Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / 10 Tips To Boost Your Airbnb Listing

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10 Tips To Boost Your Airbnb Listing · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
Hello and welcome to House Planet Bite Size, the podcast
0:03
brought to you by Houseplanet and Housefully.
0:05
My name's James Farley, the founder of Houseplanet, and our
0:08
goal is to share everything you need to know about buying and
0:11
managing short term rentals. Today's guest is Sabrina Kalnan
0:15
from BNB Excellent and she's got 10 expert tips on how to get
0:19
started with Airbnb. Are you looking to streamline
0:22
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today. Sabrina, welcome to host Planet
1:02
Bite Size. Thank you for joining us.
1:04
You've got 10 essential tips for hosts who are getting started on
1:08
Airbnb, so take it away with tip #1.
1:12
Yeah. So I think I hopefully have some
1:14
tips that most people haven't spoken about.
1:17
Just a little bit of background on Airbnb.
1:20
Airbnb is just about 40% of the market share in Europe, second
1:25
only to booking.com. And then in the US, Airbnb takes
1:29
the lions market share at 40%, their top.
1:32
So I'll do, I'll be fast here. First tip, brand new host.
1:37
You can turn on professional hosting tools within Airbnb and
1:40
this opens up a bunch of extra options for you as a host that
1:46
can really give you an advantage above and beyond the other hosts
1:49
that don't know to turn on professional hosting tools.
1:52
It's completely free. It's through Airbnb, you can be
1:55
brand new, you can have only one listing and you can utilize
1:58
these tools #2 We hear a lot about what do I charge for my
2:05
cleaning fee? You know, how many chores should
2:10
I have, that sort of thing. Well, Airbnb has just made an
2:14
update and this will depending on when this airs, the update
2:18
will still be fairly new, but Airbnb has made an update where
2:22
it is showing all in pricing. So this I think is probably more
2:28
more relevant to the US listeners because I think it was
2:31
always, always doing that in most of Europe.
2:34
But now when a guest goes to book your property, they are
2:37
unable to see what your cleaning fee is.
2:41
It's an all in price. And so I always recommend charge
2:45
whatever your cleaners are charging or charge market rate
2:48
for what a cleaner might be charging if you're cleaning your
2:51
own property. Yeah, it's a good point with the
2:53
cleaning, isn't it this, it's a debate that we've had a lot on
2:56
on the podcast over the years is whether to charge a cleaning fee
2:59
or not. And usually people come down on
3:01
the side of don't charge a cleaning fee, just make sure
3:05
that your nightly rate covers everything because a lot of
3:08
guests, they don't like to see extra charges on there.
3:12
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's hard to, it's hard to
3:15
calculate your, you know, covering your cleaning fee in
3:18
your nightly rate because you could have a very long booking
3:22
and your nightly rate might be overstated because of that.
3:26
So this all in pricing I think is going to be easier for
3:29
everybody involved for both the host and from the guests
3:33
perspective as well. Yeah, this is something that
3:35
Airbnb have been suggesting they might get rid of cleaning fees
3:39
for quite a long time. And and finally, it seems to be
3:41
happening. I just want to go back to your
3:42
first point as well about the professional hosting tools.
3:46
So what's the difference between somebody who doesn't turn on
3:49
professional hosting tools and somebody who does what?
3:52
What access do they get if they turn on this feature?
3:54
Yeah. So they, if they turn on this
3:57
feature, what they will get is they will get custom promotions
3:59
and custom discounts. They also get greater insights
4:04
into how their listing is performing compared to other
4:06
listings on Airbnb. And I think both of those tools
4:11
are incredibly valuable to helping to respond to your
4:17
market. You know, depending on your
4:20
average length of stay, you know, most stays for Airbnb are
4:24
between 3:00 and four days. So you can make custom discounts
4:27
according to that. Do people in your market book
4:30
last minute? Well, you can do some custom
4:33
last minute discounts there. Airbnb also has something called
4:39
promotions. And so as a brand new host, you
4:42
will default to a 20% new listing promotion.
4:47
And a bonus tip there is that knowing that you're defaulting
4:50
to that 20% new listing discount, go ahead and utilize
4:54
that, but increase your price for your first 3 bookings by 20%
4:58
so that you get the market rate. But after that 20% promotional
5:03
discount is over, then professional hosting tools allow
5:06
you to add in custom promotions anytime you need to fill in
5:11
dates, things like that. It's a really great tool to get
5:14
you ranking higher in the search results.
5:16
And the goal as a host is to rank as high as you can in the
5:20
search results because many areas have thousands of
5:23
listings. And if you don't get to that top
5:26
page, you probably aren't getting bookings.
5:28
So that's the the thing to focus on is getting to that top page
5:32
in the search results. Absolutely, Yeah.
5:34
And in relation to pricing, you said, that's an interesting
5:36
point there about the, the 20% discount when you first join
5:40
Airbnb, because a lot of hosts will think, well, I need to get
5:44
bookings and I need to get reviews to kind of get this
5:47
thing rolling. So maybe I should put quite a
5:50
low rate to begin with. Would you advise?
5:53
Maybe don't go so low? I definitely advise not to go
5:58
low. So one of the things that Airbnb
6:00
does is they want you as a brand new host to be successful in the
6:03
beginning. So not only do they provide that
6:06
20% new listing discount to give you a little bit of a boost
6:11
since you don't have a lot of credibility, they also give you
6:15
a boost in that search algorithm as a brand new host because they
6:18
want you to get that first couple of bookings in fairly
6:21
quickly. You get addicted to the whole
6:24
thing and you feel like you're going to be a successful host,
6:27
so you stick with it. So yeah, you do not need to
6:30
start with low prices. Yeah, you're never really more
6:33
powerful than the start really, I think with with Airbnb and
6:36
potentially other OTAs as well, because like you rightly say,
6:39
they're, they, they want you to get bookings, they want you to,
6:42
to be a success. And, and that's why it's so
6:44
important to, to set yourself up from for success from from day
6:48
one. So Sabrina, then moving on,
6:50
we've done the first two points. So what's the tip #3?
6:53
So #3 is to understand that Airbnb does personalized search
6:58
results for each guest. So you what you search.
7:02
If you search for a property in a certain location and I search
7:06
for a property in that same location, your search results
7:09
might be different than mine. And that is because Airbnb is a
7:14
very technology forward database, data intensive
7:18
company. And they know based on, you
7:21
know, my profile demographics and the way I'm searching what
7:25
will be important to me. And they're putting those
7:28
properties at the top of my list.
7:30
So you have to know who your traveler is and you have to know
7:35
why they're coming to your market in order to make a
7:40
listing that is going to rank high on the search results.
7:42
So I always tell people, do a little bit of research upfront
7:46
before you even start writing that listing.
7:48
It will set you up for success in making a a real thing that
7:52
ranks high in the results. Yeah, knowing your target guest
7:55
is, is so important if you're appealing to families, if you're
7:59
appealing to couples, or even if it's kind of workers during the
8:03
week, having the right photographs and the right
8:06
listing accordingly is, is really going to going to help
8:08
you, especially there. You know, Airbnb is, has so much
8:11
data about everybody and presumably they're basing it on
8:14
past bookings as well. They know what people have
8:16
booked in the past and and what they're likely going to, to book
8:19
in the future. OK then Sabrina tip #4.
8:23
Yeah. So I'll just say one quick thing
8:25
about those about your target guest is don't assume who your
8:30
target guest is. Do the market research first
8:34
because I see that happen quite often.
8:36
Someone's like, I have a big house.
8:38
I want to target families because I heard that that's
8:41
popular now. So do your research before you
8:44
determine your target guest. But tip #4 is, and this is a
8:49
little bit of a controversial tip, but don't use smart pricing
8:53
with an Airbnb. I do find that Airbnb tends to
8:58
have a price in mind for you even if you put in a minimum and
9:03
a maximum, and they tend to get people on the lower side because
9:07
they want to keep guests happy. I do recommend using a third
9:11
party pricing tool, whichever 1 is right for you.
9:15
Beyond pricing is very popular in Europe.
9:19
Price Labs is also a very popular one, and there's many
9:22
others out there. Yeah, I think I would really
9:26
agree. And when I started out with
9:28
Airbnb, I did use the smart pricing and I found that it was
9:32
pretty irregular. It was either out way too high
9:36
or usually, like you say, it was on, it was on the lower side, it
9:39
wasn't quite hitting the sweet spot.
9:40
So yeah, using dynamic pricing is important.
9:43
And if you can do it from day one as well to help you get your
9:46
rates right, it's it's really going to help you maximize your
9:49
your return. So yeah, I think that's a great,
9:51
great tip. OK then Sabrina #5.
9:54
Yeah, so #5 is search your competitor pricing.
9:57
And there's two ways to do this. Number one, you can search as a
10:00
guest on Airbnb for similar properties #2 which I think a
10:04
lot of people don't realize is that if you go into your
10:07
calendar in Airbnb, you can click on any day and then it
10:12
opens up the option to look at comparable properties, ones that
10:18
are booked and ones that are not booked.
10:20
And so you can see what comparable properties or what
10:23
Airbnb thinks comparable properties are #1 and #2 you can
10:27
see what what they're booking at.
10:29
And the ones that are left. If you're obviously you're
10:32
booking, you're clicking on a date that is open for you.
10:35
You can see who your competitors are that are still available as
10:38
well. And how important is it when
10:41
you're looking at your competitors to see what
10:43
amenities they have and, and I guess see how you as a property
10:47
stand out? Because sometimes Airbnb might
10:49
say this is a competitor and you look at the listing and the
10:52
amenities and you think, well, not really, because I've got XY
10:55
and Z. Yeah.
10:56
I mean, it's, it's really important.
10:58
I think Airbnb gets the competitors wrong sometimes.
11:02
And with that, going back to using a pricing tool, also don't
11:06
depend on your pricing tool to recommend your base pricing for
11:11
you because none of these pricing tools do a good job of
11:15
really understanding the way that your listing is marketed
11:19
compared to the listing next door.
11:21
That's almost the same. And they also may not understand
11:27
like the nuances of location from one block to the next block
11:32
can be very different. So it is really important to
11:36
understand how your property compares to others and this goes
11:41
into one of my next tips, which is when you are writing your
11:45
listing, focus on the items that make your property stand out and
11:51
that you think will be attractive to guests.
11:56
Yeah. So like in the title and
11:58
obviously in the description, trying to use I guess terms that
12:02
people are searching for. I mean, for example, we've done
12:06
some work with the property management company in London and
12:08
they always say the best amenity is parking because it's so
12:12
scarce in London that if you've got parking, put it in your
12:15
title, put it in your description because a lot of
12:17
people are are searching for it. So what what would be an example
12:20
really of like a good title on on Airbnb and what are the key
12:25
descriptive words that you should be getting kind of early
12:27
on in in your description? Yeah.
12:29
I mean, I think it really depends on your market.
12:31
And that's, again, we're doing some of that market research in
12:33
advance comes up. You know, if you're booking in a
12:37
suburb where there's lots of parking, you probably don't need
12:40
to highlight parking. So I think that depends on your
12:43
market. It's always great to read some
12:46
reviews of your competitors, see what people are valuing.
12:49
I can tell you one of the biggest mistakes that I see new
12:52
hosts make is you hear about, you know, naming your property
12:56
and creating like an individual identity.
12:59
Well, if you put that name in your title, nobody knows what it
13:04
means and it's actually does not help you.
13:07
I had a client who had this beautiful story of this
13:11
beautiful family home and they had nicknamed it The Shack and
13:15
she had that in her title and what she was not getting any
13:20
bookings. And so we took that out of her
13:21
title and I said it's a beautiful story, but put that in
13:24
your description and it made all the difference.
13:27
I can imagine it did. OK so I think we're 6 tips down.
13:31
Are we on to the 7th one now, Sabrina?
13:34
I am not sure but I'll the next one I'll give you is that you
13:38
can you should use the insights tab in Airbnb.
13:42
It's a a overlooked tab I think, but with professional hosting
13:49
tools on and without professional hosting tools on
13:52
the insights tab is useful, but you can go into that insights
13:56
tab, I would say once or twice a month and it allows you to see
14:01
how your listing is performing and it allows you to see how
14:04
your listing is performing compared to other listings in
14:08
the area. So you can know, you know,
14:11
basically get some feedback like is what I am doing correct?
14:15
Should I make changes? What can I do to better attract
14:19
guests? That sort of thing.
14:21
And, and if the insights are telling you that maybe you're
14:23
not getting the visibility that your competitors are, perhaps
14:27
you're not appearing in as many search results, what are the
14:30
first things that you should look to change to to give you
14:33
that boost? Yeah.
14:35
The first thing I would do is start doing a little bit of
14:39
research on your competitors and re look at your market as well
14:43
to see if anything has changed. Because you know, the way the
14:46
market is, it's always very fluid.
14:48
The travel industry is very fluid.
14:51
And so that's the first thing I would do and I would look at
14:54
who's who's doing really well and what are they doing and
14:58
that'll give you some hints as to what you should be doing
15:01
differently. OK, I think we're on #8 then.
15:04
So here we go. I.
15:05
Think so. I think so.
15:07
So along with, you know, creating your listing, put
15:12
something in every single field. So Airbnb will initially when
15:17
you create your listing, they will walk you through like a
15:20
very basic listing setup and oftentimes they will force you
15:24
to publish with very little information.
15:27
So your listing won't be public for about 24 to 48 hours.
15:32
You can always go back into your listing, unpublish it, and then
15:37
go into every single field and click the edit button because
15:41
that opens up more fields. And do that both in your listing
15:47
listing tab and in your calendar tab as well, because Airbnb is
15:53
searching for keywords that the guests are looking for.
15:57
Your search ranking isn't just based on the filters that people
16:00
can filter. They're looking for a host that
16:03
is utilizing every single feature within Airbnb.
16:06
Those are the ones that rank the highest in the search results.
16:09
Yeah exactly. I think it being being detailed
16:12
and and filling in everything that you can shows that you're
16:15
taking it seriously as well. And and Airbnb like likes to
16:18
know that the hosts are taking things seriously.
16:21
OK then Sabrina tip #9. So tip #9 is respond quickly.
16:27
Airbnb is watching and they want to promote hosts that are really
16:34
reliable and really responsive to guests.
16:36
So, you know, I think in your normal day-to-day life, like
16:41
maybe you don't respond to your text messages right away.
16:44
Sometimes it feels like as long as I respond within 24 hours,
16:48
that's OK. That's definitely not the case
16:51
in Airbnb. I would say you should make it a
16:54
goal to respond to every the inquiry and request within 15
16:59
minutes. Definitely try to do it in under
17:02
an hour. Yeah, it's it's so important.
17:05
Again, Airbnb is judging you as a host and how you're
17:10
interacting with the guests and if you are responding quickly.
17:13
And there are ways to set up automated responses as well.
17:16
And this might be a good way to keep up with the algorithm.
17:18
But yeah, everything you do is being judged.
17:20
So, yeah, responding quickly is so, so important.
17:24
OK then, Sabrina, 10th and final tip.
17:27
Yeah. So 10th and final tip, I think
17:29
this is low hanging fruit, but start out with those
17:33
professional photos right away. And the tip about professional
17:37
photos that I think gets missed a lot of times is Airbnb is
17:42
different than your regular real estate listing.
17:45
When someone looks at your photos, you want to evoke a
17:48
feeling from them because people make purchases based on
17:53
feelings. And so when you're doing Airbnb
17:56
photos, hire a photographer that is familiar with vacation
17:59
rentals because you want a combination of lifestyle,
18:03
architectural, and real estate photos.
18:06
You want to evoke a feeling and give people the information they
18:09
need to know to make a booking. And how important is it with the
18:13
photos to potentially theme the property a little bit and make
18:18
sure there's a consistency in in the colors and and what people
18:22
are seeing throughout the rental?
18:24
I think good design is incredibly important because
18:28
people again, shop with their eyes first.
18:31
I didn't having a theme, I think depends on your market, where
18:34
you're located. If you are located, you know, in
18:38
Paris and most of your guests are, you know, from other
18:42
countries, then putting some nods to like Parisian culture
18:47
and things like that definitely makes sense.
18:50
But setting up the property staged and beautiful and look at
18:57
those again. Look at those listings that are
18:59
performing really well. Look at the listings that catch
19:01
your eye as you're scrolling to. Take a tip as to how to make
19:05
sure your property is laid out before you have those photos
19:09
taken. Yeah, it's the the 10th tip
19:11
here, but I think probably the most important I was waiting for
19:15
us to, to talk about photographs.
19:17
It's, I think if you're starting out, it really is just the most
19:20
imperative thing to to get right.
19:22
Because if you've got those bright photos, they're going to
19:25
appeal to guests. And also it's going to help the
19:28
Airbnb algorithm because they're not only judging you on replies
19:32
and how many boxes you fill in with the listing, they are
19:36
judging you on your photos as well.
19:38
And if the photos are good, they're going to put you up the
19:41
algorithm and, and more people are going to see your, your
19:43
listing. OK.
19:45
Then Sabrina in in terms of the, you touched on this a little bit
19:48
earlier, What are the common mistakes that you see first time
19:51
hosts making that people should really avoid?
19:55
Common mistakes. I mean, I do often see first
19:57
time hosts with the attitude of I'm going to put the listing up,
20:00
see how it goes and then invest in the listing.
20:03
And you don't, you don't want to do that because Airbnb.
20:07
As you get started, they're ranking #1 they're ranking you
20:10
high in the search results, so they're giving you that bump and
20:14
you create sort of an anchor for yourself.
20:17
And if you create a low anchor in the beginning, it's hard to
20:19
work yourself up from that. The other thing that I would add
20:24
to the professional photos, and the big benefit of it is one of
20:28
the biggest fears that new hosts have is to get a bad guest.
20:32
And if you have professional photos, you're putting a
20:34
professional face forward. People are less likely who have
20:40
nefarious intentions, are less likely to book with you because
20:44
they know you're professional, they know you mean business.
20:47
And so that's another way to prevent bad guests.
20:51
The other thing, the other mistake that I see very often is
20:55
people don't go in and they don't make that listing
20:59
thorough. And often times amenities are
21:02
missed because you have to click into amenities and then you have
21:06
to go in and fill everything in and it's a bit of a tedious
21:09
process. Most new hosts when they publish
21:12
their listing land on 11:50 amenities.
21:16
Most of them actually have somewhere between 40 and 60 and
21:21
Airbnb. That's a really easy data point
21:23
for Airbnb to look. And I like, I love the way you
21:26
put a Airbnb is judging you. Airbnb is watching you and
21:29
they're judging you and they're very judgmental.
21:32
So be sure to be thorough with it.
21:34
They are very judgmental, Yeah. And just think about it from an
21:36
amenities point of view there. If you've put 12 things in and
21:40
you've actually got 40, that's something that a potential guest
21:43
might be looking for. And if you've not added it, you
21:46
might lose a booking because they think you don't have it
21:49
when in fact you do have it. You mentioned before as well
21:53
using a dynamic pricing tool like Beyond, of course.
21:56
Are there any other key tech that first time hosts should be
22:00
looking at? Or is is Airbnb plus dynamic
22:02
pricing kind of enough to get started?
22:05
I think that's enough to get started.
22:06
Airbnb is pretty robust. I think you mentioned it
22:10
earlier. You know you can do scheduled
22:13
messages within Airbnb. I always tell people the guest
22:17
experience starts the moment that guest contacts you, not the
22:21
moment they walk into your property.
22:23
Airbnb also has lock integration.
22:27
Smart lock integration as well. If you are looking to
22:32
automatically schedule with your cleaner you can do that with an
22:35
Airbnb by adding them as a Co host and giving them only
22:38
calendar access. So as a new host, if you have
22:42
just one property, I think Airbnb is adequate.
22:47
I personally, you know, as you grow or as you start to take the
22:51
business more seriously, I like to use a third party software.
22:55
And I don't know if you know if I should mention it.
22:58
I use Hospitable and I find it makes hosting extremely
23:02
efficient and it's just a little bit more robust than the tools
23:05
that Airbnb has. Yeah, Hospitable are one of our
23:08
major sponsors, so absolutely happy.
23:11
For you to. Mention those guys.
23:13
No problem at all. Fantastic.
23:15
OK, well, that's that's really useful.
23:17
And I'm sure people starting out on on Airbnb will find that
23:21
incredibly informative as they start their journeys.
23:24
Sabrina, just tell us a little bit about yourself and your
23:27
business. BNB Excellent and where people
23:29
can find you. Yeah, yeah.
23:31
So I've been in the short term rental business since 2015.
23:37
I am a super host. My clients get 95% five star
23:41
reviews and I've helped to onboard as an Airbnb ambassador
23:45
over 1000 hosts on to Airbnb. So I really know the platform
23:49
like the back of my hand. I do consulting and my specialty
23:53
is in helping people to increase their bookings without doing the
23:57
common advice of just lowering your price to get more people
24:01
in, and that's what I specialize in.
24:05
And where can people find you? So people can find me at my
24:08
website and I will, I will give a freebie away for host planet
24:13
listeners. So you can go to B&B, Excellent.
24:16
So that's B&B and then excellent with at.com and forward slash
24:21
host planet and you can get a free checklist from me.
24:25
All right, excellent. We will put that detail in the
24:27
show notes along with your other links.
24:29
Sabrina, thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge on
24:32
Airbnb and for joining us on host Planet Bite Size.
24:35
Thanks for having me, it's been awesome.
24:37
Great to chat to Sabrina Callen there from BNB Excellent 10
24:41
amazing tips to help you get started on Airbnb.
24:44
Remember, professional photographs are essential and
24:47
make sure you get your pricing right from day one.
24:51
All right, that's it for today's episode.
24:52
Remember, this series is sponsored by House Philly.
24:55
And if you'd like to try their PMS or digital guidebook, head
24:58
to housephilly.com. For more free education tips and
25:01
trends from the STR industry, visit Houseplanet dot Club where
25:05
you can sign up for our newsletter, listen to our
25:07
podcasts and download the suite of ebooks for hosts and property
25:11
managers. That's it for today's episode.
25:13
And so next time, happy hosting.