Boost Your Airbnb rooms Listing: Expert Tips for More Bookings and 5-Star Ratings - tips for host aishwarya

Another in the series of perfecting your Airbnb listing

Outline:

In the video, Mark Smith is giving advice to Aishwarya on how to improve her Airbnb listing. He suggests that her main objective should be to get three bookings and a five-star rating. He advises her to look after her guests well to get positive feedback. He also shares his own experience of renting out his property and rooms on Airbnb. He suggests that professional photography can make a huge difference in getting bookings. He also advises her to respond to every person that contacts her to improve her ranking in the Airbnb algorithm. He also suggests using Airbnb Smart Pricing to boost her ranking and setting a minimum price she is willing to accept. He offers to send her some suggestions to enhance her listing and offers to give her a free carbon monoxide detector. He also advises her to be careful with the term "breakfast provided" and suggests saying "breakfast ingredients provided" instead.

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Transcript:

Hi, how are you? Mark Smith here. I'm going to try and pronounce your name as Waria Asia. I'm not sure. How are you? Really nice to meet you. Thanks for reaching out. Yep, I can see your listing. You can speed this up in the bottom right-hand corner. There's a message if you want to speed it up. Or you can go back and replay this.

I've just got your note here. I'm just going to read through it. I know where Zetland is. I know it very well. So I'm guessing you're pretty close to Green Square, somewhere in that vicinity. I'm having a coffee and a biscuit. I hope you don't mind. Mainly listed to get some extra cash. There's actually a lot of people that are a little bit stretched at the moment, and Airbnb is fantastic for that.

So from what I understand, what you've done is you've put your place as private rooms, which means you stay in the property as well. Now, I do private rooms, and I can give you some tips on how to improve your listing and get your first booking. Your real objective at the moment is to get one booking, well, really to get three. You get three, and then you get a rating, and if you get a rating of five, well, that's fantastic.

But if you get one booking fairly soon, then you will start to get feedback, and you want to look after that person, obviously. Now, I'm sure you will, and that's how hosts are, and I'm sure you'll make them very, very welcome. So, I was just hoping you could tell me a little bit about your early days in Airbnb. That's a long time ago, but it was just when I first put my property—sorry, I got dogs in the next room—when I first put my property for rent in early 2017. I literally couldn't find a tenant, and my property's on five acres, so there's lots of grounds to maintain, it was just too much.

I guess you probably also thought about bringing in a boarder, and this is another alternative to bringing in a boarder in that they use your furniture. So you probably would get business people and things like that. Mine was an entire house at that stage. Now, right now, I'm living in the house and just renting some rooms. But sometimes I've actually created several listings. I've got an entire house one, and I've got four bedrooms. So you can...I only rent three of the four bedrooms, so when I say "entire house," you get three of the four bedrooms, and I won't be in the fourth. Whereas, I do actually live here, so I've actually got four listings, one for the entire house, and three for individual bedrooms. And I haven't actually been doing the individual bedrooms—the private rooms, I haven't been doing that for a long time. So in fact, I've only had a couple of guests as private rooms since I've moved back to this property.

I'll just show you through. I'll just show you through. This is what I can see. So you wanted to know about the early days. I will send you some things, and I'll go through your listing and make some suggestions of some things that you need to do to enhance your listing so that you get the bookings and get the reviews. Once you get the reviews, then you'll get more. So, it's a virtuous circle. What sorts of pricing strategies do you tend to follow? Let's come back to that, and we'll go through your listing and give you some feedback.

So, I'm guessing you actually live in this property. Okay, so these photos are quite nice. And I'm guessing this is the bedroom that you offer. It does have an oriental feel to it, which is okay. These are... Yeah, these are nice backdrops. I'm wondering if that is...I'm guessing that...Yeah, I'm not 100% sure. Maybe there's several bedrooms. Anyway, I'm not 100% sure whether that's a sofa or not. You've got a dedicated workspace, so we'll come to that. This desk is what we call a dedicated workspace in Airbnb language, and that can get you long-term guests. And I guess what you're trying to say here is... Yeah, pantry items. Okay, that's good. Very good. Coffee machine. Yeah, nice. So, it's nice and well-lit. They're obviously not professionally taken, but that's not a criticism. Not a criticism. But...

I mean, these look nice. Yeah, they do look nice. So, they're not professionally taken. So, one moment. Hey, buddy. Good. I was actually in town earlier. I got back today instead of tomorrow. Tonight, so I was going to have a quick look if there was a lockbox. Is there a lockbox at Ping Street? Oh, okay. No, that's all right. No...

Well, right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. [Applause]. Sorry, very busy here. Okay. I mean, the light is quite nice. I'll have a look and see whether we've got any vouchers that maybe we can give you for professional photography. That does make a huge difference in getting bookings. A huge difference. Okay.

Well, yeah, that's beautiful. There's not a real lot I want to say about the photos other than let's have a look and see if we can get you some professional ones. I think it does... You know, I think it looks good. Let's have a look at... Now, it's obviously private rooms. I'm in my 30s, and I've been living in Sydney, love to travel. Sketch. Right. Sorry about my dogs. Okay. This is good. I'll show you my listing, and it actually does have a little bit more, and I really recommend that you follow this new format. I'm sorry about these dogs. Check-out. I think before... Before 10, and check-in at 3 PM. Two guests maximum. No pets. Okay, so no carbon monoxide. Yeah, you need to... You need to highlight... You need to highlight dedicated workspace. No carbon monoxide. I'll give you a free carbon monoxide detector. Two bedrooms, yeah. Okay, common space. I just be careful with the term "breakfast provided." Breakfast ingredients provided, maybe.

Okay. I mean, I think this is actually quite good. You do take a one-night booking, so that's kind of interesting. So, I think now your booking actually isn't... I don't think it's live at the moment. This is another version of it where I am actually logged in, whereas this one I'm not actually logged in. So, it's saying that the listing is not yet available to all guests. That can take up to 36 hours. You need to put in... Oh, yeah, you have got dedicated workspace. Okay. But you can put in your Wi-Fi speed. Zins, yep. Response rate 63. Now you need to get back to people. You need to respond

 to every single person that contacts you. If you've had three people and you've only responded to two, you need to get back to everyone, otherwise the algorithm will rank you lower. Okay? And so the more you... The better you get back to people, the higher you rank at the top of the search results. So that is really important.

So let's just have a look at my listing here. Now, my profile is a little bit different to yours, actually. Pardon, let's... Yeah, there's more things that you can fill out. Oh, okay. No, you've got it there. Okay, good. You were born in the '80s. Yep, yep, excellent. Okay, so your listing will show up with what's called a passport that you can fill in. I've got 169 reviews, so you can imagine people can feel very comfortable. I'm also a community leader and an ambassador and so on. You probably also want a guidebook. Okay, well, look, I think most of your listing is actually set up. I hope this gives answers to some of your questions. If you've got any specific questions about hosting, let me know what they are. I mean, these are very general and wide-ranging kind of questions. I don't know exactly. Tell me a little bit about... That's very open-ended. I'd rather you give me a very specific question about hosting. What sorts of pricing strategies? Well, obviously, the closer you get to the day... Um, the closer you get in your calendar to today, probably the cheaper the price. So you're better to... You need to know when all the events are on, school holidays, and things like that. Will you take people with children? Um...

Well, one of the pricing things I do is I take... I do take pets, and I charge them for the pets. So that's another pricing strategy. But the closer you get to... Well, you see, I can't look at your prices here because it's saying your listing's not ready yet, so I can't really comment about your prices. There is something called AirDNA. You just Google AirDNA, and you can look up some local prices. And also, on the app, you can... There is a way to search a map and see what other local prices are, so those might help you. You can also use something called Airbnb Smart Pricing, and Airbnb Smart Pricing will really boost you up the rankings, but they also set the price. But you can set a bottom price that you're willing to accept. So look, I hope these things have been somewhat helpful. If you've got any more specific questions, do let me know. Thanks very much. Bye-bye. Good luck.