Coaching Blog S1 Episode 47 - Mark's Expert Tips: Enhancing Your Airbnb Listing - Anna from Terranora NSW, Masterclass

 

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hello Anna Mark Smith here um it is uh Tuesday the 19th of March um let's I'll just shrink me and let's have a look at your listing which has now gone live so that's cool um and uh you've asked me to just critique it see what we think so um I'm going to uh I'm going to do something it involves a um by the way you can speed this up so in the bottom corner over here uh there's a there's a button and you can toggle it up to 1.5 times probably uh better uh first four photos I always start with the photos by the way the category you're in is new so that means you get a boost for the first little bit uh maybe four to six weeks or something like that and once you've uh had um you get a boost in the rankings so you appear higher in the rankings so you got to make the most of that get some fstar rate and then you're off um so um these are the first five photos um I'm not sure I would put a carport photo um I guess this is a carport uh I I wouldn't put that as your first photo as your What's called the hero um but we'll go through and have a look at these um that's the first thing people see the other thing um is that a lot of people view this on view Airbnb on a mobile phone so um and that means they they view it like this in something called portrait mode whereas uh many of our photos are in landscape mode so you got to think about the mobile phone um when I say a lot it's probably at more than half I don't know the actual stats but my guess is well over oh so it's only one bedroom ah okay okay okay um so it's probably well over um uh it's probably well over half use an app so you got to think about the orientation of the phone and these photos um so photos uh ever don't judge a book book by the cover well everyone judges books by the cover so that's um absolutely crazy so let's have a look at these now um I I would be I would be um rearranging the the garage photo that is not your best photo

um now what is your best photo uh I'm not 100% sure I would tidy up some of this clutter um and actually I guess what we're getting at is professional photos it's it's worth it um to spend probably $300 uh that's roughly how much they cost they usually cost about 30 something dollars per shot and that's uh very very normal um um thing now you have done what's called a photo tour you maybe didn't realize it but you've allocated the photos to the room so that's great um so let's have a look now I'm looking for captions you do need to put captions in all of your photos and no captions um you also um I would if you if you don't invest in photo professional photos which I recommend then um uh there is some tips that I'll get you you a link to some tips and um some of the tips include popping the lights on um and uh working on the light so the light is really really important so please check out the um check out the photo tips um you want to put a caption in uh nice shutters I noticed that you can see the house next door so I would um adjust these shut so that you you're not looking in at the house next door you can just by simply tweaking your photos a little bit maybe pop the candles on or do something like that um you can create even more mood that's that's actually a very nice photo it shows um the space uh but youve got to get rid of these bits of plut so you can actually do a a lot better um with the same photo uh with a bit of light um these lamps I think would make it look fantastic and play with your natural light as well um no I'm wondering if this is like uh like a desk space

um I mean this is one of the better photos I'm not sure oh is that a Roomba is that one of those vacuums um there is a lot it's kind of uh a little busy um and the bench tops again you know fairly busy but that's okay um but you want to use captions uh and again light you've got light here it's not a dark photo but um you can create better light um you can create better light so yeah this um have a look in I'll send you another tip to something called the complete guide to hosting uh have a look at the styling tips you've got a very very nice style uh but now you're staging for uh for photos and if you were paying someone to take the photos professionally you'd wanted to look at its absolute best this is not um this is not high resolution it's it looks

um it's not clearly it's not professionally taken again love lovely room you you need the lamps on um not for extra light but for mood nicely staged very nicely staged uh what size bed is it is a Coen bed you could put that in the caption here um so you got air conditioning and a fan so um uh some of the the professional photos will get these in uh very very well and you know it then sends a message okay um we have these things uh and guests will love that and again you could put in the captions um if it's only a one bedroom well look that's okay um you're probably going to get rid of the personal photos before you have guests and again lamp um nice out look out the window uh is that like I'm not sure what that is but I'm not sure if that's an upright fan

um again all these personal items uh you would probably want to no lights um you'd probably want to um but you got a candle right there so um you can just tweak these a little bit please read the uh the staging dips um I would think you want to just simplify um or declutter it's not that there clutter just a tiny bit of decluttering now that's that's the idea but again the these aren't professionally taken and again this should not be your um should not be your hero photo but it is um so again captions on all of these lovely lovely outb but we can't see the sky so um again takeen with a wider camera angle um couple of hundred well you may be able to make that back in in one booking um getting one booking that airbnb's um uh algorithm knows how much resolution there is in the photos by a amongst other things the file sizes but the metadata tells it what sort of camera took it and so it knows that if a you know $33,000 camera took the photo then it's been taken professionally as opposed to the iPhone 10 nothing wrong with the iPhone 10 it just they rank the photos yes so that's what's going to happen if yours if your photos are taken with a $2,000 camera and the place next door is uh taken with an iPhone then and let's say they're identical the uh the one with the better photos is going to rank higher again your you're ranking High because you've got that new category but uh there's other things that you can do to rank higher such as the photos for wifi pet friendly which I noticed that you are um and uh kids um child um baby seats you know uh cots travel cots they these are things little known but they rank um they rank better again these candles probably could be on you don't need it cuz it's uh during the day but please read those staging and photo

um might be nice to take some photos of a nighttime uh or Twilight with these lights on um so uh just Google some um photo tips for Airbnb and uh I think that would be a good idea um I'm not 100% sure of the purpose for this photo I don't mind it um [Music] um yeah uh it would be interesting to know whether you've actually got any steps inside the house I haven't actually seen many let's go back to your and what I'm thinking is uh disabled

um I'm guessing that's a door and that's a window so if you've got no steps uh you may well um be able to uh put in accessible um and attract people another thing that helps you to rank higher so

um full bathroom half bathroom exterior okay um two guests again I'm I'm thinking you could probably you could probably uh have a TR cot and I would recommend you get one even if you don't have one you probably get one from Vinnie for um very very little

um upstairs secure self-contained access so maybe there is stairs um where you'll sleep Wi-Fi now it doesn't show the Wi-Fi speed um in the in the Airbnb app go find your listing um so you go to hosting listing amenities and Wi-Fi and when you add it in There's an opportunity to do a speed test and if you've got high speed let's say it's 100 megabits per second at least I think you probably want at least 50 uh if you've got a desk there then um that would be considered a um dedicated workspace um then highspeed internet does make a difference and you tend to get longer stays where you've got a dedicated workspace uh I'll send you a link to a carbon monoxide alarm it's another thing that gets you a higher ranking and you also get business Travelers uh because you can then appear in something called airband beef for work um now you asked about um feedback about pricing so let's let's have a look at um let's have a look at this now my thinking is that good Friday would be the absolute Peak day you want to very very very quickly set up uh minimum nights or something called um custom stay over Easter um you absolutely should not should not must not I forbid you um joking but uh I forbid you from uh only taking a two night booking because that you you probably would miss out on a three or four night booking so you want to set up so that these particular dates and you can do this in the calendar but again search uh through the complete guide to hosting I'm going to send you a link to that the complete guide to hosting has um will teach you how to set up a custom stay please please please set this up uh promptly oh yeah dedicated workspace there you go sorry I just noticed that um please set up the uh the Customs stay so that my thinking would be through the school holidays um you probably want to set up for at least three nights um but you could you could so what you can do is maybe set the pr you can take two night bookings but set the price so high that it it it um is not um but it is not really attractive uh for people to uh have short stays um so what you can do is have these things called price breaks um and you set it as minimum three nights minimum four nights and then the price per night progressively gets cheaper as you stay longer and then you know a week discount but um the discount has to keep going up uh as time goes by so when you get to a month uh I think it can be not sure if it can be the same but um but it can't be any lower so you monthly your weekly discount and monthly discount have to keep going up um so infants so it let you it'll let you have five infants but only two adults so

uh and notice the price doesn't go up um with pets so you can have a pet fee uh you probably got no carpets from what I I don't think I saw any carpets um so um I would I would definitely look at a pet fee uh maybe $50 a stay or something like that um compared to uh the cost of a kennel um put boarding kennels they're usually about $30 to $40 per pet per T night and if you drop it in today and pick up tomorrow that's tonight and tomorrow night so you pay for two days so uh it it really adds up and so um look I I have actually charged like $150 uh for for pets um some pets are much better behaved than children so um it's interesting you can't you can't bring children but you can bring infants so uh I would think about a roll away for um for kids think about it um carbon monoxide I think I told you yes that helps to rank um you want custom stays now let's have a look we'll clear these dates and we'll go let's just see if uh oh there you go so you have got a weekly stay discount very very very good um but you haven't set a minimum nights um so let's see if you got a monthly day well won't let me stay for a month but okay um the discount is good uh I would think about I would think about a high nightly price for one to two nights and then uh have a a discount kick in after three so charge $300 a night um and you might miss out on some two night stays but get all the three night STS um so that's the sort of thing I would think about you're not really a hotel you're not a hotel um but um so you don't really want to um bring these one night stays because there is cleaning involved so um you can charge extra for infants or travel cots and those sorts of things uh a travel cot will probably cost you $50 $60 um a new one at somewhere like Gart or Target would would have them for I think 6069 $70 they're not that cheap uh expensive uh but they can get you bookings a high chair particularly a fold up one uh i' I'd certainly think about that uh I didn't see whether you have a bath um lot of the people that do the bookings are are mothers so um um if you don't have a bath uh yeah it it may be harder to attract um that type of guest so here we are on the map um you're near the Tweed River excellent so you must be near the airport kind of kind

of airport must be here yeah okay all right um good that you've got some information there we don't know anything about you though Anna um ta teacher okay well that's good um could we know a little bit more about you um you know mother of six um retired humanitarian whatever I don't know um now you were talking about um pricing as well well we'll go to this thing uh over here I'm not sure what it's going to do to my camera but um yep okay well I am still here uh this this is a an incognito um uh an incognito um window and you can go to Airbnb your house and type in uh um Terra Nora and this will give you some guides um for what other one-bedroom places are charging so you can actually have a look and compare um around that 200 seems uh quite um normal but I'm guessing some of these other ones for 140 uh may have um may offer a little bit less so um H do your homework uh there's something called air DNA uh and you can get a it's not run by Airbnb they don't I think what they do is they scrape uh information um uh I think that's the the term you I think you can get a um free account with them and you can get some air air uh B&B pricing uh it's not airbnb's pricing it's scraped pricing so it's not always up to dat but um you can get some Market intelligence from it [Music] um in fact I'd say you you found me through this Airbnb setup so I you probably um you probably did come to this website use an incognit tab come back to it and um come back to it uh to this tab and uh do some pricing searches um you can also uh you can also use I'll just go to e

um um as a traveler and type in terranora and again you could you could say uh Easter so let's have a look for other bookings over Easter and see what's available uh for two adults and let's say a pet and this will give you um a guide to things that are available for Easter so yours is going to yours isn't showing there quite yet um but it will be like there isn't a lot so please please please get in and um immediately set up that custom stay um look I hope that has been helpful uh Anna um I wish you good luck hosting if you've got any questions don't hesitate to message me through the app okay good luck bye