Airbnb SEO: 26 Proven Strategies To Boost Your Listing

Airbnb SEO: 26 Proven Strategies To Boost Your Listing

How to do SEO for Airbnb listings? This question baffled many new hosts who are planning to improve their property visibility. Only publishing your listing on the Airbnb platform will not lead to the expected results. Extra optimization is required to scrape more potential guests to book.

In this article, we will go further about how to boost your listing with proper SEO tips and techniques. You will know what it is? How does it work? And what are the proven strategies implemented to improve your listing as a host?

These methods are from our operation results and research over the Airbnb platform. We will also think outside of the frame so that you have in-depth ideas about traditional SEO methods.

What is Airbnb SEO (search engine optimization)?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. Compared with traditional media marketing and social marketing. SEO is the long-term strategy of applying all the white hat methods to rank in the top position, drawing natural traffic to your site under the content marketing competition.

It is a slow-growing journey to find your potential audience step by step, but influential in the long run. Covering your page with several related keywords would give you more chances to be discovered. The number 1 ranking page generally receives about 38% of total traffic.

The reason for optimizing for SEO is to reach more possible guests who use the relevant term to find the location for booking. Also, you will benefit by covering the relevant search intent, leading your listing to get more exposure to the public and improving search ranking. Increase booking rate. Targeting specific terms, your listing will have precise potential guests for booking your property.

Google Search Engine has its standard to rank each website page individually, and numerous ranking factors could decide your final ranking performance. Reviews have become one of the most critical factors. Other than that, rich content and backlinks also dominated most of them. Optimizing your listing to match the search intent is a necessary step nowadays.

How Airbnb SEO Strategy Works

SEO for Airbnb covers a lot of criteria. You would have to optimize your listing for 2 platforms(Airbnb and Google) plus a context good enough for attractive guests. It takes time to achieve the best outcome, but it will be worth executing these extra steps to get better results.

We can break it down into these parts:

Target Word Coverage

By covering the most relevant words to your property. You are delivering a positive signal to Google Bot that your listing is the most competent to be indexed. A listing with numerous precise target words that match the user’s search intent shows Google that you are the most relevant one (and valuable one) to ranking higher. The key element is selecting a combination of a few highly relevant keywords set into the description and providing value to the search engine.

Airbnb has high website authority, making it more likely to rank better on Google search results. Even though it has only 500 words on each listing, it still provides a lot of possibilities to receive a lot of traffic.

When setting your keyword, you must write a natural and attractive description for human reading. Google likes rich contextual content. So, making your title and description more relevant will push your listing up to Google’s ranking system.

Making Guests Satisfied With Their Stay

Airbnb has a complex algorithm, and they announced how they determine your final ranking and explained how their search system works. The final goal is to help guests find the ideal place to stay, and this place provides most of the service that customers need, which is best suited for most customers. This means this platform is designed for most travelers.

4 factors influence search results: quality, popularity, price, and location.

Quality includes listing title, description, photos, relevant amenities, and review. Listings with better reviews and well-constructed descriptions will rank higher. Popularity includes how guests engage with your listing.

These factors include how often they save your listing to a wishlist, the frequency of guest booking, and how often they communicate with the host. Lower pricing receives better competitiveness. Locations near famous tourist attractions will rank higher.

Our goal is to provide a better guest experience and develop a good reputation by all possible means to optimize your listing. After you have accumulated a lot of good reviews with fantastic comments, you will be eligible to rank at a higher tier in local competition. The Airbnb search filters system tends to push your listing to a better position.

Monitoring Your Competition

Airbnb SEO requires regularly checking listing performance to stay ahead in the local market. Believe it or not, local competition is most Airbnb hosts’ major challenge. If you attempt to monitor your competitors daily, you will soon notice that some competitors, especially those with higher rankings, change their pricing and description frequently.

But why would they do that? This is because they will receive more holiday bonuses and stay competitive at a cheaper rate during the off-season. Mainly, they have applied automatic pricing features to adjust their pricing frequently.

Different from the Airbnb Smart Pricing. The automated pricing software continuously monitors the local competitors nearby to decide the most competitive price daily.

They adjust their description to attract tourists to festivals a few weeks before. These strategies will make their listing appear from the normal one without proper maintenance.

Each location has unique optimization requirements. In highly competitive areas, where numerous big players have racked up thousands of reviews, it is difficult for a new listing with only hundreds of reviews to make much of a difference. However, in areas where the competition has only received 20 to 50 reviews, you have a better chance of standing out and surpassing the competition.

26 Proven Strategies to Boost Your Airbnb Ranking

We collected all of the strategies that could help you Rank higher on Airbnb search results You don’t have to finish every single step at the moment. You can do it later. You can apply all those tips to help your listing have better ranking possibilities.

1. Optimize Your Airbnb Title With Landmarks

Finding the most popular tourist attractions or landmarks near your listing effectively highlights your listing in Airbnb SEO. Put the most relevant words that match these tourist attractions rather than just mentioning them in your title.

For instance, you can write” Experience Amazing Broadway Street” rather than “Stay in New York.” A little liquidation will juice up a bit for attractiveness. In the meantime, you cannot put emojis in the title because this is against Airbnb’s content policy.

As the title directly impacts the search result, you should be able to see the result very quickly. if you realize the place you put is not that effective, just try others to find the best match, spending some time for experience until you get the best fit(higher quality.) If you need help, our listing optimization services offer the best solution for optimizing your listings.

2. Put Keywords Research Result in Your Listing Title and Description

Keywords are the basis of SEO. With precise wording matching search intent, your listing got the entry of the SEO competition in both Google and the Airbnb ranking system. many tools provide keyword research functions like SEMRush, Ahrefs, Google Ads, Spyfu, and Wordstream. Start with some of the best local listings and dig out the most relevant keyword to use.

You should target the keywords with higher monthly traffic with lower difficulties. Also, you can mix the long tail keywords most relevant to your place. It is unnecessary to pick too many keywords to use because it will make the description unnatural to read.

After you have done all of these steps, it still takes time to make your listing appear to the public. you don’t need to worry about your listing not instantly appearing on Google search results.

Give it a few months, and you will see the difference. But for Airbnb, most of the time, you will see quick results in a few weeks. Try to organize your best keywords for better results.

3. Complete Your Full Profile

When you register, you provide Airbnb with basic personal information. You can add more details to let Airbnb and guests know more about you. Airbnb likes your information to be correct and transparent.

The more value transparency, The more trust score you will receive. Fill all empty spaces and upload a great profile photo for a better look. It gives your guest more confidence to book your place and add the quality score. It is worth spending more time to complete the profile as it shares the signal of an active person and returns you a reward.

Update your profile at least once a month to show you are viral. Keep information always up to date, resulting in immediate Airbnb updates and better profile weight.

4. Make Sure Your Description Is Skimable

Nobody likes to waste their time reading since there is too much information for them nowadays. The same principle applies to Airbnb as well. Your description shall be optimized in an organized way for Airbnb SEO and your guests. Each listing has a 500-character limit, meaning every host has an equal chance.

Use the bullet points and highlight the key information in the front that pushes your customer to make a quick initial decision upfront. Break down long paragraphs into short sections. Use the bold font in your heading.

These enhance visual concentration and avoid reader fatigue while they are reading. Reducing the possibility of getting lost.

The longer time they spent on your listing. The more possibility they will tend to save to the wishlist. This also helps to boost your ranking.

Spending some time on making the description scannable and adjusting the content accordingly. You shall be able to find out the best combination comfortable for you and your guests. The less stress on reading makes guests read more of your content.

This requires observation of top listings and applying them to your listings. Typically, you will find the answer after several attempts.

5. Add Airbnb “Search Suggestions” to Your Listing Description

Try to simulate a guest to search Airbnb. Most of the time, when you put your location, their system will recommend the most popular tourist attractions nearby. you just need to add this spot to your description. This trick is super simple but very effective.

Airbnb pulls out from its database to give guests the most famous location near the place they are searching. Because Airbnb also wants to let guests book. since providing the most relevant content. Your property has a higher chance of being exposed by the search results.

By adding the most famous tourist attractions, you should be able to find the instant results immediately.

6. Utilizing the Top Location

In the previous item, we explained why it is essential to do this before starting a hospitality business. This will give you the best chance of success with your target travelers.

Your listing’s location plays a crucial role in determining its visibility on guest search results. Listings near popular tourist attractions have a higher chance of being recommended to guests looking to visit those places during their stay in the area.

When buying a property to rent out on Airbnb, it is important to plan ahead as the location cannot be changed easily. The property should be situated in a popular city for Airbnb with nearby attractions and convenient public transportation options. Investing in such a location can result in a profitable business.

7. Add a CTA(Call to Action) at the End of Your Description

Call to action is still the most effective marketing method because it creates the feeling for guests to make a prompt decision without pressure. It is an essential concept to make your listing better for conversion. Similar to the formatting of the paragraph or emoji. Call to action is more powerful and goal-oriented.

A call to action at the end of your description enhances your content and makes the listing possible to save to guests’ wishlists. This helps to increase your popularity as well, so there are several benefits you should try to put into your listing.

8. Put Emojis in the Listing Description

What makes your description more interesting? 🔥Emoji does. In a long paragraph, it is very easy to get confused by the letters. But the emojis give the shining point to stand out from the simple texts.

People always like to see pictures and videos, so you should do something different, especially in text areas.

You can only put emojis into your listing description, but do not put them in the title because this violates Airbnb’s content policy.

With the combination of numbered items, emojis, and proper paragraph separation, these formatted texts become excellent guidance for readers to identify the difference between you and your competitors.

9. Covering As Many Affordable Amenities As Practical

Amenities are one of the most essential parts of supporting the search results. It will boost the popularity score for your listing.

Some of the amenities are in high demand, with fewer hosts provided. For example, having babies sit for travelers with babies is always good. Reducing parental stress during their stay.

You can group different people with different amenities requirements. Couples, families. Sports groups, exhibition teams, business trips, friends, holiday escapes, families with babies, families with children, singles, backpackers, and festival Cosplayers. Each group of people has a layer requirement for their trip.

After you identify which groups of people you will host, you can consider the amenities they need during their trip. It’s a customized process. It requires investigation to know the real user intention for different properties and locations.

Some major amenities include swimming pools, balconies, and hot tubs. It requires a prep plan when you purchase the properties. For simpler amenities like air-conditioning, Wi-Fi, streaming service, and outdoor grills.

You can check your local competitors to see whether they have them equipped And try to overtake them as practical. Investing in alternative amenities is also a great choice to make your box able to be ticked. Try not to exaggerate too much for your amenities because this will harm your listing’s reputation in review.

Try to cover as many amenities as possible. Guests will likely find your listings when they filter the properties, reduce the occupancy rate, and improve Airbnb SEO.

10. Create a Guidebook to Include in Your Listing

Some of our competitors display a guidebook in their listings, which looks fantastic and makes you want to take a closer look at the property. This is a powerful tool for creating instructions.

If you live nearby, you can create a personalized guidebook to show travelers what they can expect from your area and your experiences. It’s like inviting them to join in on your life. You can also include information about the surrounding properties. Guests often spend time reading through the guidebook to plan a great trip.

It may be challenging for business hosts to know the surrounding facilities and attractions well. However, they can still use Google Maps to predict guests’ possible experiences. Although it is not necessary to create a guidebook at the beginning, it is crucial in the long run to increase exposure and provide great experiences for guests.

11. Turn on Instant Book

Airbnb’s Instant Book feature is valuable for hosts looking to increase their bookings. Hosts can respond to potential guests by automatically approving requests quickly, improving their rankings in Airbnb’s search algorithm. Additionally, hosts can set criteria that guests must meet before being able to book through the Instant Book feature. This helps protect hosts from any potential incidents or problems that may arise.

However, sometimes, customers who give five-star ratings can be problematic. Based on our experience, we have had guests who booked instantly and turned our listings into a party house, which got out of hand. Therefore, we recommend you have excellent communication skills to manage such situations before enabling instant booking.

12. Maintain Your Booking Calendar Up to Date

Please remember that the date of availability of your rental property significantly affects the chances of getting bookings. Most guests tend to book their trips six months before their travel dates. Therefore, planning and opening your calendar as much as possible is wise, especially for dates scheduled three to four months later. The better you plan and prepare, the higher the chances of receiving more bookings.

Additionally, it is advisable to prepare extra pillows, toilet paper, and quilts during this process, as continuous bookings may make it challenging to exchange amenities. Ensuring your laundry is done on time will guarantee smooth operations without panic.

Suppose you are using multiple platforms to advertise your rental property. In that case, it is recommended to use automation tools like Guesty, which allows you to synchronize your calendar with their integration software. This will make the process hassle-free.

13. Make your Cancellation Policy More Flexible

Airbnb has different ways of handling cancellations, which they call cancellation policies. There are four types of policies: strict, firm, moderate, and flexible. These policies affect how Airbnb ranks listings in their search results. The more flexibility your listing has, the possibility will be higher for Airbnb algorithm, since it matches the needs of guests.

We recommend selecting a moderate cancellation policy for your Airbnb listing, instead of a flexible one as it only allows for a 1-day window for cancellations. If you are not located in the city center, having a flexible policy may make it harder to receive bookings. With a moderate policy, guests may still try to cancel and contact you, but it will improve your communications score and overall Airbnb SEO.

14. Lower the Minimum Length of Stay

Airbnb has a minimum stay function for hosts who prefer long term guests. However, the popularity will only receive minor benefits, which is also bad for Airbnb’s SEO.

For instance, if a guest is booking for a month. Your listing only has one-time communication, which is not popular enough. But for short-term guests only for 1 (default) to 2 nights, they have enough continuous bookings to make the listing popular with a higher ranking chance.

Remember that some guests will require immediate short-term rentals (STR) assistance. Reducing your minimum stay condition can increase the possibility of guests booking your place. This helps boost your popularity as you’ll communicate more with potential guests during this time. STR is known to improve conversion rates, so it’s worth prioritizing this aspect whenever possible.

There are not always pros to opening up your schedule for a short stay because you have to look after cleaning demands. After guests check out, you must ensure your cleaning staff can follow up. Additionally, you must continuously communicate with guests to ensure you can prepare the room before the next group arrives or drops off their luggage.

15. Set Up Competitive Pricing

If you want your Airbnb listing to rank higher in search results in your local area, pricing is a key factor. Properly pricing your listing helps you achieve a suitable ranking, which leads to more bookings.

The nightly rates shall not exceed too much compared to surrounding hosts. Especially with similar amenities. While being ranked at the top is unnecessary, setting a reasonable price and being visible on the first three pages of search results in your local area would be better. Don’t get lost in the pricing competition; add more amenities instead.

Airbnb has smart pricing function that automatically changes rates depending on the season, holidays, weekends, and weekdays to market demands. You can decide your price range as well. However, this function may not be enough if you want to be more competitive with your pricing strategy.

Many third-party services, such as Guesty, provide pricing automation. When you provide your address, they collect data from surrounding places and give a competitive price according to the zone database. This App can help you maintain a reasonable ranking so your guests can easily find your listing.

16. Use Professional Photos

To create a standout listing, it’s crucial to have stunning, professional photos that truly capture the essence of your property. These photos serve as the first impression for potential guests and can significantly impact their booking decisions. It’s important to capture a clean, bright, and inviting interior to ensure your photos are of the highest quality.

Photos in Airbnb SEO are not a major ranking factor. But it is for guest’s eyes. Airbnb also has default requirements on minimum photo size – your photo must be high quality batch and high resolution. They should cover all rooms and spaces to display the story and value to your guests.

Buy attractive furniture, spend time decorating your property, and fix all the major issues to make space match your listing accurately.

If you’re uncomfortable taking photos yourself, consider searching for professional photographers on Instagram who specialize in interior shots. Or you can hire an Airbnb professional photography service, too. By working with a professional, you can guarantee that your photos have a consistent and uniform style that truly presents the unique features of your property.

Negotiate with the photographer for fair pricing and take as many photos as possible to give guests a comprehensive view of your space. With the right photos, you can create a truly unforgettable listing that will stand out from the competition.

17. Invite People to Add Your Listing to Their Wishlists.

The number of your listings being added to guests’ wishlists will increase the popularity score of Airbnb SEO. You can ask your family and friends to help with that. Also, there are some easy ways to invite people to add your listing to their wishlist. You can hint them in descriptions to add even if they didn’t book.

Typically, guests do not monitor your message or reply, so keeping this in the front as a conversation starter is a good idea for notifying your guests to act at the very beginning so that you also get an extra score on this item.

This factor takes time to show the result. But it is still an effective way.

18. Accumulate 5-Star Reviews

Five-star reviews are the decisive factor for Airbnb SEO. It requires multiple details to care for to get a valuable one. This directly affects whether you will receive more bookings when a guest chooses their stay. A negative review will be very harmful and devastating in the startup stage.

Working hard to meet the customer’s needs and following up on feedback after a stay will be critical to ensure the best result.

The concepts of a good review include the following things that must be taken care of:

• Communication: Before booking, During Stay, Follow up after check out.
• Guidance: Meetup address, attractions, experience beside space.
• Reception: Warm welcome, local traffic, tips and tricks share.
• Check-in procedure
• Flexibility: Drop luggage, luggage storage, car park, babysitting.
• Internet: Wi-fi, Broadcom.
• Cleaning
• Amenities: Cover as many as possible and compare with local competitors.
• Check-out procedure
• Asking for a review

Check out those criteria to dive deeper into each one. Ask about whether the place meets guests’ expectations and follow up by writing a good review for them. Let guests feel welcome and attentive.

Combining all these things makes customers like the place they stay. This is critical for your ranking and reputation.

It’s impossible always to receive a five-star review because different guests have different personalities and communication styles, so it will be better to ask your guests what requirements they may want during the trip. Try to satisfy their needs and make them happy in each detail reasonably. Smiling and showing passion are always the best way to go during the service.

19. Create a Physical Tour Guide And Trifold Cards

When guests check in, providing them with a physical card can be a cost-effective and efficient solution for collecting real and constructive reviews. By offering a heartfelt note or message on the card, you can give guests a warm feeling and reassure them that you are a good host who takes the time to provide excellent hospitality.

While this is not a factor in the Airbnb SEO algorithm, it has been proven to work exceptionally well in practice and boost your listing with better reviews. With a simple gesture like a physical card, you can create a personal connection with your guests and leave a lasting impression that encourages positive reviews and repeat visits.

20. Reduce Rejections and Cancellations

Rejections and cancellations are unwelcome occurrences on Airbnb, which is also bad for SEO. Airbnb doesn’t want these to happen because they harm their reputation. If you are going to reject, you better consider an alternative way to make sure this situation will not happen.

Last-minute rejections can be a major problem for guests as they don’t have enough time to make alternative plans. This is especially true during festivals or events when all the available Airbnb in a particular area and dates are fully booked. Such situations can cause a lot of inconvenience and frustration for guests, and understandably, they would not be happy about it. You probably wouldn’t be too pleased if you were in their shoes.

There are various ways to solve this issue. Many Airbnb hosts may have met other receptionists and could have known them personally. You can try leaving your contact details with them to see if any vacant room is available as an alternative.

Another method is to join a Facebook group or forum to search for an empty room in your local area. It does not only just increase flexibility. Also, it gives you a better Torrance to turn over a cancellation to positive feedback.

When facing an inevitable situation like this, it is important to call for immediate help and communicate with guests to turn the dilemma into a routine operation.

21. Reply to your guest as quickly as possible.

Response time is considered a factor affecting popularity if you promptly reply. Your guest will be in better contact with you and willing to talk more if you lead in the proper way. Just like instant booking, the instant reply also receives a better popularity ranking.

So, if you are not using the instant booking function, you better try to keep your phone or notification on when you’re receiving a new booking. You will be able to respond to them as soon as possible.

However, sometimes, it will be annoying when you turn on all the notifications. You can just partially choose what sort of notification you should receive to figure out what works best for you, something like communication and booking notification, so that you will receive any updates, which is one of the crucial factors.

Other than that, Predefined replies or automated responses will also help to reduce the pressure. Building up from all the previous experiences, it would be good to reply to most of the basic problems rather than 24 hours waiting.

22. Join the Airbnb Superhost Program

The superhost gives a special badge on your profile photo. This little badge incredibly increases the trust of the guests. The badge represents excellent service with top communication, so putting effort into upgrading your profile to become a super host to help grow your trust is a plus.

To get superhost badge, there are many criteria you must meet. Airbnb evaluates hosting performance every quarter for the past 12 months.

These include over 90% response rate, less than 1% cancellation rate, 4.8+ stars overall rating, and 10+ trips or 3 reservations total over 100 nights. Response rate and review are the controllable factors. Cancellation rates require continuous communication with guests. It depends.

You don’t need to apply for the superhost. This process is fully automated.

23. Promote Your Property Outside Airbnb

Promoting your property outside of Airbnb is part of a marketing strategy. It also has benefits for Airbnb SEO. Although Airbnb occupies most of the market share, there are still many other vacation rental websites, forums, and blogs where you can ask for promotion of your property or listings and receive extra bookings.

It is similar to creating SEO backlinks; the more authority sites you promote, the better the trust score you will receive. It will eventually boost your listing ranking and grow your revenue.

Airbnb promotions sometimes require extra spending costs, and getting an authority connection is not cheap. but it is worth it if you can do it correctly.

You will also need a good CRM system to quickly follow up on how to greet an old guest. Many marketing tools are available, such as Hubspot and Mailchimp, which will help you collect customer details and records. This will make your management more professional and scaleable with co-hosts.

There are multiple ways to promote your Airbnb. You can check out this article to learn how to promote your Airbnb listing.

24. Create a Social Media Page for Your Listing

When browsing social media, you may come across a fan page for a house or unit running a competition to receive more bookings. You can do the same thing as well. While managing the page can be time-consuming, it can be an effective way to attract potential guests who are interested in your property. This is especially useful for single houses or villas.

To make your social media profile go viral, you need to post regularly. Think of it as a long-term marketing strategy to promote your Airbnb listing. This is the most cost-effective way to market your property, and you can reasonably receive bookings.

Creating a good layout is a headache for most people. But if you are using Adobe Express as a modular solution, it won’t disappoint you. Use the existing template and create designs that suit your page style. Saves you tons of time wasted on design and content.

25. Invite Social Media Influencers for Affiliation Program

Consider reaching out to popular social media influencers and inviting them to participate in your affiliation program. You can invite them for a free stay to collect their video as a property opener.

It only costs a little but benefits you and influencers at the same time. If you would like to find grand influencers, you will need to pay extra to invite them because most of the time you can expect a team will arrive to at your place(especially Youtubers). Starts with simple greetings and talks to influencers with all these details.

By collaborating with influencers, you can leverage their extensive following and influence to promote your property. This approach can lead to increased visibility, reach, and sales for your business.

26. Paid Advertising Campaign

Marketing costs are expensive, and pay-to-advertising is also competitive, especially if your advertising is paid outside the Airbnb platform. So comparing the profit and the advertising cost to find the best balance is a lesson.

There are many platforms where you can run paid advertising campaigns to boost your listing:

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Profile

It’s essential to set a suitable daily budget and schedule for targeting your audience. Spending all your resources in a single day is ineffective, just like thinking about traveling every day is impractical. You need to balance costs and the overall return on investment.

Before spending any money, it is crucial to understand the intentions of your potential guests. People have three primary search intents when looking for accommodations outside of Airbnb: planning a trip, creating a wishlist of places to book in the future, or making a booking.

When trying to attract guests, it may be tempting to focus on the most popular locations but keep in mind that competition for those areas is high, which means you may spend a lot on advertising without generating enough revenue. Consider targeting secondary locations instead and using a paid advertising strategy to control costs.

Final Thoughts

Airbnb is a highly competitive market in the hospitality industry. However, there are still plenty of opportunities for hosts to succeed. By implementing these 26 strategies in your listings, you can expect to see better results. A well-crafted listing can increase your revenue and improve your ranking on the platform, ultimately benefiting your business booking, income, and revenue.