You may have a beautiful Airbnb property in the heart of a wonderful city, with a sleek, modern design and all the interior bells and whistles imaginable. You may even set very moderate rates for your lovely short-stay home or offer generous discounts and bonuses for various groups of guests. Still, it may not be enough to make your vacation rental business thrive.
Truth to be told, if your listing is hidden from the sight of potential clients on Airbnb’s search engine result page (SERP), you are unlikely to get many bookings and earn much money, although having mega cool accommodation for rent.
The art of hitting a higher positing on Airbnb SERP is called Airbnb SEO (stands for search engine optimization), and it requires some skills and effort to master. Yet, if you want your offering to emerge in the TOP 10 search results and be visible to a broader audience, you will take your time to dig into the essence of Airbnb SEO and learn to implement it for the sake of your business profitability.
The core of Airbnb SEO
Airbnb SEO is all about getting your listing to come up on the first page of Airbnb’s search results. Proposals that meet the requirements of the Airbnb search machine are ranked higher and receive more views than the listings concealed in the depth of the search query.
The Airbnb search god (sorry, algorithm) uses over 100 various statistics to evaluate each offering and determine its ranking position. Some of them are publicly available on Airbnb’s official website to adumbrate the mechanics behind its algorithm. However, the largest portion of influencing factors is kept under wraps, forcing hosts to do lots of guesswork to boost the visibility of their listings.
Surely, you can study Airbnb requirements and apply this knowledge to your Airbnb SEO strategy. Still, there is one hitch. The Airbnb machine analyzes not only your page from different angles, but also the performance of the viewer for a more personalized search experience. By doing so, Airbnb tries to match travelers with perfect rentals and quicken the deal process.
Factors used to evaluate a listing are called internal and can be influenced by a host/property manager.
Factors estimating a prospect are called external and cannot be influenced.
The algorithm takes into consideration both internal and external factors to define the listing’s visibility on Airbnb SERP.
Factors impacting your ranking on Airbnb SERP
Airbnb keeps a close watch on your listing and registers every event that takes place within it. Every new action that happens to your page will change (either positively or negatively) your SEO position.
When a user clicks on your proposal and scrolls it down, when you have a new review, when your listing is added to a wishlist, even when your home has not been booked for a while – Airbnb’s machine records everything to be then used for or against you.
Internal factors determine the attractiveness of your offering to visitors, while external factors analyze the user’s behavior (measures they take when they see your publication on Airbnb).
Internal (on-page) factors include:
- The age of your lodging. The longer you advertise your vacation rental on the Airbnb platform, the more credible you appear to its search engine.
- Listing title and description. Airbnb’s algorithm scrutinizes the use of keywords in the heading and description of your proposal to decide whether it is relevant to the prospect.
- Cancellation rate. Airbnb god will punish you if you reject booking requests or cancel confirmed reservations without a good reason.
- Competitiveness. The price is one of the major factors affecting your placement on Airbnb SERP. You want to set a reasonable rate within your market to achieve greater visibility of your proposal.
- Discounts. Airbnb appreciates hosts who offer price discounts for longer stays.
- Immediate booking. If you enable an Instant Book feature for your listing, Airbnb will reward you with a better ranking, too.
- Stay length: To shine bright on search results, a rental must mention the duration of minimum and maximum stay. For improved ranking, a host can both decrease the minimum nights and increase the maximum nights.
- Named images. A part of an efficient Airbnb SEO strategy is including keywords to the description of the photographs you upload for your proposal. This will help the algorithm to decide whether your listing is a great fit for vacationers.
- Provided amenities. You want to be very informative when describing your property and what it has to offer. The more extras your property features, the better edge you will have over competitors in your area. Think of including some pleasant bonuses and perks for your guests, such as free parking lot, free access to a gym, free tea/coffee/sweets/souvenirs/Internet. Equipping your home with safety systems and having landlord’s insurance will also raise your credibility in front of a prospect.
- Response quickness. If you do not keep inquirers waiting and swiftly reply to their messages, the more customer traffic you will enjoy on Airbnb. If you find it hard to reply to inquiries 24/7, you can invest in professional Airbnb management software to automate guest communication and lots of other time-consuming tasks every host has to bother with (read more on HostyApp Airbnb Automation).
- Self check-in/check-out. The platform loves those landlords who allow their tenants to move in and move out through features like Smart Lock.
- Stars and reviews. The abundance of positive reviews and five-star ratings propels your visibility on Airbnb SERP.
- Super Host status. While an icon of Super Host does not give a clear advantage on Airbnb SEO, super hosts look more trustworthy in the viewer’s eyes, dramatically increasing the chances of making a deal.
External (off-page) factors include:
- Booking time is an index that calculates how quickly a prospect places a reservation after viewing your proposal.
- Bouncing. This criterion counts the number of prospects who only browse your listing and leave it without any traceable actions.
- Click-through. This metric counts how many times your listing has been clicked when appearing on the search query together with other similar listings.
- Conversion rate. This indicator compares the number of users who finally reserved your lodging versus the number of users who viewed your offering but decided to book another accommodation in the same location.
- Direct links. This metric analyzes whether your Airbnb content is shared on social media, how many external links lead to your Airbnb lodging, and how many people book your listing through URLs provided on third-party websites.
- Exit ratio. This KPI records what users do on your page before leaving it, including reading reviews, clicking on photos, writing comments, etc.
- Guest needs: this index considers data points related to the viewer, including their previous bookings, the location they are searching from, listings in their Wish List, and so on.
- Trip details: the engine notes how many guests will be staying, how long their stay will last, when the trip starts, whether the prospect sets a minimum/maximum price, etc.
These are just very few factors that kick in when determining your manifestation on the Airbnb search query. Dozens of other factors are kept confidential by the platform’s governance and never revealed. A clever SEO strategy is a path to good, steady incomes. If you find it hard to develop a successful SEO tactic, you can turn to cutting-edge Airbnb management software that will put your listing on the summit of Airbnb SERP, along with driving many other tangible benefits to your short-term rental business.