Ranking higher within Airbnb’s search results among an endless list of similar listings translates to securing more bookings to your property.
As a result, learning what factors influence your Airbnb listing’s search ranking and understanding how to make your way to the top of the list is a must for every Airbnber. Airbnb SEO hacks help you improve your ranking position on Airbnb and convert more bookings by taking simple steps and spending as little as possible.
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Why Does Airbnb SEO Matter So Much?
Just like Google, Airbnb’s goal is to match a guest’s search with the best possible properties as quickly as possible. Airbnb emphasises a high level of user experience. As a result, it displays the listings that are most likely to be booked to its users to simplify and speed up the booking process.
SEO (Search engine optimisation) determines the quality of a listing and upgrades your listing’s position in Airbnb searches.
Use the following Airbnb SEO hacks to increase your visibility and occupancy rate and give your bookings a boost,, especially during the slower seasons.
The Most Useful Airbnb SEO Hacks
1. Guest Reviews and ratings
To boost your Airbnb ranking, 80% of your reviews should be 5-star. Your property’s review rate is the total completed guest trips of your rental divided by the reviews you have received.
Guest review is the foremost Airbnb ranking factor. However, new listings have no review to begin with. As a result, Airbnb primarily boosts new listings to help them establish themselves successfully.
When the new listing boost is over, and the review-based SEO begins, it is now your turn to show your host superpowers and push your listing to the top of the list.
Learn how to get more 5-star reviews by reading our blog post How to Make up for Lost Airbnb Guest Reviews?
2. Price
We should talk about price, as the second Airbnb SEO hack. The cheaper your listing, the higher your ranking will be compared to other similar rentals in your location.
I hate to break it to you, but there is no way out but to drop your rates and set a competitive price within your market to get fully booked.
You can search for comparable listings in your city or neighbourhood to get an impression of market prices and decide what price to charge.
Fortunately, dynamic pricing tools like Beyond or PriceLabs can take charge of market monitoring and rate setting for you. They constantly scan the market for supply and demand trends, set seasonal, holidays, weekends, and special events rates, and keep your Airbnb listing price updated all the time to help you stay ahead of the competition.
3. Booking Rate Percentage
Your booking rate percentage is calculated by the number of people who have visited your listing multiplied by the ones who have booked your place.
Your booking rate percentage dramatically depends on the quality of your listing and how attractive it seems to guests. Having a property listed appropriately and optimised from time to time is a crucial step to promote your listing to the top of the list.
Posting high-res professional photos, show your property at its very best. And it will help you to get saved on Airbnb user’s wish lists.
Write a well-crafted listing title and property description. Try to use as many words as you can in your listing descriptions and learn how to use keywords smartly.
Make a comprehensive list detailing all of the amenities you offer like iron, desk, dangers, hairdryers, and the Internet.
Read our blog post 8 Tips for Listing on Airbnb You Must Know, to get more ideas on Airbnb listing optimisation.
4. Minimum Stay
The shorter your length of stay, the higher your ranking will be. Airbnb search algorithm considers all the factors that make it easier for users to book a property. Your minimum stay can affect the number your listing appears on the search results and can have a significant impact on your property’s occupancy rate.
You can also benefit from a better Airbnb search position by offering long-term stays.
Some guests are looking for more extended stays (more than 28 days) on Airbnb. So setting a monthly discount enables a listing to appear in the long-term stay searches as well.
5. Calendar Updates
Airbnb wants to offer up-to-date listings to its users and keep the user experience as high as possible, so it encourages hosts to update their Airbnb listing and keep it refreshed. This is your fifth Airbnb SEO hack.
So all the vacation rental managers need to do in this case is to keep their calendars updated and prove themselves as active hosts to Airbnb.
Again, in this case, modern technology has saved the guests from having to update their availability calendars. Channel managers are here to push rates and availability to all the channels you have listed your property on, including Airbnb, and keep your calendars as up-to-date as possible.
6. Instant Booking and Cancellation Rate
Having the instant Booking feature turned on signifies that guests can instantly book with you. ‘Instant Book’ listings have a higher chance of getting booked thane quest to Book’ listings, as the guests don’t have to communicate with the hosts and wait for their response. As a result, they perform better on the search results. Just ensure to screen your visitors completely when having this feature on. Zeevou’s 5-Step Online Check-in Process can help you take care of your booking and guest vetting processes from head to tail.
For hosts choosing to use ‘Request to Book’, search ranking considers how many guests request to book but are declined.
7. Response Rate
Responding to your guest inquiries within 24 hours can remarkably improve your ranking on the search results page.
Automate your messaging to be able to respond quickly to requests, win more bookings and rank higher.
Zeevou’s unified inbox makes guest communications a breeze by letting you and your vacation rental crew access all messages and emails from one central location from a unified hub.
three factors that will affect your booking rate:
8. Social Media Visibility
One of the easiest Airbnb SEO hacks is related to social media marketing. Attracting visitors from social media is a strong parameter for Airbnb to feature a property on its first search results. So plan some effective social media marketing strategies for your vacation rental business to gain better Airbnb rankings.
Airbnb takes into consideration over 100 different data points to score the relevance of each listing to the search queries of the users to match guests with ideal listings.
Figuring out what drives search results on Airbnb and learning some rank-boosting Airbnb SEO hacks can help you place your property among the first listings and get seen by more users.
Just bear in mind that Airbnb constantly updates its algorithms to offer the best results for hosts and guests, so the suggested ways to optimise your listing here can be subject to change in future. Check Airbnb help centre for the latest updates.
