The Basics: Optimizing Your Airbnb Listing

Title

Your title and description are two of the most key elements when optimizing your listing. Knowing what features and amenities your typical guest would get excited about based on your market and highlighting that in the title and first few lines of the description is crucial to grabbing potential guests’ attention and drawing them into your listing. Using words that create a sense of experience and highlights the amenities that create memories, and staying away from generic words is another great way to grab attention. For example, if you had a cabin property in Snowshoe WV, you could put “Serene Snowshoe Cabin, Ski in/Ski out w/ Hot Tub” instead of “Renovated Snowshoe Cabin right off the Mountain”.

Description:

The Airbnb Description is like the title in that you need to consider the guest avatar that would be attracted to your property and highlight the features that guest avatar would value the most. If you have a 1 bed or room for rent in a downtown, then access to a metro, and a sit-stand desk to work should be mentioned in the first two sentences. It is great to tie those 2-3 key amenities / features into the experience as well. For example, with a downtown studio in D.C. where a key feature is being close to the National Mall, you could put “explore the wondrous D.C. monuments just a 5-minute walk from this cozy homebase in the heart of the district” instead of “5 minute walk to the National Mall”, which does not convey the experience in with the property.

Photos:

The photos are the number 1 most important aspect of your Airbnb listing. This is because they do the best job of conveying the experience to the guest, which is the objective of the entire listing. For this reason we always highly recommend getting professional photos done by a photographer that has experience with Airbnb photography and understands how to capture the essence of certain experiences. This also means being there when the photos are being taken, so you can stage the property accordingly, for example setting out wine glasses and cheese on a table that overlooks a mountain view.

A popular way to have your photos stand out, especially if the home is not particularly unique, is to create an accent wall, meaning painting, adding a different type of material, or wrapping one wall in wallpaper in a style that suits the room and theme of the property, in order to draw attention to the room and make the property stand out more as a unique experience. Using an Airbnb designer for your furniture, photo staging, and renovations, is a great way to make this process seamless. Your first 5 photos should be the most interesting and attractive photos of your home, as the first 5 appear right away when initially clicking on the listing. A common mistake is people only consider making the first photo very strong, and the rest are simply a tour of the home. Lastly, it is always a great idea to have a set of photos for each season, and to change them out a month to 2 weeks before that season begins.

Dynamic Pricing Strategies and Discounts:

On top of getting the most out of your price in peak season (staying slightly above the market to capitalize in high demand periods), and the most out of your occupancy in the cold season (pricing slightly below the market to stay booked in low demand periods, Airbnb’s algorithm favors Airbnb listings that are priced appropriately. A popular tool to help you dynamically price your listings is Price Labs.

In addition to getting you data on demand levels to most accurately price your listing on any given day, you can also make certain pre-set pricing settings with Price Labs that allow you to offer last minute discounts, longer stay discounts, adjustments to minimum night stays, or Orphan Day discounts (when there is only 1 day available between two bookings). Using Price Labs to keep your listing competitively priced, as Airbnb’s algorithm will disfavor listings priced well above market rate. You can also apply premiums, for example if you know about an event happening very close to your property that maybe Price Labs or the general market does not know about, you can schedule a premium to apply to that date manually.

Reviews and Communication:

Your reviews are a major factor in optimizing your listing with Airbnb’s algorithm. In Airbnb’s Q2 Earnings Report, they highlighted that they are shifting there algorithm for which properties to put on page 1 to be geared even more toward reviews and other guest satisfaction markers. This is because Airbnb has already drawn a very large audience to their platform, and are more concentrated on retaining that audience now with quality hosts and properties, meaning review counts, communication, and overall quality of the guest experience is more important than ever for the success of your listing. Along with the basics of making sure the property is always clean, in good working order, and your supplying household essentials (kitchenware, toilet paper, etc.) strong communication and going above and beyond for guest needs / wants will get your property to the 4.9-5 star review count. Messaging can change depending on how far out the guest booked and the type of property, and the exact wording is very important, but here is a general outline of guest messaging: Start with messaging the guest before there trip thanking them for booking, overview of check in / check out days / times, and asking the nature of their visit, and see if there is anything you can do to tailor the property to them (for example, if they are there for a honeymoon, you could leave out a heart box shaped of chocolates, and make a recommendation for a few romantic restaurants in the area).

Your next message will be closer to when the guest is checking in, and will be a detailed message outlining all the important info they need for the stay (door code, check in / check out, how to use unique amentias of the home, link to a guidebook for the area) and to see if the guest needs any last minute accommodations or has any questions before checking in. An additional message should be sent mid way through their stay to make sure everything is going well, and ask if they need anything. A good way to ensure everything goes smoothly is to leave a house manual at the property explaining how to use all the appliances and special amenities. Finally, send a message thanking them for staying, and ask if they would please leave a 5 star review. If you believe the guest had a bad experience and may leave a bad review, think creatively about what you might be able to do to remediate the situation, for example if a guest expressed distress because of noisy neighbors, you can offer them a 15% discount on there next stay at the property, and maybe start leaving ear plugs for your guests!

A few other ways to give stand-out service to your guests to encourage great reviews is to leave a local guide on the area with there stay, loyalty programs for repeat guests, and partnering with local businesses to give those staying at your Airbnb discounts at retailers near the property.

Bonus:

Sites like Airbnb and Vrbo take fees of 10-15% of the total booking, which is mostly paid by the guest. It is a great idea to start building out a direct booking function for your listing to avoid these Airbnb / Vrbo fees, which will save you and the guest money. This can be done through a property website and social medias, which you can alert your guest to for the next time they book during there stay (be careful of mentioning this on the Airbnb / Vrbo platform, they have very smart systems to detect hosts trying to drive guests off the platform). You can use StayFi to capture guest emails when they log in to the WiFi, and Mail Chimp to set up automated email marketing campaigns to past guests to increase occupancy and save on Airbnb / Vrbo fees by booking guests direct.

Peter Firehock