With over 4 million competing listings on Airbnb, it might seem hard to attract visitors, even more so if your apartments are located in densely populated locations.
Have a rental property in London? You will be competing with over 63,000 other postings. Do you own a home in Los Angeles? Likewise, 19,500 others do.
Airbnb is brimming with short-term rentals. Therefore, how can you ensure that passengers notice yours?
The first step is to familiarize yourself with Airbnb’s algorithm – in other words, how the system determines which listings to display to its users. Once you understand how the platform’s “brain” works, you can use this information to optimize the profiles of your listings.
Present the Appropriate Homes to the Appropriate Guests
Airbnb earns money when you earn money, which is why they spend so much time showing guests the homes they are most likely to rent. That is why they highlight guest preferences and trip aspects in their search results.
Several of the characteristics are beyond your control:
- Where the visitor is looking from the profile of Past bookings
- They already viewed these ads.
- What listings have they added to their Wish List?
- Dates: If your calendar is unavailable, your listing’s rating will suffer.
- Proximity to the city center: the closer your listing is near prominent attractions, the better it will rank.
Action Plan:
There are many actions you can take to increase your listing’s relevance and exposure in search.
Enable Instant Book: This is the most effective method of increasing your rating. According to Airbnb, customers want to book immediately. Airbnb prioritizes listings that accept quick reservations over those that do not. Additionally, it functions as a search filter, which implies that certain visitors will peruse just instant-book offerings.
Accept same-day reservations: While accommodating last-minute reservations may be more challenging, providing this option broadens your net and helps you appeal to a wider number of clients.
Make booking easier: Because Airbnb aims to provide visitors with an easy booking experience, the more limitations you impose on your property, the lower it will rank. Reduce your regulations and limits to attract more visitors and improve your rankings.
Allow for long-term bookings: While this may seem straightforward, ensure that your maximum stay is long enough to show in searches for customers planning longer trips.
Self-check-in: Guests demand as much freedom as possible, while Airbnb wants to provide it. Allowing guests to come and leave at their leisure helps your properties rank higher in Airbnb’s search results.
Allow for rapid turnovers: Are you able to accommodate consecutive bookings or do you need a break in between? Airbnb considers the turnover time when determining how to rank your listing, so make it as brief as possible to enable more guest stays and more visitors to view your listing!
Accept one-night stays: While they are not as lucrative as longer stays, offering one-night stays increases exposure and bookings. While enabling long-term reservations may increase the number of potential visitors, Airbnb prioritizes shorter stays when rating listings.
Equip your space with high-quality amenities: While pools, kitchens, and jacuzzis are the most popular amenity filters, many customers also limit their searches by easier-to-offer facilities like WiFi, television, air conditioning, and an open-door policy for dogs. And even if they don’t, Airbnb automatically prioritizes listings that include basic conveniences like irons and hair dryers in their search results.
Predict the Reactions of Guests
Airbnb attempts to predict how visitors will react to your listings and rates them appropriately.
The two critical elements, in this case, are as follows:
CTR (click-through rate): CTR is a significant aspect in determining your Airbnb ranking score. The more people who click on your ad, the more probable someone will make a reservation.
Requests made via a listing page include the following: Obtaining those clicks, however, is insufficient. The ratio of views to bookings has a significant impact on how Airbnb’s algorithm ranks your listing.
Action Plan:
Making your listings more noticeable will result in more unique clicks and booking requests. Here are a few minor recommendations to help you spruce up any listing:
A fascinating feature photo: Make a strong first impression with an eye-catching, bright, high-quality horizontal photograph that highlights the greatest features of your property.
A complete description: Make certain that your listing description is concise and helpful. Do not forget to include all of the little details that contribute to the uniqueness of your property, even if they are minor details such as high ceilings and natural lighting, particularly given that Airbnb’s algorithm promotes descriptions with a larger word count.
Unusual title: Avoid wasting title space on information that browsers already know, such as your rental’s location in Boston. Create an appealing headline for your listing that offers enticing details about the rental. Mention your hotels’ most compelling selling advantages, such as proximity to popular sites, an oceanfront balcony, or a private pool. Consider utilizing AirDNA to investigate the titles of your neighborhood’s top performers to ensure your listing name is competitive.
Calls to action: Including a few calls to action throughout your description may make all the difference. Encourage prospective visitors to book with you by using an encouraging sentence after your listing description, such as “I would love to host you in my apartment!” Send me an email if you have any queries.”
Other listing photos: Once you’ve enticed prospective guests with a spectacular feature picture, turn them into reservations by including additional photographs on your listing page that demonstrate what they will get throughout their stay. A pristine apartment, crisp white linens, and a well-equipped kitchen make an inviting atmosphere they will find difficult to refuse.
External promotion: While sharing links to your Airbnb listings on your personal or professional social media profiles is not a guaranteed strategy to increase bookings, it will almost certainly increase the number of views and click-throughs on your listings.Utilize the advantages of a powerful channel manager for your vacation rentals. A channel manager will simplify business by having all your properties in one single location while listing on multiple sites like Vrbo and Airbnb.