How often do you optimize your Airbnb listing?

Question

Have you ever looked at your listing and thought: “Why am I not getting bookings like others in my area?"

Especially when your property is in a good location and well set up?

From what I’ve seen, the issue is often not the property ,  it’s the listing itself.

Things like: • Weak or non-optimized titles/descriptions

• Average or poorly arranged photos

• Slow guest response time

• Pricing that doesn’t match market demand

• Unmanaged calendars

These small things can quietly kill your bookings.

Question

How often do you actually go back and optimize your listing?

Or do you just set it once and leave

Andrew Steffens · Answer

We tweak ours monthly.  Our local area manager from Airbnb sends us a monthly report some of which include items affecting the listings, and our revenue manager has optimization software that also makes suggestions.

John Underwood · Answer

Me too.

Chizoba Ani · Answer

Nice strategy!

Dana Kimball · Answer

Pretty regularly. I keep a running note of small things to test on each listing and work through them when I do my Monday pacing review on the cabins. Title and lead photo are the two things I'm most aggressive about because that's what determines if anyone clicks through at all. I'll swap the lead photo every couple of months on a property that's sitting under the comp set, and I rewrite the title whenever I change something material like adding a hot tub or seasonal pricing.

The set-and-forget thing is the biggest mistake I see when I look at listings around me. I came up in hotels before getting into STR and one thing you learn fast on the revenue side is that listings decay. Rates that worked last summer are wrong this summer, photos that looked great when the cabin was brand new are dated by year three, and the description language that converted a year ago isn't always what's landing now. My cabins go from $155 a night in winter to $375 in October leaf season so the listing has to flex with all of that, not just the price.

Mike Grudzien · Answer

Always working on it!

Dana Kimball · Answer

The biggest one was going from an interior shot to an exterior shot with context. My Black Mountain cabin used to have a living room photo as the lead and it sat in search results looking like every other cozy cabin listing. I swapped it to a wide shot of the deck with the mountain view and the hot tub in the frame and I started getting way more clicks within a couple weeks. People are scrolling past dozens of living room photos but a deck shot with a view stops them.

The other thing that made a difference was lighting. I reshoot my lead photos in golden hour when I can because the warm light makes the property look inviting in a way that midday photos just don't. It's a small thing but when you're comparing it against listings that used their phone camera at 2pm with harsh shadows it stands out.

Chizoba Ani · Answer

Curious; when you test lead photos, what kind of changes have given you the biggest lift?

Chizoba Ani · Answer

Love this your approach 💯 especially the idea of listing decay. A lot of hosts underestimate how quickly performance drops when you don’t actively optimize.

Chizoba Ani · Answer

Good to hear! Consistency is key. What area do you concentrate on the most?

How often do you optimize your Airbnb listing?

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