Whilst Airbnb hosts would like nothing more than a magic wand to wave for getting found more often, it unfortunately does not exist. There are however a few specific things that hosts are able to keep up their sleeves for increasing the likelihood of getting found in search results.
Below are 10 additional tips and tricks you can implement to help your listing get found more often on Airbnb:
Relevance to Search Factors
Responsiveness to Booking Requests
Booking Acceptance
Previous Bookings
Reduce Your Pricing
Maintain 5-Star Reviews
Use Professional High-Quality Photos
Demonstrate Trustworthiness and Reliability
Ensuring Calendar Accuracy
Linking Your Social Media Accounts
Relevance to Search Factors
Ensure that you provide Airbnb with as much information about your place as possible. Airbnb will try to match any search filters entered by guests to listings that best line up with what those guests are looking for.
The easiest way to score a quick win here is simply by specifying as many of the amenities you provide at your place on your Airbnb listing:
Click here to see a comprehensive list of product recommendations for the above-mentioned amenities that you’re able to provide for your guests.
Responsiveness to Booking Requests
Airbnb look favorably upon hosts that respond quickly to reservation requests as it demonstrates a commitment to the Airbnb community. Airbnb presume that these good habits will likely continue throughout a guest’s stay and will reward hosts they think will provide guests with superior experiences.
Booking Acceptance
The flip-side of this are hosts that receive reservation requests that they continually reject. This demonstrates a lack of commitment to the Airbnb community.
Whilst inevitably hosts will reject reservation requests for a whole variety of reasons, a consistent pattern of declining the majority of reservation requests will be frowned upon by Airbnb.
Airbnb favor hosts that they believe are more committed to accommodating guests, and will display listings from these hosts higher up in search results.
Previous Bookings
Airbnb assume that a host with a long track record of hosting will naturally be a better host than a new host still learning their way around the Airbnb ecosystem. To ensure optimal guest experiences, Airbnb will favor hosts that have been hosting on Airbnb for longer and whom possess a solid track record of reviews.
Do everything in your power to maximize the number of bookings you receive as quickly as possible. Whilst largely outside the direct control of a host, one way for new hosts to do this is to…
Reduce your Pricing
When starting off on Airbnb, you’ll want to reduce your regular prices anywhere from 20-40% for your first few bookings. Once you’ve hosted 5-10 bookings and have a few positive reviews against your name, you’re no longer the “new kid on the block” and you’ll be able to boost your prices back to normal.
Maintain 5-Star Reviews
Airbnb naturally want to link guests with hosts that will create the best possible experiences for their customers. The more your reviews suggest that you are the type of host likely to provide a 5-star experience, the more likely Airbnb will be in wanting to promote you to guests looking for a place to stay.
If you’re a new host, it’s worth under-charging and over-delivering to get some “quick wins” on the board.
Getting 5-star reviews is covered in greater depth here.
Use Professional, High-Quality Photos
Ensure the photos you display are professional high-quality photos, and that you showcase no less than 10 photos of your place for your listing.
Airbnb naturally favor listings that enable guests to envisage what it would be like to stay in a place, and there’s no easier way of doing that than with photos that show off your place in its best light.
Demonstrate your Trustworthiness and Reliability
Airbnb want guests to feel instant comfort with the hosts they’re considering to stay with. Providing multiple forms of verified ID (connecting your Airbnb profile to social networks, uploading official ID and confirming personal details) will assist Airbnb in portraying you as a reliable and trustworthy host from the instant a guest considers staying at your place.
Airbnb will prioritize hosts that have multiple forms of verified ID in search results.
Using the Airbnb verification process to demonstrate credibility is covered in greater depth here.
Ensuring Calendar Accuracy to Avoid Cancellations
Receiving cancellations from hosts reflects poorly on Airbnb’s reliability as a platform for booking short-term travel accommodation.
Airbnb want to ensure that if a guest looks at a host’s calendar and sees that a place is available, then the place that they’re looking at should actually be available for the guest to then book.
As a reminder of how seriously Airbnb take this, when you first setup your account, you were required to commit to keeping an accurate calendar:
Make sure to login frequently and review or update your calendar. Even if you make no changes, simply visiting your calendar will provide Airbnb with an indication that the calendar is being actively monitored and is accurate.
Linking your Social Media Accounts
Guests naturally trust friends of friends more so than strangers. If you happen to be connected to a guest through mutual Facebook friends, then the prospective guest will be informed of this.
Make sure to connect your Facebook account to your Airbnb account to take advantage of the Airbnb Social Connections feature:
Linking your social media accounts is covered here.
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