5 Insider Tips to Boost Your Airbnb Listing Visibility!

On computer. All right, welcome back, everybody. Today we are going to do something that I wanted to do for such a long time. We are going to dig into an Airbnb listed, we're going to break it down, we're going to rebuild it with a True Airbnb expert, Mr. John Hildebrand, founder of Hilda Hildy Holmes, founder of all of the things most business man that I know, one of the. One of my favorite content creators. If you haven't checked out his YouTube channel, please do go so and go and do so. Today, though, we're going to dig in and we're gonna. We're gonna look at a Airbnb listing. We've been given exclusive access, which I'm super excited we've seen. We've got access to the front end, the back end, all the ends that we need to, so we can have a real good look and dig into it. And, you know, obviously, we're going to be focusing on just one, but I always believe when we focus on the one, we talk about it, we can show it to you, and there's going to be somebody else that can go, aha, I need to do that. So, John, appreciate you doing this. Can you just give it a super quick background as to why you are my go to Airbnb expert?

I was wondering that same question. I was like, why me? That was a great intro. And, like, this is going to be fun. I'm stoked. I'm stoked to dive into another property, see some of the back end, see what's working, what's not working. Yeah. So a little backstory. I've been hosting and been in the real estate since early, early days that we move like 20 something times. As a kid, I started my first vacation rental in Malibu in 2015, just like renting out a room and whatever. That kind of just took off. And over the years, I have nine properties now I'm an Airbnb ambassador, do a lot of private mentoring and coaching, and now exploring the world of having a ton of fun with redoing my content, which has been super fun. Mark always gets me fired up on making more and more content. So trying to keep up with that guy. And yeah, man, I just. I'm just a sponge. I try to talk to as many people as possible. I try to learn from people way smarter than me, and I get a lot of education and feedback with Airbnb directly, and I just try to pass on that information as much as I can because I don't want people to make errors and mistakes on something so simple that it can just easily change. Because the freedom that I have is, is insane. So why can't everybody have a little bit of freedom? So yeah, let's jump into it.

Amazing. So I'll give a context of the listing we're going to look at. So Justina has got this property. She's got a couple of properties in Leeds in the United Kingdom. Her niche and her target audience is anybody who's like let's call it medium term rentals. I know that MTR spaces we got very big in America. It's always been over here. We've just never called it mtr. But now it is becoming a thing. And yeah, she specializes with contractors longer, like medium to longer term stays. Loves like a two or three month booking, doesn't want to have the one or two night stays for all of the reasons. And the properties that she has in her portfolio do match that. The property but we're going to look at is the one that needs the most attention because it is a, it's a brand new listing. Had the keys now for coming up to a couple of months and was very lucky that she could put straight in a contractor for like six weeks. So nothing much has been done. It was like a turnkey straight in, straight out. And it's getting to a point now where there is a gap appearing and we need to sort of get bookings. And like I always say, if you can't get them direct, then you, this is where you've got to make the OTAs work for you and not the other way around. So this is why I'm excited to dig into this bit of extra context. The property management software tool is uplisting. They have a price and dynamic software tool in Price Labs and they have a CRM, an email marketing software, which is podio. They use Zapier to connect all of the things. So cool little tech stack. So I'm excited to dig in and yeah, we're going to basically just focus on Airbnb. So let me share my screen.

She's got all the right text and stuff.

Yep, she's got a lovely little tech stack. And I can say direct bookings I don't feel is going to be a problem. What we need to do is we want to make sure that, you know, your bases are covered. And I feel like, like I anybody watching this, obviously you can go and get the book, direct playbook, the blueprint and start to implement direct bookings. But this is, you know, you've always got to Focus on where the attention is. And we all know that a lot, a lot of people in their millions are going to Airbnb on a, on a, on a monthly basis. Right. So what we need to make sure is that our marketing on there is matching to the platform. It's just like social media. The content that you put on Facebook will be different to what you put on Tick tock to be different to what you put on Pinterest or LinkedIn. So it's the same with Airbnb compared to verbal or booking. So this is why we've got John on. So this is the, obviously the, the page and obviously we're looking at this on a desktop. So, yeah, let's just dig in. What should we be focusing on? What is like your first impressions and where do you want me to go? I can literally go anywhere on this account.

Yeah. So I'll, I'll tell you. Well, first, a little disclaimer. This is not personal. This is just a lot of. This is my opinion, in fact, so I don't know this person. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but this is just adjustments to anybody listening at that point. Right. Just a disclaimer.

Right.

But the most human eyes will look at your first five photos right away. So the most important by far is your first five photos. Like, you got to make that stand out. So two things that I always like to look at in my five photos is when you're looking at other competitors, if every single person has a pool in, in your area and that's their cover photo, then change it up. If every single person has a living room with like these blue tones to it, then maybe you need something that's like bright orange or just something else that's going to make it pop out. So the first five, which Mark highlighted by far are the most important. So I always say show your best images here. Now with that, right off the bat, be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of collages for the first image. I think it's too distracting for my eye. It's hard to understand when you're looking at the photo and the copy. But with that said, there is a lot more people doing in the collage and they are putting text on there. Me personally, I just. It just feels really messy. The first image is so important and to me it just feels messy.

Okay, that's good. Good feedback. So let's then.

And the C is gone.

Yes, we know. Yeah, that's the canva. That's the canvas. But we can easily Fix that.

So, yep, yep, easy.

What would we do? So let me go and have a look so I can bring up all the pictures here. So what we do is we've got all of the property overview here. These are all the pictures. Let me just scroll down and if there's any picture that stands out to you. And again, yeah.

And I love that. I love this new layout. I, I wasn't a fan of this layout where each photo in separate rooms for a long time, but now I, I really am and I see it converting a lot better. So good job there.

Yeah.

These maps right here.

Yep.

For a place like this, I love it. I mean, everybody should do these maps. I think they're super cool and they're very helpful. Having that in your top five photo, I think is amazing because it instantly makes people want to be like, what is that? They want a cool kit.

Here's a question. Sorry, would this be a contender or a cover photo? Because obviously, like the house, you know, isn't the OMG Instagrammable. It's the, the Airbnb like, you know, you associate with. This is a, a place for a contractor relocation, longer term stay. So in terms of like the, you know, speaking directly to our target audience.

Yeah.

Is there any of these images that is like, well, that should be the main one. Or should we be instead focusing on something like that being the first one?

Good question. I don't, I wouldn't, I would put that probably the last of the five images because it's still going to stick out. You don't want to. I feel like it's still not so common. So, like, it's going to confuse people a little bit because it might be like, is this real? Is that a realist thing or is like a mock up? Is it not live yet? Is it live? It might kind of confuse people.

That's true.

Still, like, this living room is really cool with the wallpaper, because that wallpaper is wild. And there's no way you're not going to scroll past that and be like, what is this?

Okay.

That could grab some attention right there.

So this, something like this, this, this could be, this could be the main image with the, with, with the game, with the game controller. Yeah. If anything, we should try and get rid of these wires, obviously. But for now, this could be a decent one.

All right, well, it could be a decent one. And like you always say, I hear you say it all the time, like it's really important to know your avatar and the guests and stuff you're targeting.

Right.

And she's going out to the midterm. Construction worker, contractors, that kind of stuff. Like, you don't need that over the top wow factor photo. Like they're, they're looking for a place to come after work. It looks cozy, looks clean. They can chill, you know, have a couple of beers and then go back to work.

There you go. Right, well, let's go grab it then. And we've been given full range to do.

Oh, nice. We can convert it on the fly.

Convert it on the fly. This is what I love. We can do instant action taken. Now the question is, should it be this angle? Because it hasn't really got the wires. Let's make it the COVID picture all of a sudden. Right, Let me see.

Maybe for now and then maybe you can always.

Oh, so it hasn't got. The tv doesn't have. Now it just looks a little cramped.

Yeah, it looks, it looks like it made it smaller almost. Right.

All right, so let's go this bad boy. So I'll make this one the COVID picture and we're going to hit the refresh. Okay.

Pretty nice.

Yeah, it's okay. I think ideally what we would maybe be looking to do eventually would be get some. Get a professional photographer in, get obviously get things tied it up and whatnot. And then get those pictures in and, and yeah, maybe maybe lowering the angle a little bit more. We can maybe do some with editing on this definitely. Because obviously when you, when you blow it up a bit, it does give you the full context. So if we can sort of just bring that down there and it can show off this room a bit more.

Yeah. And like, I can't stress enough how important photography is, no matter what kind of avatar it is. Honestly, the better the photos, the better guest, the better revenue, the better. Less questions, concerns, but people will be able to see. Not only that, Airbnb loves high res, great photography, so they want to push that. So like, like a lot of these photos are. Are angled kind of funny and they're like, they look a little distorted. I'm guessing an iPhone by, by the way the looks of the colors and the angles and stuff like that. Yeah, they're fine. They'll probably work. She'll probably get bookings. But yeah, I always suggest spend a little money, get some insane photos and it will, it will pay yourself back in a second.

I think the context of this, I feel like there's a photographer has just gone in, as in we're talking the last couple of days taking pictures and we're just waiting on the editor. I feel like that's the latest on this one because I remember that there's guests that have just checked out. She was waiting for there to be a blank spot to get in and get. Oh, yeah. I feel like that's just happened. So if we're looking at.

And then you don't need those other two top photos because that's the same living room, the same angle.

That was going to be my next question. So we've got a living room. We've got a kitchen. We've got the free see. So these here. Let's go and find something to go in there. What would you recommend them?

I love having the kitchen in there, honestly, because of the. The type of avatar they're. You know, they're probably going to want to cook at home and whatnot. Maybe this outdoor photo is kind of cool, man. The place looks like that's kind of cool.

Okay.

I'm sure she could probably get a better photo, but it's a cool. I like seeing the outside. It's got this little grass area. So if you, like, might grab your. Then the colors look cool.

Yeah. Grab the attention. So are we saying potentially. Potential cover photo.

Potentially. Potentially. Maybe trim up the. Is it. Is it weeds or is it part of the. It's hard to see in that photo.

I'm not entirely sure. Let me double. Let's. Let's hit the refresh.

But I do really like the colors a lot.

Where's that outdoor gone? Exterior. Here.

Yeah. And some of the photos. Some of the. See?

Yeah.

The place looks cool, man.

All right.

Yeah. See, on my end, it's a little blurry. Out of focus. It looks like.

Yeah, yeah, A little blurry. You're right. A little blurry. Right. We're going to make this the old cover.

It's a cool one.

There you go. Just grab the attention. So then we've got exterior, we've got living room. Interior. Grabs the attention. We've got the. The final one here being the old. The 3D map. Come on. Either way, you. 3D map. So living room, living room, kitchen, 3D map. Another living room. So what we're looking to do then is replace this.

What do you think? Like a bedroom maybe? So they know that they got a comfy spot to sleep.

Yep. We can confirm there is a bed, so. Yeah, there is a bed. Look at this one. So this one here, it's got. It's got lights on. It looks a bit more. Grab this one. All right, so.

And the blue is always a good color. That grabs people's eyes.

This is going to be my next question, because you are good at this. This is one thing that I really love about what you do is, you know, colors and images and whatnot. So what are the good color schemes that grabs people's attention? As you mentioned, blue. Is there anything else?

Well, she. She does have a lot of great colors, and she got these nice gray tones that are, like, supposed to be calming for people.

Right.

She got great blues, which is also calming, but it also catches your eye really quick when you're scrol. Photos.

Yeah.

So she got great. And then the contrast with the leather couch makes it pop. She didn't. I mean, the styling's cool, ma'.

Am.

The styling. Like, it looks like she's got a handful of good amenities. Yeah, I. I like the colors.

Good. So even the.

This bathroom, this wild bathroom tile is cool.

Nice. So blue. Blue is catchy. So in terms of the layout after the first five, what is your honest opinion on how you lay it out? Do you structure it in terms of everything downstairs and then everything upstairs, or do you mix it up? Like, how do you sort of structure after the first five? The pictures and the order that they come in.

Yeah, so before the new. The newer. Ish layout. Right. Where it was like, you add them in rooms. Yeah, Like, I would then organize it as, like, okay, I walk through the front door. This is the living room. Like you would if you walked in.

And that.

That was my theory. It's like, okay, I'm going to walk in the front door. I'm going to see the living room first, and then I'm going to see a kitchen, and maybe I'm going to go down the hallway. That's how I used to do it, but now it's more and more common that people are doing it this way where it's the. And I don't. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you have a choice on which order the living room. That's why I never really liked it. Like, Airbnb has it. And then you can't rearrange the order of, like, living room, next, bathroom next. It's.

And they are getting this information from your. They are getting this information from your captions. Right. They must be.

No, it's actually from the. The back end in your.

The old tagaroo. Yeah, the old tagging.

The old tag.

Let's click here.

But it is a good point, man. You should add captions in every single. Yeah, why not? Like you said, why waste Free marketing.

Interesting. All right, so we can do this here in the actual app. It's on the actual website itself.

Yes.

Well then she's got decent colors anyway. When you click the auto enhance, it makes it not as cool.

Yeah, she's got good captions. I love it.

Yeah.

Super important. I think these captions are going to play a bigger role more with the categories and algorithm getting smarter and smarter. I think those categories are going to help you in the search.

Yeah, definitely. So this is something that it doesn't really get talked about enough. And when we mentioned caption, this is what we mean. You've got 250 characters here. So yeah, the more that you can state. So are they basically just putting down everything that you can see in the picture or is there any, like, tricky tricks to like keywords that we could be getting in here that could like, it could benefit us in. In categories and whatnot? Or is that just like there's no real guidance yet? It's just playing around?

Yeah, I don't think it's concrete yet, but the way I look at it, it's like any other platform, right? It's like any other like social media platform. Like at the end of the day, Airbnb is kind of like a Pinterest or an Instagram at this point. It's. It's like there's a lot of people searching around that might not even be booking. They might just be searching and playing like whatever. So if you can capture that attention for even later. So my theory is I have some that are describing the inside of the room. Hey, Nintendo, Netflix, like cozy, great couch from West Elm or whatever it is.

Right? Yeah.

And then maybe the next photo is a review. Stayed. Stayed at this listing. The host was over the top review by John Doe.

Yes. Yep, yep, yep. Dropping some of it.

Because if you only have a few reviews, people are going to look at your photos first. So if they're looking at your photos first and they got this killer review, they might, you know, be like, oh.

Dropping a review in there. Yeah, dropping a review. So what, what I like to do is brand every image as well. Bring brand every caption. So cozy spaces lead obviously the company name. The more you can drop branding in. And this is in, I think Armley say. So Leeds is like the city. Harmony is like a town within the city. Harmony there. So we want it to be talking about dropping that and then, yeah, we can drop a review in here. Now obviously they haven't. Georgina hasn't. Sorry. Justina hasn't Got a review on this property. But like we mentioned, she has several properties on the platform. Let me just go into here. This one. This is. This one has got reviews.

Yeah, look at our first five images there. Look awesome.

Yeah, these are professionally done. These are the pictures that probably come in, stuff like this. So probably y. Great location. Get a good review. House was lovely. Great location, nicely decorated, great amenities, perfect base. There we go. Boom. Tom May 2022. Let's get that in on the caption on here. And then we can. Then she can also.

It's a good idea, too. Now, you say this is. Since this quote, unquote looks like a new listing, she can write a little something about that. I have six other listings. I've been hosting for X amount of years. I have a thousand reviews. You know, to try to build that trust with somebody that might not know how to navigate Airbnb and notice that she has a profile.

I like that. So this is going to happen in the actual listing description, right? This is where we're talking about this.

No, I think. Well, both. Both. Why not? I would put one or two in the caption. Yeah, I would. I. And by the way, the way she did. I know we're bouncing all over the place now, but I freaking love the way she built out her listing description and her space. Love it.

Brilliant.

Okay, we'll dive in that in a second as a teaser.

We'll swing back. I like this. We're gonna swing back in a sec. Before I get ahead of myself, let's jump back into here. All right, and so this one is the important one, sister. First one. So what do we put in here? Check out my other reviews or check out my profile for, you know, this is a new listing. New listing on Airbnb. We said we're saying new.

Did. Or just brag, say, been a host since what year was she a host?

Ssa. Two years now. So two years.

Two years hosting five other properties, you know, professionally managed or something like that. You know, build that trust. Because we all hear the horror stories of people show up and it's not what they.

It looks like from all over the world. Oh, we run it up in. Oh, yeah. Get rid of this. Hosting the world to your hosting guests from all over the world. Check out my profile. All right, we'll trim it. Check out my profile on Airbnb or my other properties. And five star reviews.

Boom, Boom. Look at that. That makes me want to learn more about this host.

There you go. And as well, if we wanted to tidy it up if we didn't trust our grammar, we've got this very cool little GPT and all that crazy tap into. So lovely. Yeah, man. It's this day. It's there as a tool. It's not going to replace the experts, but it's a little tool for those who can't get a photo of the experts. That's what I like. Helps you get going, gives you that leg up, gives you that confidence, which is epic. All right, so the tag in place where we tag these. This isn't in this section, right? This is in another section.

It's in. Go back. Where is this section again? Property type. No, there it is. Rooms in space. Exit or edit.

Here we go. Here we go. So you got to come to this section. This is obviously something that is. They want you to go to, obviously, like just any social media. If the listing site that you are on is bringing in something new, then you want to be taken full advantage of that fact. So go and take full advantage of that.

Yeah, don't. Don't skip over what he just said, because that's, like, beyond important. Like on any platform, especially Airbnb, whenever they add something new and you can click that box or do it 1000%, try to do it.

Yeah.

They're pushing it for a reason.

Line it up. Line it up. Right, brilliant. So that's what you go to. So, again, just to recap, this is obviously your hosting dashboard. Obviously, we've clicked onto the listing that we're focusing on today. You come down to rooms and spaces, click edit, and off you go. So back to the pictures. I feel like. So we don't dwell too much time on this. And obviously, pictures are important. That's why we went to it first, because, you know, people, you know, as much as we would love them to read our beautiful description and our copy and all that cool stuff, their eyes get drawn to the pictures, right? And so that is important. And what's super important, again, is that you have that nice little order. Every single way that you lay out your images is going to be different to each property, which is frustrating and annoying, but, you know, it's. It has to be done. You know, you have to do this and you have to caption each one. The more that you grow and you build a team, then you will pass this task on to somebody else in your team. But to start off with, you're gonna have to eat the glass and get it done. So. Lovely. All right, we've got a nice. I feel like we have got a nice little Five. Yeah.

I like the way this is.

Yeah, it works well. Like I said, the cool thing is you don't have to worry too much after the top five. First five is everything. You know, you can go look at it at any time and at any point by. By clicking on the little I button at the top. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Lovely. I think what I would like to do is I would change out the. This for that because this is the sleeping arrangements. That's the downstairs.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. So that's the sleeping arrangements. That's the downstairs arrangements. And then for contractors, that's important to know what the layout of the actual sleeping arrangements is.

True. That one kind of makes it only look like stairs, though, in the crop. That's weird, huh?

Yeah, it's just. It's how it was laid out. I mean, they only cost 25 to make. It's pretty cool.

That's cool.

Yeah. A company did it. So, I mean, we have got that. We have got the thing. But again, they can click on it to see that. You know, it's an upstairs, downstairs and it's the stairs will assemble that.

Yep. I think it's the worst.

Yeah. And we can always tweak it. This is the cool thing about it. All right, nice. So pitch is good. And if we just jump into armly quickly and if I hit the refresh button. Let's see if it still loads up.

Yeah, let's see if it loads here.

There you go. So it's. It's still coming up. If we're in this area. Still coming up. Number one, whether that's because I'm clicking into it or whatever. But it still looks good. Every. Every other one is focusing on the inside. So when everybody zigs, you, Zach.

So, I mean, I think it stands out pretty strong, like you said. Look at every. Almost every image looks the same.

Yeah. This one, I'm. I'm really intrigued about this one personally, but just because it's got the fire going, it's outside and stuff, so that grabs my attention. But all of these are inside. You know, you've got the standard Netflix editing, which we always say, you know, which is cool. It grabs the attention. You know what I saw once, I saw somebody put the Disney plus on there. The Disney. Yeah, Change it up. I like that. All right, cool.

You can get sneaky and put your company logo on the tv.

Jim just dropped right there. Because they won't spot that. They won't spot that. Clever. Clever club. All right, cool. We're good. I think I like this. I like this. All right, so we've got this. Okay, let's go into other bits. So you've gone from the pictures, from the pictures we've obviously done, then the layout.

Now go back to the. The view real quick. Like if you're looking at it as a guest.

This one right here. Yep, yep.

Okay, so just real quick. The next part of the human eye normally goes to the title afterwards. I know the title went away and then it came back and whatever. But she's wasting valuable marketing and title on adding three bedrooms, four bat or. Yeah, three bedrooms, four beds. Because it says it right below five guests. Three bedrooms, four bath or one bath. Whatever I'm trying to say.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, you've got it. So.

So you're kind of like wasting some good, good marketing possibly spilling here. But I'm assuming fast WI Fi is always a plus. Free parking is probably a plus.

Yeah. So what we did here, this is something a little bit sneaky. Sneaky. So we used Lingo Jam, which is a fancy text generator.

Ah.

And the reason why, and this is something that I recommended, is that when you drop a. A search in that it stands out. But the best thing is, is that if you drop an inquiry in and, you know, we all know what the. The person on Airbnb is like, they're going to drop a few inquiries in in their inbox. When they reply, it stands out like a soft form that bold looks like, pow. What is this? So we'll come back to it. The problem is, is that because you're using Lingo Jam, it takes up a ton of your characters, so it does limit with what you can do next.

Interesting.

But, yeah, it does.

Since you can't use emojis and stuff anymore in the title, you will be suspended. Yeah, that. That's a really clever way to go around that one.

Yeah, a little cheeky way to go around it. And again, you can use Lingo Jam on your social media as well. So if you want, like an Instagram post to stand out, or if you want a Facebook post to stand out, you can use Lingo Jam to get a bit fancy. But it does take away the copy. So free parking is definitely something we want to get across. Because if you're parking in a city, parking isn't always included. 50 megabyte. Oh, hang on a second. 50 megabytes. Megabytes per sec. Per second. Yeah. Let me give it. That side is important because again, it's showing off the fast WI Fi mega.

Yeah, I Think that's super important. For sure.

Per second. Let me get one of these megabytes per second. That's important. Free parking. Megabytes per second. WI fi. So what should be then? The first word that we should use. Should it be leads? Should it be central? Should it be what, what like house or like, you know, obviously it says townhouse here, so we don't have to repeat it but like medium term stays, long term stays, contractor stays. What should we put in?

Kind of like trying to say something about that. The contractor or mid stays or something like that.

Yeah, we've got 14 characters. Yeah.

Because that, that's what she's really trying to target. So it's like, why not? Oh, wow. How was that?

We've lost it. I've gone two over.

Oh yeah too. So you got to take out the little slashies.

Yeah, okay.

But yeah, I don't think you need them. It's clean with them.

But okay, let's see if I get it. Let's see if we can get away with this first. It allows it. All right, let's see what we've got. Did it change or not? There we go.

Oh yeah. Oh, I like it. Especially with the capital, free parking and the bold stands out big time.

I like it.

Yeah, me too. I like it a lot.

All right. Yeah, I do. I do too. Speaks to, speaks to who we're speaking to.

Yeah, yeah. And like literally directly to them.

So. And with room to change, contractor to relocation if we ever want to. So people that are like between home moves. So we can, we can switch it up. And again, you can always switch this up. You don't have to. This is not like set in stone. This is not what it's going to be for the rest of time. We can, we can move.

Don't ever set it and forget it. For sure. I mean I just helped somebody yesterday, brand new listing, got a couple bookings and then it kind of just went dead. So we changed a few pricing, moved two photos around the next day we got a week booking. So just by moving things around.

Yeah, yeah.

Could bump you. Like there's no science behind it, but if it works almost 90% of the time I do it, so.

Yeah, well, it makes sense. You know, Google favors websites that get constant updation of content. Right. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. If you're posting content regularly and updating your content on that site, you're going to get rewarded. And listing sites are the same. Doesn't matter whether it's you're a verbo host whether you're doing booking.com, airbnb, whatever, you know, you got to keep it updated. And there's obviously pricing hacks to do that. You know, obviously, that's where price labs come in. But, yeah, sometimes it's as simple as moving around an image, like, and changing the title, like, just disrupting. Disrupting the. The feed, so to speak. And again, if you're really stuck on that, you know, there's some really cool. There's really cool providers out there. Rank Breeze, they do it. And, you know, even if you just go and look, like, go look in your local area. Right. Go look and see what else is there. And like we did here, like, everybody's got the inside, so we're flipping up the script a little bit, and we're going with the outside first. And, you know, if we will it. Show it. Yeah. So contractor stays. Townhouse in Army. Contractor stays. Yeah.

That's awesome.

So we're really speaking to our avatar. And again, some people will say you're going too far down a niche here. I'm sort of saying no to, like, families. I'm saying no. But, you know, this is important because we're really delving ourselves so far down on a niche, we're making room where no one else will fit. Because we don't want to appeal to everybody. We just have to appeal to a sec. Few. Because we. We ideally just want four bookings a year. You know, that's all we want. Yeah, yeah, we want to have four bookings that is going to keep us, like, you know, booked out three months each at a time. That'd be amazing, right? That's just four books.

Yeah, that'd be amazing.

Yeah. So, yeah, don't worry about that. Don't worry about burying yourself in a niche, like, because will pay dividend and. Okay, cool. Right. Title, title, key, pictures key. Where's the next sort of place that you sort of go when you're doing, like, your reviews, your. Your. Your sort of Airbnb. Yeah.

And then I jump into the listing description, and in the space, I think that's like the most. This, the third most important section. And give her credit, man. She absolutely just killed it on this. Or you did. Whoever did this part.

Yep, she did.

I'm all about not writing these giant paragraphs with. With stories. Like, you can. You can get away with it in the listing description part. Adding some stories and, you know, a vibe, it's totally fine. But I also really like. I like it simple, man. It's like, boom, people.

Yeah. And she's using the. The lingo jam.

Yep. Love it.

If we were to add anything, because we've got another 160 potentially that we could add in here, what would you recommend? I mean, obviously, it's like arrow, arrow, arrow, arrow. Entire house is accessible for the guests. Self checking with keybox. Flexible check in times free. No restrictions. Parking long. Discounts for long bookings. Should we re. Emphasize that we have got, you know, more properties? We've got good reviews on. On other listings say that this is a new listing.

I don't. I don't think it hurts to say it's a new listing, you know, professionally managed or professional. A professional host or something like that.

Okay.

I don't think that would hurt.

Professional host. New listing.

Yeah, I.

Cozy. There we go. My Cozy Spaces leads. So, again, brand.

Yeah, I love it. Dropping some hints that.

Yeah. Stranding the brand in the search. New. New listing by Cozy Spaces leads. So check out our online reviews. Yeah, check out our online reviews. Because then again, they're doing all the cool things. All right, so we'll. We'll have a little thing. I'll have a little think and I'll chat to Justine after, see what else we can pop in there. But yeah, just. Just keep it short and sweet. And then the space.

Yeah, in the space. Same thing. Sometimes at the very top of the space, I like to do key features. Not all listings have, like, a bunch of key features. So I think with this listing and the target she's going for, I think it's smarter that to break this. Keep it simple. Break it down in the bedrooms, kitchen, what it has, living room, what it has, and maybe a couple highlights of the location. Walking distance to the local bar, walking distance to, you know, my favorite burger spot or whatever it is. Like, just a couple key points, but I. I wouldn't change a thing on what you did right there. It's awesome. She. She nailed it.

So guest access. Let them know which parts of space so can keep that clear because it's. Obviously, you get the whole thing.

No, no. Always try to fill out as much as you possibly can in every space. I know it's. It's a lot, but, like, if you can just fill out anything, like right here, it's guest access. Just say something like guests. Guests have access to the entire townhouse or something. Something like that. I'm not. I'm not the best at it.

Yeah. Instead of full property.

Yeah. Airbnb loves it when you just use as many fields as possible, so include.

Any special info you want. Potential guests to know before booking. It isn't covered in other settings. So what's your favorite little thing to drop in someone like this?

So sometimes I'll drop in location. Like we have the super bowl coming up. So I'll say like, you know, 10 minutes away from the super bowl stadium if there's a big event. You guys got a lot of soccer or something coming up or.

Yeah. Yep. So soccer season's always in play. Let me just see where. How. Where she is located. So like. All right, so central leads. Where is head and Lisa.

I love doing that kind of stuff.

All right, this is good. So central leads location. So we're gonna grab a grab. So central leads a location close to hedonly of a cricket. She's like baseball, but British version close Henny for the cricket. Closest short term rental near festival grounds.

And then sometimes other. Sometimes what other people put in here. And depending on if you're using like a property management software and stuff, which she is sometimes that field, like your house rules and stuff like that, you can't enter it correctly with a property management software and that kind of stuff ends up going in. Other things to know. Just. Just FYI. Yeah, sometimes you have to put your house rules in the other things.

Yeah. The cool thing about up listing, so Justin uses uplifting, is that the information comes in from Airbnb into uplisting. So you add it to Airbnb and then it goes this way instead of going the other way. And then once it's in uplisting, then that again gets synced the other way to booking.com and. And the rest. So, yeah, we're in here and yeah, that's super cool. This way. So, yeah, you go here booking site. So you can see that it's all being synced up. Verbo is on the way, which is cool. Yeah, Verbose has been done. And you've got all these other ones that could get connected to potentially if you wanted to. Yeah, yeah. Which is weird. All right, cool. So what we've done there, we've added a few little things in. We've done. We've done bits and bobs, descriptions, title, etc. All right, amenities. Now, this is obviously something that can be painstaking, but it. You cannot stress how important this is. How often would you say, obviously Airbnb are adding in things all the time to hear different fields and whatnot. How often would you say that you go in here and like check it just to make sure there's nothing new?

I would. I'm a little A little psycho with this, but I check it quite often, ma', am, because they don't really tell you when they update and change a lot of these amenities.

And.

Yeah, which is I've been told and I've been learning that the amenities is a big part of how they're valuing your listing as far as the price on everything on every level as far as the cleaning and the overall price. Right. So yeah, if you're a luxury property, you better have every single amenity checked off. Left. And if you're a budget property, then you can get away with a little bit less amenities checked off.

But yeah, look at that.

Yeah, yeah, See, look on Cape Games. I mean, it's batting cage. You guys have a batting cage? Wow. I don't remember seeing that on mine. Look at this. This is insane. A climbing wall, like so nice.

I know, right? They're games console, so they've got the PS follow up laser.

Laser tag. What?

This is what I'm saying, right? I'm saying that I think that Airbnb are going so far down the OMG route. I think I. I honestly feel like people will just assume that they are the, like the omg, like the, the luxury ota, Right. Because they, you look at it, mini golf, cinema, you know, I know they're added in like some pretty cool listings, like the Fresh Prince of Bel Airs place. You can go stay there and stuff. But you know, if you're looking at this, you'd be like, wow. You know, like I say, if you're an Uber listed, if you're an Uber luxury listing and you've got to be getting yourself a cinema, laser tag, a skate ramp.

No way. Get out of here.

I know, right?

Man, I'm coming to the uk, they got way cooler stuff of amenities.

Babysitter board games is new.

There's a bunch, man, I check it, you know, I try to get the ones that, that I'm peeling to my market. Right. So like contractors, you probably don't need a baby crib. No, it's wasting your money at your point.

Yeah, yeah.

And then home safety is a huge one right now. Obviously. Breezeway always does like a bunch of really good talks about safety and how to get your place. So try to be as safe as possible.

I think this is the one problem with short term rentals and the whole Airbnb thing, just speaking from somebody who's come from a bed and breakfast background, like a small hotel background, is that before we open, before we even get anyone through the door, you have to have these checks. It has to be done, like, regularly updated. But with Airbnb in the past, or just anything in shop to rentals, you can just literally open and not have anything in place. Right. No check, no nothing. But this, obviously there's going to be a crossover, and this is why you're getting so much backlash from councils, town cities, you know, they're the sort of putting all these regulations in place, and I guarantee that a lot of it is being headed up and being sort of pushed down the line by hotels and, you know, bed and breakfast and small hotels and stuff are sort of saying, hey, come on, we've got to do this. They don't. And it's like, so this is why this is really important. So before. Before it becomes mandatory, just take that step to be proactive. So then you're not then gone, oh, crap. Now I have to sort all of this for all my properties. So, yeah, 100 be mindful of that.

Good point. And you would know better than anybody about that stuff.

Oh, look at this. Dedicated workspace Details.

Yeah, that's a huge one, man. Especially for what she's trying to market the midterm stuff, you know?

Yeah. Okay. I don't know. What.

Search protector. Geez Louise.

What's a surge protector?

It's where you can plug in all your power outlets.

Look at that.

I can't believe that's a click mark. That's insane.

All right, well, again, this is what the. That's what they're looking for. And. And. And this is important as well. Like, airbnb aren't just doing this on a whim. They're not like, there's not, like, people in the San Francisco office going, you know, let's just add in this. They're basing it off the data, like, the data and the searches, like, all the data that we get from air DNA, all the data that we can get from the skiff surveys and all that stuff. Like, they're only. Airbnb are only giving them the data that they want to see. They've got so much more behind the scenes, and that is why they're doing it. So, you know, this is what we're saying when they're starting to ask for stuff or ask you to add in stuff, and you got to be thinking, okay, well, maybe I do have to start doing this, whatever this is. So it's important to keep on top of it, because, look, they're just adding up so much new things all the time. And it does. And it can get tedious, but Again, you just record yourself doing it once. Hire somebody and then they can end up doing it for you. So then you can just focus on, you know, running your business instead of living in your business, working in your business on your. In your business. Free parking. Yep, got that details. It's. It's none of them. It's like street parking. Pre own street parking. There you go. I always used to remember doing this all the time in booking.com and all that sort of stuff. There you go. So long term stays allowed. Brilliant. Fantastic. Yeah.

And this good. Just always go around and poke around like you said.

Yeah, yeah, amazing. All right.

Those are like the top, top things that you should.

Yeah.

You should always worry about. Yeah.

So getting around location sharing. So yeah, here's a few things like location sharing. What is like the go to. What's like the go to stock answer. When it, when it's like with, with location sharing and things like that.

General we click on edit.

So basically, you know.

Oh yeah, yeah. This. I. Yeah, I don't know, man. I think it goes either way. Either way. Some people like to do the general. I personally do general because I don't want it like pinpointing my exact address and like raising a flag everywhere or like just a safety and health concern. Right.

Yeah.

I don't know if it really matters, but I have seen some general that don't market close enough.

Yeah.

And I think, I think you can adjust it now. I think you can go on the map and get a little closer or whatever. But yeah, it doesn't show your address. So sometimes a specific location is fine.

Tricky one in it because.

Yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird one for me for sure.

But there's no, there's no guidance saying.

There'S no guidance on it. Yeah, they don't really tell you much on it.

Okay.

As far as I know, no one talks about that too much.

So getting around has not been filled in. So this is like the neighborhood description. So accommodation is conveniently located 10 minutes drive away from the city center. If you're on Kings, which get an Uber for the course. Okay. So getting around. We need to sort of fill something in there.

Yeah, maybe it's like walking, you know, it sounds obvious, but maybe walking out here in the States it's like Lyft Uber.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah, we, we, we, we got those bad boys, but they need to add that in a little bit more. Scene views. There's no scenic views.

You know, what's another little gin that I just learned not too long ago. This is kind of crazy. I'm actually in the process of updating and adjusting my listings as we speak. Is accessibility. This is one that most people don't talk about. I never even opened this tab since 2015. I'm always like, oh, I don't like, what do I have to offer? Right.

Yeah.

But apparently this, there's not enough supply and demand and the amount of search for accessibility is through the roof and there's just not enough people that go through this list. So if your place is accessible, I would highly suggest you're probably going to get a lot more bookings.

Yeah, I mean, in our hotel, in our small hotel, we had four rooms, all on the ground floor that were built and designed to be accessible. And we, we, they were always booked because they're accessible and pet friendly. So, so it's like, you know, it's like we had 14, 14 rooms. The, the bottom floor were all accessible, all pet friendly. And they were, they're ideal. And, and what's really important to state here is that just because you've got a ground floor like a place doesn't mean it's accessible. You still. What I would encourage everybody to do is reach out to, as Lorraine Woodward, who is on LinkedIn, she is leading the, the charge on accessibility in a company. And I'm blanking on the company name, but I will get it in the show notes. But you have to make sure that if you are going to go down this route, get, get, get an expert in, make sure that they've got everything in the right place. The bathroom is so important. You've got to have guardrails in where guardrails need to be and all of us, all of that important stuff. So like I say, just, you know, just because the demand is there, don't force it if your property isn't built for it. Like, Justina should never, ever, ever consider it because all of her beds are upstairs. So for an accessibility totally accessible, it's not going to work. But like I said, but I think.

They, I think they upgraded this where you can only pick and choose certain things. Like you're like, there's different levels of it now where it's like, oh, all they have is, you know, we're on one story, but we don't have all the other stuff or whatever it is. Yeah.

So it's. Yeah. Which is, which is big. So, yeah, definitely take, take a look at it. Obviously, guest safety, you know, obviously airbnb are really ramping up guest safety because all of the things like you, you do a lot of rent, responsibility, like Renault responsible. It' Honestly, there's so much around it, like be proactive on that, don't be reactive. But yeah, really, really good. Well, we've done some nice changes here. I love it. I think we might want to see.

A booking come in live on the call. Let's go.

I know. Right. So the another thing as well just to state it is a new listing. So there is no reviews. There is guest in there at the moment but they book direct so there won't be a review for a while. And plus as well, the minimum stay is four nights because again we want to target those Monday to Thursdays coming in contractors etc, so in terms of like visibility, it may not be as much as, you know, somebody who's offering two nights, one nights etc, but we've got a nice before and after here. So this is what it was before. Yeah, let's take a screenshot of this and this. That's not it. That's the after. Boom. After making a nice few tweaks.

There we go.

So what I think, what I, what I personally think what we should do here is we should whack in a, a review from one of the other listings at the top. So it just grabs that attention. What do you reckon? Or is it good just having the bullet points? What, what's your opinion on that one?

I think you can get away with the bulletin points, to be honest, because those people, most people will click on show more and then they'll see the review. Yeah, I think, like my opinion, I think those bulletin points are pretty darn important and that would make me want to read more.

Brilliant.

I think I'd rather read that than a review, in my opinion. And then I would click on more and then see.

Yeah, I'll get, I'll, I'll grab a review and I'll put it underneath here. So it breaks up there. It breaks this up.

Yeah, breaks that up a little bit.

Yep, lovely. Love it. Right, Mr. Hildebrandt, I will.

I love it, dude. I want to see her get booked up.

Yeah, man, definitely.

Yeah. Another thing real quick might be a, a good idea when she does direct books or has like a long term midterm stay, it might not hurt to snooze the listing for a week and then turn it back on, you know, or two weeks and then that way it kind of like bumps back in because if it's booked for three months or two months, it's not really. It might not do you justice by just sitting there. It could, depending on how far people book out. Every place is different, but sometimes you can just do a quick snooze.

So where's the snooze? Is it here?

Right there, Yep. And then you name right there.

Yep.

You hit a snooze and then you.

Can set it until like. So I think this property becomes available. Let's just come up here. It becomes available on the 18th of February.

So of course if you already have bookings like further out, you might not want to snooze it, but.

So here's a little tip then. So how would you, how long would you. So say the next, the next availability is the 18th of of Feb, today is the second, so we're about 2, 2 and a bit weeks away. When is the. When, when would you snooze something like this?

Right, yeah. So if I don't have. Well, first and foremost, always look at your stats. Price Labs will give you all the stats. Your common bookings, like most of my common bookings out here are anywhere from 14 to 22 days. So for me, I would probably snooze it 25, 30 days out.

Okay.

Hopefully.

So go to, go to Price Labs, look to see what the lead to booking time is. I mean, contractors, yeah, the honest contractors, they do book last minute because they, they got to get the job signed off, you know, they've got to get the job signed off and the people are going to be paying them to come down and then they've got to start accommodation. So I'll have a little look at Price Labs, I'll go and see what the average booking from window to, to arrival is and we'll, we will have that. Save it at seven days. Right, so it comes available then, then we'll snooze until the 11th.

Yeah, sometimes it works, man. You know, all these little things work on some properties, don't work on others. Sometimes, like you, just like you said, you just got to keep playing around with it.

I like it.

Don't be afraid. You're not going to break it.

Yeah, exactly. And the only thing you can't do is deactivate.

Yeah, don't do that.

Yeah, brilliant. Hey, I really appreciate your time. All right. If anybody wants to come find out more about Mr. John Hildebrand and all the amazing things that you're doing where this is your chance. Where, where can you plug? Where's the best place to send people to?

I've been having a ton of fun with Instagram reels. You can always look at me on Instagram, John Hildebrand sicky. Or my YouTube. Having tons of fun on the YouTube at Hildy Homes. Yep. And I'm hopefully in the process of building my own personal website, rebranding that. But you can go check out my Boostly direct booking site. Get inspired. Get inspired@hildyhomes.com it's an amazing site. Toodles to the man above me. But yeah, those are where you can find me.

Amazing. Hey, thank you so much for this and Justina thanks you on her behalf. I know that she will absolutely love that we've dug it. We've got some stuff and I've got some homework for us, so. Brilliant. I'm a man.

Well, keep us up to date on. On if some should get some bookings and stuff direct or Airbnb or whatever. I'm curious.

I will definitely, definitely do. So we would, we'll, we'll have a nice chat behind the scenes, me and Justina, we've got some. I'm giving us some helps and tips with directs and cool things and how to get in contact with people. But yeah, I will definitely keep you in touch. Thank you.