
Subscript H~2~O
Superscript X^2^

Troubleshooters

Here you can find some tips and tools to help you solve a problem.

FAQ

Changes not visible

You have made some changes, published them, but on your site nothing seems to have changed.

  1. It can take some minutes to have your new files re-distributed around the 123 data centers that are used to show your site at the highest possible speed.
  2. If it takes more than +/- 10 minutes, please press Ctrl+shift+R in your browser several times, to get the newest versions.
  3. If this also fails, please clear the cache of your browser. How to clear the cache cache of your browser