Airbnb Listing Tips for Hosts

In today's competitive vacation rental market, listing your home on Airbnb is no longer as simple as filling out a few fields with your property's information, uploading a few photos of your vacation rental, and hitting "go live." With millions of Airbnb listings worldwide, it's not easy to stand out in search results among an endless list of properties.

To attract the attention of potential guests and get booked, you need to craft an Airbnb listing that tells the story of your property and describes the unique experience your guests will have. Whether you're looking to create your first property page on Airbnb or optimize your current listings to get more bookings, here you'll find Airbnb listing tips that can help you get it right.

Airbnb Listing Tips to Make It Successful

Airbnb is a huge marketplace where you compete with thousands of similar properties in your local area, and it's important to ensure that you can stand out. So what should you do to achieve just that? Here are the top Airbnb listing tips for a successful start.

Highlight your selling points, but be honest about the downsides

Write a detailed description of your property to set guest expectations and create an eye-catching title to highlight your unique selling points. You should use the description to attract customers. So don't just state the dry facts about your space—instead, get creative and describe the experience your guests will have if they book your home or apartment.

Avoid writing in long paragraphs, and use bullet points to highlight the essential things in your listing. Use relevant words and phrases so your listing can be shown in the proper Airbnb categories.

Although focusing only on the advantages might be tempting, you should be honest in managing guests' expectations. Don't make your vacation rental property look better than it is. Be clear about the weak points of your property and anything that can affect your guests' stay.  

Providing accurate details about your place and communicating with guests can lead to excellent reviews and higher Airbnb ratings that can help you win more bookings and become a successful host.

Managing an Airbnb property involves many responsibilities and may feel like a part-time job. That's why many hosts use vacation rental software like Hospitable to automate repetitive daily tasks so they can manage everything hassle-free, even remotely.

Upload great photos

Photos are the first thing travelers pay attention to when searching for a place to stay on the Airbnb platform. That is why you should invest in professional-quality pictures to showcase your property's personality and style and make a great first impression on your potential guests. It's key to boosting the number of your bookings. High-quality photos may also improve your prominence within a category.

You should show everything guests can access indoors and outdoors, arranging pictures of your listing in a walkthrough fashion. Airbnb recommends uploading multiple photos of each room in your home taken from different angles and using a mix of wide and detailed shots to give your potential guests a good sense of your rental space.

Organize your photos by room and add specific details to each room, including amenities, accessibility features, privacy information, and sleeping arrangements. Use captions to point out the most important details.

Select a stunning cover photo. Remember that it's the first thing guests notice as they scroll the search results page. So ensure your cover photo accurately reflects what you offer and highlights what sets your rental space apart.

You may want to hire a professional Airbnb photographer who can show your STR property as best as possible. But if you enjoy taking photos and have enough time to edit them, you can do it yourself using your smartphone.

Offer amenities and features that guests want

Whether offering a tiny home in a rural area or a ski house rental in the mountains, you are expected to provide essential amenities that Airbnb guests need for a pleasant stay. The basic amenities include toilet paper, hand and body soap, one towel per guest, one pillow per guest, and linens for each guest bed.

Amenities play a vital role in shaping the overall guest experience. Many travelers filter search results to find properties with specific amenities. For example, according to Airbnb, the top amenities that guests search for most often are a pool, high-speed WiFi, free parking, a kitchen, a hot tub, air conditioning or heating, a washer or dryer, a self-check-in, a fireplace, TV or cable.

Adding everything you offer to your listing may help you attract guests and increase bookings. But remember that not all guests are the same, so just make sure you understand your target audience's needs and preferences. You can research similar properties in your local area to understand who they cater to and what they provide.

Then, you can equip your property to the same standard and add some extras to stand out. For example, you can make your listing more appealing by adding accessibility features to create an inviting space for guests with disabilities.

Optimize your pricing

Setting the right price for your Airbnb rental is crucial for attracting guests and maximizing your revenue. Your listing's price is also one of the most important ranking factors influencing how it appears in guests' search results. The Airbnb search algorithm prioritizes the total price of a listing before taxes and the quality of a listing compared to similar listings in the area. Listing's photos, reviews and ratings, amenities, and other characteristics can help determine its quality.

That means setting a competitive price and maintaining high quality can help improve your property's visibility. Listings that offer the best value in any area tend to rank higher in search results.

Note that setting competitive nightly rates is not a one-time deal. You need to constantly check and update them according to market trends in supply and demand, seasonality, and other factors. This will help you optimize your Airbnb pricing strategy for maximum revenue.

The easiest way to ensure that nightly rates are competitive is to use a dynamic pricing tool that uses AI to automatically adjust rates based on real-time market data. It can help you secure as many bookings as possible at the best rates possible.

Choose the booking settings that are right for you

It's up to you to choose how guests can book your space. Instant Book allows guests who meet all your requirements and agree to your house rules to instantly book your property for available dates without your prior approval. You don't need to review each booking request and then accept it, which saves you time.

Instant Book also speeds up the reservation process for guests, and they often use this option to filter their search results. So, if you enable Instant Book for your listing, you can get more bookings, but it's important to keep your calendar updated to prevent unexpected bookings and avoid cancellations.

So, if you list your property on Vrbo and Booking.com, you should consider using a vacation rental channel manager like Hospitable to sync your Airbnb calendar with calendars on other booking channels. This way, you'll avoid getting double bookings or canceling a reservation due to a scheduling error, which could result in penalties and bad reviews.

While Instant Book offers efficiency and convenience, you may find that booking requests work better for you, helping prevent unnecessary cancellations. This Airbnb feature allows you to review a booking request before you accept or decline it. Just ensure you respond to the potential guest within 24 hours and avoid frequently declining reservation requests to improve your search ranking.

Booking requests may be better if you have unpredictable availability because of your personal needs and schedule or if you use Airbnb to offer long-term stays of 28 nights and more.

Make check-in easy

Enable a self-check-in to let guests access your property without you having to hand over the keys. It's a convenient solution that saves your time, helps improve guest experience, and makes your listing more appealing. Many guests enjoy the convenience and flexibility in arrival times, so they often filter search results for a self-check-in option when choosing a place to stay.

The most convenient and secure way to offer a self-check-in is to install a smart door lock so the guest can access your property using a unique code. You can generate, activate, and delete a security code remotely using your smartphone.

Hosts who use Hospitable to streamline their operations can take advantage of our integrations with popular smart lock systems and automate messaging door codes to guests. Hospitable can automatically create and send unique door codes to your reserved guests shortly before check-in, so you don't have to manually type out a code for each guest. The unique code is automatically deleted after your guests check out.

Respond to guests quickly

Response rate and response time are important ranking factors on the Airbnb platform, so how quickly you respond to guests can impact your listing's position in search results. Being responsive is about providing a great guest experience, building trust, and making travelers happy. That's why Airbnb hosts are expected to respond to reservation requests, booking inquiries, and all other guest messages within 24 hours.

Fast responses are especially important before booking, when travelers might need more information to make a reservation, and around check-in and check-out, when guests might need a quick reply to their questions. And, of course, it's your responsibility as a host to communicate effectively with your guests during the entire customer journey. As a part of Airbnb's ground rules for hosts, you should always be willing to answer questions from guests and resolve issues as soon as possible.

Being available to your guests 24/7 to ensure that they receive immediate attention is challenging. If you manually type out and send messages, it can take hours of your busy day. But there's a way to automate this process using vacation rental software like Hospitable. You just need to set messaging rules, and our AI-based system will do the rest to ensure that your guests always receive the information they need at the right time.

Pro tip: Be ready, as guests may have many questions from the moment they book a stay—they need more information about your property, your local area, and attractions to plan their trip. You can reduce the number of questions asked if you create a digital guidebook, which guests can access online from their smartphone at any time.

There are different third-party software tools that you can use to create a comprehensive web-based guidebook for your listing to provide guests with all the necessary information for their stay in one place. For example, Hospitable has integrations with guest experience platforms such as DACK, SuiteOp, and Charge Automation and an innovative guidebook platform, Touch Stay.

If you opt for Hospitable to automate your hosting routine, you can connect your Hospitable account to any of these tools. Then, the tool of your choice will create reservation-specific links to your digital guidebook for your guests every time you get a booking. Just set your messaging rules, and Hospitable will automatically share the reservation-specific guidebook link in your welcome letter. 

Use guest reviews to your advantage

Airbnb guests consider reviews left by other guests before booking a property because they are the only way to trust a rental. Reviews are also an important ranking factor. The more great reviews and high ratings you have, the higher your listing will rank in Airbnb search results.

So, you should do your best to make your guests feel welcome, anticipate their needs, and ensure they have a great stay. Make sure your space is clean, well-maintained, and comfortable; communicate effectively, respond to any issues promptly, and include personal touches like a well-thought-out welcome basket.

Always ask happy guests to leave you a review before they check out in your thank-you message. Then, you're more likely to get excellent reviews and five-star ratings that can help you earn a Guest Favorite badge, which is a marker of quality and trust. Airbnb guests love seeing that badge, and they can also filter search results to book only listings included in Guest Favorites.

Pro tip: You can also encourage guests to leave reviews by writing them a review first and then sending them a reminder to leave you an honest review in return. And you don't have to do it manually. If you opt for Hospitable, you can automate your reviews with our Airbnb review generator and automatic review request. You can also use AI to help you create personalized reviews and review replies. We'll protect your profile from negative reviews from guests whenever you need to give a bad review.

Show more flexibility

Setting more flexible maximum and minimum stay requirements may help your Airbnb listings appear in more search results and drive more bookings. Decreasing your minimum length of stay will help your listing appear in searches for shorter stays and fill gaps in your booking calendar.

If you increase your maximum length of stay to 28 nights or more, your listing will qualify for searches for longer stays, which remain popular on Airbnb. Accepting longer stays can help you fill your calendar and reduce your workload when managing turnover cleanings and communicating with guests.

Today's Airbnb guests want more flexibility as they plan their upcoming travels, so choosing a flexible cancellation policy for your listing can also be smart as it will help attract guests. Travelers will appreciate that you offer free cancellation if they cancel up to 24 hours before check-in and will be more likely to book with you.

Still, choosing a cancellation policy is all about finding a balance between what works for you and your hosting needs and supports your guests. Remember that you can always update your policy.

Final Thought

Hosting on Airbnb is a rewarding experience, but it requires commitment, understanding your market, meticulous planning, and attention to tiny details when setting up your Airbnb listing. Remember that your Airbnb listing is how potential guests learn about your home, so providing more information can help you attract bookings and achieve your earning goals.

It's important to add professional-quality photos, create a comprehensive description, and clearly communicate your property's best features and amenities to set the right expectations and help guests find value in your price. Hopefully, our Airbnb listing tips will help you stand out on the platform and get the bookings you want to run a successful STR business.