Do you have an apartment in short-term rental but often find yourself at the bottom of the search results on Booking and Airbnb?
Have you thought that there must be ranking strategies that work, but you don’t have the time to dive deep into the topic?
Let me help you with a few ideas.
Both Booking and Airbnb want to make money from the apartments listed, right? If you were Booking or Airbnb, would you show the apartments that bring in money or the ones that don’t really bring anything?
Here are a few tips & tricks to keep both platforms happy and to make sure you have the best chances of getting bookings:
1. Make sure your calendar is always updated
Keep the calendars permanently synced to avoid double bookings.
I don’t recommend opening the calendar one month at a time. This way, you won’t provide predictability to the platforms and will miss bookings made in advance. Instead, I suggest keeping the availability window open for at least 6 months ahead.
2. Update your prices frequently. This is my favorite strategy, which ensures an average occupancy rate of over 80% annually for my apartments.
Specifically, I set base prices at the beginning of the year when I open the calendars, but I check and update them almost daily.
Don’t have a booking for the next 2 days? I’ll definitely do a promotion to get a booking.
3. Instant Book on Airbnb. Yes, it’s much more comfortable to review each booking request before accepting it, but there are solutions.
If you select the Instant Book option, Airbnb offers 2 settings that protect you from unpleasant situations or problem guests:
Good Track Record – this allows you to only receive guests with no negative reviews or complaints on record.
Pre-booking message – if you want guests to be aware of important rules for you.
Also, in any situation where you don’t feel comfortable accepting a guest, you can contact Airbnb’s call center.
4. Good reviews and the new “Guest Favorite” badge, which speak for themselves.
If you have good reviews, you’ve proven that you’re a trustworthy partner, and you’ll be displayed before other listings in search results.
5. Good response time
We strive to respond as quickly as possible to all messages, especially when we receive an inquiry. Also, a 100% response rate is very important, and we always respond even to thank-you messages after sending check-in instructions, for example.
I’m curious to hear more feedback from other apartment owners – what has worked for you?