The step-by-step guide Airbnb provides to setting up a property profile is quick and easy to follow and will have your property listed on Airbnb within minutes. But much the same way you need to continue to optimise your website to improve your Google search ranking, Airbnb uses its own algorithms to challenge hosts. If you really want to get the most from your Airbnb property then you’ll need to ensure your listing remains up-to-date and relevant for those searching for somewhere to stay.
Here’s some helpful hints to ensure your listing gets noticed and subsequently booked:
1. Have a Descriptive Title and Listing
Use your opening description to “sell” your property as best as you can to prospective guests. Try and describe the space and location in such a way that your guests can imagine walking through your home, or around the neighbourhood. Use appealing keywords in your title that are relevant to your city, such as major landmarks it may be close to. And don’t waste the minimal space you have in your title to mention how many rooms you have – you have this covered already based on what you have set up in your profile.
2. Respond quickly to guest bookings and enquiries
We recommend setting up templated responses in Airbnb so you don’t have to type up fresh messages each time and be sure to respond as quickly as you can – leading you to 5-star reviews when it comes to your communication.
3. Offer Competitive Rates
Know what your competition is doing. What are other properties, similar to yours, setting their nightly rates at? Airbnb also has the option to turn on their own dynamic pricing tool called Smart Pricing which amends based on demand and closeness of the booking window eg: cheaper for last minute bookings. They’ll tend to suggest lower than market rates to help achieve more bookings.
4. Avoid booking cancellations
Be diligent with the profile you have set up and ensure your calendar is updated often to avoid the need to cancel bookings. Airbnb frown upon cancellations when it comes to your host status and search rankings.
5. Login Frequently
Regular updates within listings is probably one ranking strategy missed the most for first-time or inexperienced hosts. Avoid the set and forget approach and go into your listing as often as possible (daily is preferred) to show Airbnb that you’re being active in your account. Change your title, update your listing with seasonal information, amend your calendar and prices, or change
the cover photo. These are just some ways you can quickly help your search rankings and keep your listing as current as possible.
6. Earn Positive Reviews
A higher number of positive reviews will not only earn you Superhost status but it will help your search rankings. Leave a review for guests as soon as they leave your property and ask them to do the same for you. We suggest some polite little ‘nudges’ a few days after they’ve left to help remind them to leave a review. If you let them know it helps you and future guests, they’d happily oblige.
7. Gain Superhost Status
Airbnb checks hosts four times a year against an assessment criteria that can earn you Superhost status and a reward badge on your profile. They look out for:
1) At least 10 completed trips for your property or 3 longer reservations totalling 100 nights
2) Maintaining a 90% response rate or higher
3) 1% cancellation rate (as mentioned above, cancellations are not held in good stead by Airbnb)
4) Maintaining an overall guest rating of 4.8%
With the need for so much more ongoing management of your Airbnb listing than the initial set-up, it can become time consuming just to rank high in Airbnb – and this doesn’t take into account the time you’ll also need to manage cleaning and the bookings themselves. At Quickstay, we use dynamic pricing and calendar management tools to remain competitive and ensure your property remains top of Airbnb ranks by enlisting all of the above-mentioned strategies and more! If you need professional Airbnb Management Melbourne, please give us a call or drop us a note.
To find out other things we do to maximise your property’s listing potential, please give us a call or drop us a note.