How to Airbnb: posting your listing
How can guests book? If you are renting out the entire space, I highly recommend toggling the “Instant Book” feature on. This feature allows guests to instantly book rather than having to send you a message and wait for you to see their message and accept or reject. I have had nothing but good guests while using this feature. Remember, you are already filtering your guests with everything from décor, to location, to. I find price to be the best filter to get good guests. People who pay more are less likely to be bad guests. (This is not a rule, just a general guide.) I’ll include more ways to filter your guests later, but for now, I highly recommend Instant Book.
The only reasons not to turn on Instant Book is if you’re sharing the space with a guest and would like more control over who your temporary housemates might be. Otherwise, guests need to message you and wait for your response, which I think is an unnecessary barrier to booking your place vs. another similar listing. Requesting also necessitates you to be “on call” for booking inquiries. If you don’t do Instant Book, you can’t take any technology-free vacations, and you have to respond to guest inquiries within twenty-four hours. Luckily, Airbnb recently started allowing hosts to add people to help with their accounts. This feature has been a godsend, since I can add members of my staff to the account and they can handle messages. This used to be my biggest gripe with being a host: that I had to always be on deck or share my account info with someone else.
To get back to Instant Book, if you’re really worried about your Instant Book guests, you can set filters to make sure they are who they say they are. Airbnb recently started forcing all new users to submit a government-issued ID when signing up. That means users who made their accounts before this government ID rule still don’t necessarily have government-issued ID attached to their accounts. You can set parameters for your Instant Book guests such as making sure they have a government-linked ID with their profile or recommendations from other hosts. I don’t have this set and I don’t think you need it, but hey, I want to make sure you feel safe.
On Instant Book you also have three penalty-free cancellations. This means you can cancel a guest without any repercussions if you don’t feel comfortable with them after they book and before they arrive. I used one of these on a user that pretty clearly seemed to be a scammer with fake info — not sure what his angle was, but I canceled him just to be safe. I’ll go more into the repercussions of you canceling a guest outside of those three penalty-free cancelations later . . . but for right now, just know that they are significant, and cancelations should be saved for when you really need them.
I know that actually listing your Airbnb isn’t the most exciting activity in the world, but here’s the main thing to remember: you are iterating based on feedback over time. Put stuff in, then change it based on the questions and feedback you get from your guests. With that in mind, I’m going to move along to the Amenities and Guidebook parts of set up. This book is like your listing, it’s always evolving; if you have any questions or feel I glossed over something important, just email me at alex@alexairbnb.com
Describing Amenities
Airbnb has a whole section dedicated to your listing’s amenities. These include everything your place could have, from a hot tub to Wi-Fi to a TV. It’s important to have as many amenities as possible, since many people search for listings based on amenities. Airbnb also allows users to filter out homes without certain amenities, so lacking basic amenities such as air conditioning or Wi-Fi can significantly reduce the number of people who even see your listing.
The “amenity” section is broken up into four parts: general, business, family, and emergency. (Airbnb is always adding new sections and changing things up to help guests, so be sure to check for other amenities and any new sections you can fill out.) Having certain amenities boosts you in the search results and helps give you additional badges or approvals. Many times, people will also expect certain amenities and not realize you’re missing something they assumed you have. This has happened to me quite a few times, since most guests don’t read the listing. When I didn’t have a TV in one of my listings (or have one listed in the amenities), a guest messaged me to complain. The opportunity cost of not having basic amenities is often higher than the cost of adding one.
Having all the amenities in the business category qualifies your place to be “business traveler approved.” You only need to have around $30 worth of items to qualify: an iron, hangers (if you don’t already have them), a first aid kit, a laptop-friendly workspace, and a carbon monoxide detector. Airbnb seems to constantly change their amenity requirements, so you’ll want to confirm the details when it’s time put your listing together, but you shouldn’t need anything too out of the ordinary. The only new item I needed to buy when Airbnb added the business traveler amenity section was a CO detector, since I usually get everything else they require when I set up my listing.
It’s hard to measure how much being approved in the business category helps you, but I would say about 50 percent of my guests are business guests, so it can’t hurt, especially if business travelers are booking through their corporate Airbnb accounts. Plus, a thirty-dollar one-time cost to make at least a few thousand more dollars? That sounds like a good deal to me!
Providing a Guidebook
What about that Guidebook though? What’s up with that? I’m not talking about a physical binder full of information for your guests (though you’ll want that too); this is the part of your listing where you can put all of your recommendations for sights to see, places to eat, and things to do. When you’re setting up your listing, there is an address search bar for you to find a restaurant you like and add it to your Guidebook. Once you’ve added the address, you can tag it as a restaurant, sightseeing location, café, or whatever that place may be. Then you can write a short review of the place for your guests to read and reference during their stay.
I know what you’re thinking: Can’t a guest just search Yelp or TripAdvisor or some other review service? Probably, but guess what? Airbnb loves when you fill out that Guidebook, and they’ll boost your listing in the search results. Search result placement is everything, so put at least thirty locations in your Guidebook to comfortably help boost the listing. Often, guests do view your Guidebook, and they will appreciate your helpful suggestions.
How frequently used is the Guidebook? I’ve had a few guests thank me for it over the years, so it would be safe to assume someone will read it, but it’s a bit hard to get to in the app, so I’m not sure how many guests even know the Guidebook exists. Because of this, it’s likely your younger, more tech-savvy guests are the ones who might take a look.
What should you write? List local coffee shops, grocery stores, landmark sites, restaurants, information office, and just generally what a tourist should do in the city/town your listing is in or will need to know about if they’re living there for a while. Then write a couple sentences on why that place is good.
You don’t have to sell them, so just write normally:
“Neopapalis is my favorite pizza place in Ann Arbor. I always get the gorgonzola and prosciutto pizza with a marinara base.”
That’s basically it. Of course, you can write more or less, but as far as I’ve been able to see, the length of your entries doesn’t affect reviews or search engine optimization.
Breaks and Guest Stays
Airbnb allows you to set a minimum number of nights your guests can stay. For instance, you can have guests that stay for a minimum of two nights or even eighteen nights if you wanted. This is helpful if you are cleaning the place yourself and do not want to become a full-time cleaner. Logically, setting a minimum means you will take in less money since setting a some percentage of guests will not see your listing. At least in my experience, however, one-night stays are rarer, and I found they result in poorer utilization of days. For instance, if you get someone staying for one night on Friday, you may have just lost a sale for Saturday night. I recommend setting a two-night minimum, but please test this in your own market since every market is different.
You can also select when you want guests to arrive and leave. For instance, if you leave for work every Monday and fly back on Thursday, you can choose to just have guests that arrive on Monday and leave on Thursday. There’s lots of flexibility there to help Airbnb work around your life.
You can also block people from booking your place the day of or set it up so you can get a day of rest after bookings. When I first started Airbnb, I set a minimum one-day notice and one-day break between guests so I could have more time to clean or vacate my space, since I was living there at the time. Once I got everything up and running (and not living in the listing), I turned off these two blockers, since all places were cleaned as soon as a guest left regardless of when another guest was coming. That means the day block is unnecessary, and you increase your chances of a last-second booking on an unbooked night, which is always nice.
This may not have been the most exciting section in the book, but hey — your listing is all set up now!
Summary
- Use Airbnb’s Instant Book to get more bookings and avoid having to respond to every guest within twenty-four hours.
- Guests filter their search based on the amenities they want. The more amenities, the more likely you are to get booked.
- Airbnb allows for lots of flexibility with when guests can and can’t book. Be sure to customize the guest booking rules around your lifestyle.
Pick up the book to learn how to start your own Airbnb: https://amzn.to/3gUwjh5
