How to Hack The Airbnb Algorithm

Hello, welcome to the Boostly Academy. You know who I am by now. I've just finished my video interview with Danny from Optimize My Airbnb. Now, I really have been looking forward to this video for a number of reasons and we will go for it in the chat. But firstly, Danny was one of the first load of people to be hired by Airbnb in San Francisco all those years ago when they got started. He has since stopped working at Airbnb, started up his own portfolio, but is now traveling the world staying in Airbnb Properties. He's closing in on his seventh hundredth night straight of staying in Airbnb Properties. He's one of the best when it comes to figuring out Airbnb. His website, Optimize My Airbnb is one of my first places that I go to when I want to find out more about Airbnb and his Instagram, his YouTube channel are phenomenal. I have been waiting for this because he travels and I travel and we've been waiting to get the perfect time where we can do this and that has happened. This evening we talk about a load of things from digital guidebooks to QR codes to emojis in the title, talking about the new commission charges, talking about Airbnb taking over hotel tonight. But Danny then leaves you with a of couple, couple of quick tips and tactics that you can do right now to get improvement on your Airbnb listing. And if you watch until the very, very, very end, the last 50 seconds, he will leave you with one thing that you will do that will give you more reviews, more five star reviews, which then in turn gives you more visibility. I really appreciate Danny's time and this has been one of my favorite interviews. Danny's all the way over in Moscow and Russia in Stockton, worlds apart. But this video lasts about 45 minutes. Please sit back, watch it, devour it, make notes, make changes. If you've got any questions, drop it in the comments section below. Without further ado, everybody, Danny from Optimize My Airbnb.

Yeah, I was working at Airbnb and finance and that's where my finance career ended in. Then I started a new career which led me to where I'm at now. But some interesting things happened in the year after Airbnb, which is very specifically why I do what I do now, which is Airbnb optimization, helping hosts, kind of simplifying Airbnb. Every year it gets a little bit more complicated. You know, like I used to play video games. I used to play like Sega Genesis with Those easy controls. And now once the video games came out nowadays, like, they're just way too complicated for me. Every. And I kind of view Airbnb the same. Like, it keeps getting layers to it. So I try and simplify it. And the year after I worked at Airbnb, I worked for an Airbnb property management company, which was very new at the time, as was Airbnb. But this is where I kind of started realizing, ah, okay, there's something to obviously. But it just didn't click. There's an algorithm, there's a search. I'm doing these things and I'm getting bookings right away. That that's where it all came together. In 2016. I started it was analyze my Airbnb. Now it is optimize my bnb.com and I refine it. What I'm known for is my optimization reports. Six months ago, I released a new product which helps automate a bunch of your processes, increase the gift experience. And I do all this while living in Airbnb. Right now, I'm speaking to you from my 30th country, Moscow, Russia. And I'm in an Airbnb in the Tverskaya district. If for any watchers who have been here before, I was the 700th, coincidentally, I was the 700th employee at Airbnb. And I will be passing my 700th night on Airbnb as a guest during this stay within the next couple weeks.

Nice. Nice. That is a lot of nights in an Airbnb. So currently in Moscow, Russia. Can you just sort of fill us in on some of the other very quickly, other countries that you've been in over the last nearly 700 nights?

Yes, I've been the zones. I've been most. I've been to six continents. I've been to Morocco on Africa. I've been to European countries as far up north as Finland and Estonia. I've been down to Colombia, Canada. I've been to a bunch of Asian countries earlier this year. And now I'm in Eastern Europe. I go to Ukraine next. Kazakhstan is probably my most random country I've been to. That was last month. So I stay one month, one month per city. And at the end of that month, I review the Airbnb just a quick 10 minutes. If these are the things that could be done better, in my opinion, things that. Things that the host did, great. And it's interesting that I always have something to say. Well, I think at least, oh, people view it. Yeah. But I would. I thought when I first Started I would kind of say the same things over and over, but no, it's always something different.

Yeah. And to fill in a sort of gap of how we got to know each other for a lot of people, you know that I spent the first four months of this year in Bali, and after following Danny for a while on Instagram and the manager of the resort in Bali there, we sort of found out that Danny was on his way through Bali while we were going, while I was going to be there. So as soon as I knew that was going to happen, I had to meet him. So we reached out and found out that he was going to be near where the result was. So we invited him down, stayed for a few nights, got to know each other and, you know, we did a bit of Airbnb work on the property whilst there and have kept in such since. But it was during that stay where I really got to see hands on, just how simple little tweaks. And we're gonna leave you today with our video at the end of this chat talking about some simple little tweaks that everybody can do. And it has worked. You know, it's not just tactics that people can say and they don't actually work. These tactics are, are working and they work so, so well. We're going to talk about some of them during this video, but make sure you do stick to the end because we're going to leave you. Danny's going to leave you some simple tactics and tips that you'd be doing straight away after this chat. So we're going to start by talking about something where a lot of people don't do. And I think what is really good about what you're doing right now, Danny, is that you're from two scales. So, number one, you are the owner, as in you have property where Airbnb guests stay. But also, as right now, you are the Airbnb guest. You are the guest and you are experiencing in so many different ways the things that people do well pre, during and post day and things that people can improve on. And I love from following the Instagram and we'll get all the links for the Instagram and the ways that people can keep in touch after this chat. But following the story, seeing these live videos, going through what people are doing well, not so well. But one of the things that I've noticed and chatting to everybody who's watching this video is the pre stay is so crucial communication, making the guest aware of what to expect when they arrive. And there's something that you introduced me to. And we're going to talk about it now. It's called Hostfully, which is a digital guidebook. So could you just please, in your words, explain a little bit about Hostfully, about online digital guidebooks and why you recommend them and why they work.

Yeah, you remember the last time. Maybe not for you, but play along with me. Remember the last time the guest asked you where they can take out the trash or where they can park or how to work the ac, how to work the tv, how to work the coffee maker, Any of these simple questions. These are what you put in the guidebook. You direct the guest's attention to the guidebook and it increases the guest experience. The guest doesn't want to wait on you to tell them where to put the trash. Neither does the neighbors who now the trash is in the hallway. Neither they don't want the guests to wait on you either and it decreases your time. No one does this. In my 700 nights, I have never received an electronic guidebook. I've received. There's one here and this is very, very rare. He printed it out and it's great. It's so great because it's so rare and, and he saved himself time. He has a washing machine here. He printed it out and same with the garbage. He printed it out, said what I need to do. So that saved him time. It saves me time as well. This is the whole point of digital guidebooks. They're free for the first one. Hostfully isn't the only one. They're the best one in my opinion. If anyone out there is watching and owns a digital guidebook company, I keep my eye on all of the products that I use. Smart pricers, digital guidebooks, message automation. So I know a lot of what's out there. Hostfully is the best in my opinion right now. It's best to have a digital one simply because you can edit it much easier. Now if a digital one might be a little harder for older folks to use. So you could have a printed out one. Just know that it will go out of date faster than the digital one and you can always guide them there. So it seems like as if it's a printed out one and then maybe the digital is a bonus, but it should be digital always and printed out one might be a bonus.

I think a really cool way to do is you still have your printout guidebook because everybody has them. We have them at our family business and I see them everywhere that we go. But what I would look to do, and you all know how to do this because the training is right. Here is get a QR code, print it off, put it at the front of your printed off guidebook and say for an updated in real time guidebook about the property and how to use things, scan this code. Every single device now automatically recognize QR codes. All you got to do is hold up your phone to some devices and it goes straight to the webpage. So that could be an option if you can have both. Like hostfully is just one, but there are many, many to use. Sorry, what are you going to say?

I didn't know that. Thanks. So can I create one of these codes linking to my hostfully guidebook?

Yeah, 100%. So the way that a QR code works is it's free to do. You just go to QR creator on Google that hundred percent free. You just put in the URL on where that you want people to go and it can be any URL like a YouTube video, social media page, a web link. As long as it's a physical web link where people can go to, it will just direct them to. And now on iPhones you just open up the camera and you just basically hover over a QR code and it will take people straight to the Safari link. And Samsung I think is even better. I think Hawaii phone may be even better where you just literally have to hold the phone up to it and it takes people straight there.

So I'll give it a try after this call.

Yeah, give it a go. And it's the reason why I use QR codes and why I do a training session on it is because people, when they were leaving our property, we stuck QR codes on the back of the door and we put as you were leaving, leave us a review on TripAdvisor. All you got to do is scan this QR code. So it just kept it simple for the guests. So as they were leaving, they could literally scan it, leave a review. And we put a little incentive in there for everybody that left a review. So that's how we used it. But you can use it for this as well. Okay, let's move on. So the next topic we're going to talk about is making our listings stand out a little bit more. And one tactic and tip that you showed, and it's something that I've done, but did it at the Sahaja and it has worked really well, is talking about emojis in the title. Now could you just please expand on emojis, how you discovered that these were usable, why you use them why they work, and what do you think is really relatable to emojis in an Airbnb listing?

So emojis are anything like a star. There's, you know, like an umbrella. There's a. There's even, like, you know, a coffee cup. So emojis, what they do is they don't really communicate any information like a title should. But the point is that someone's scrolling down and like you said, it's a pattern interrupt. It's something that they haven't seen before, and it encourages them to take an extra second to look at your listing. And the more time someone devotes to your listing, that extra second, it's more likely they're gonna click on it. Once they click on it, you have an optimized listing, your conversion rate is gonna be high. So I use emojis in the front part of my title because on the back part will be cut off on mobile devices. And I won't go overboard. I'll use one type of emoji. I see a lot of people using stars and hearts and, like, three, four different things. It's too much. I mean, there's no stats on it. So, you know, I get. I suppose they could be doing very well, but my guess is it's probably too much and it flows through the rest of the listing.

Yeah, one thing I was going to say is there's eight. I believe there's eight. And what we'll do is we'll. But we'll find a copy of the eight emojis that you can use because many of them are blocked off and you can't use. In fact, depending on who you tell this tip to, people say that emojis are just not allowed full stop, where you can use some. So there's been, you know, I've never noticed anybody's listing or complaint coming from Airbnb, but like Danny's saying, it's pattern disrupt. That's why they're in a heavily saturated area like Bali is. I know. I guess the same would be for Moscow or any city where you've got a ton of other Airbnb listings. People are just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And as long as you've got a really good first image matched with a title, that stands out. And you've got something that just is so different to everybody else. You're going to get someone giving you that split second more attention, and all it takes is that split second and a click and then you can do the rest. But, yeah, emojis is something that I recommend all of you looking into, I mentioned this to a friend. I said, put an emoji in your title. Said about the advice that Danny gave. And she messaged me a couple of weeks later saying that she's never had any bookings from Airbnb, not one in the year that she's been on it. After putting an emojis in a title, whether it was coincidence or what, she said, I've had two bookings. So I was like, you know, it works. That pattern disrupts standing out that little bit. I mean, to be fair to her, the pictures were a bit of a mess beforehand, but she changed it to show off the view and the stunning area. And I think a combination of the two things has definitely been one. So 100% look into it. Do you have anything more to add on emojis or you. Good.

Just that the main point of a title is to communicate information to the guest to have them book and so use emojis as a bonus. You know, one emoji here and there. I use maybe like 3 emojis maximum in my title. And I do it to separate. I put usually an amenity and I'll do an emoji to separate out the amenities.

Yeah, just quickly, just on going on a tangent, just break down what you believe to be a really good Airbnb title, because you get so many people be not very creative with it. For example, with Booking.com, with Expedia, you can't be creative. You have to sort of use and go within the parameters that they set. But Airbnb give you that creativity. So how do you bridge a title? How do you make your stand out? Because some. Many people just put the name of the business, they'll just put the name of the bnb. How would you do that?

Yeah, there's so many ways to stand out. The very basic is any amenity that you have. Do you need to take a break?

No, no, we're good.

Any amenity that you have, you can list that in the title. That's going to bring you better than 90% of titles. But to go a step further in Bali, to give that as an example, when I was searching there, it was almost impossible to find a fully functional kitchen, because most people go out and eat there. But I like to cook. And so if you and people go to Bali, they like to cook. So if you had a full kitchen in that market, I would highlight it because it's unlikely that your competition is going to have it. And for those few people who actually want a Kitchen, yours is going to stand out very high. To give another example, here in Moscow and most of the world, people don't have dryers, washer and dryer, but here they do. He does. I didn't know that before I came, but when I came, it was awesome. If he should put that in his title, it's a very, it's a very rare amenity, especially if he's going for business travelers and folks staying for more than a week where they would need to do wash, dry.

I think that's 100%. It's not only just putting in a description for a description sake. Look at what everybody else is offering in your 5, 10 mile radius. Focus on, again, look at who your customer avatar is. Look at the type of people that you attract and match a need to what you're offering.

Yeah. And if, let's say you have a gorgeous view and you can see that view in the COVID photo, don't repeat that information in the title. Give new information.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Okay, well, let's move on and talk about what Airbnb are doing. And they're doing. As of recently, they've recently put in a takeover of Hotel Tonight. So what's your opinion on that? Where do you see Airbnb going with this hotel? Sort of going over to this sort of WorldToTakeOverBooking.com and Expedia. What do you know about it? What's your opinion on it?

Yeah, Airbnb wants to be the one stop shop, including flights. They just released Adventures, which I'm a huge proposal. I like that idea much more than experiences. But first of, first of all, Hotel Tonight is a lot smaller than people think. It got a lot of attention for some reason. I'm not sure why, but it's not even available in many big cities. So it's really not a big company. But with that said, I think it's a good move. People who want to book hotels go to, you know, they're just. A lot of people are loyal to hotels. It's, it's a good thing if Airbnb doesn't, if they can separate out. If I want a hotel, I can pick hotel. If not, if they start messing with kind of mixing them in and making it hard to decipher, I think that would be a downside. But yeah, if someone wants a hotel option, go ahead to Airbnb. Some hosts might say it's more competition. I think that's true to an extent. But most people either want an Airbnb or, or a hotel yeah, yeah, I.

Totally can see why. They've pretty much said themselves that they're looking to branch out like you say to a one stop shop. With the adventures, the experiences, hotels, flights, they are literally wanting to be the place where everybody goes to. And still what I find is that so many people yet to use Airbnb, there's still a massive market for them to tap into. And by making this purchase and a couple of the things that they're looking at, they're definitely doing something. Until they finish with what they're doing, I don't think we're going to properly know, but you can just see in the background they are now opening up a lot of two way connections to a lot of the channel managers that members of this community watching right now will use free to book and Avivo, just to name a few. They've now got two way connection where in the past it was just a one way, with them really pushing instant book as well as having a two way connection. And we're going to move on to this in a second. But potentially scrapping guest fees, it's just shaping up nicely for them to integrate more hotels, multiple rooms on one property into their API. So something's going on. It's definitely one to keep a track of. There's even, you know, talk of that they're doing all of this, making all these little purchases for when they go and put themselves on the IPO next year, is that they're potentially looking to get themselves bought by one of the big players who, whether that may be a Google or an Amazon or a Facebook, who knows? So there's a lot going on at Airbnb, so it's a good time to be involved with it because it's starting to get a lot more traction.

And can I just go on a tangent real quick about this IPO that you mentioned?

Yeah.

So it's interesting to me to note as I travel, I get to view these worldwide companies in a pretty intimate fashion. And comparing Uber to Airbnb, Uber is supposedly a hugely valuable company. And it strikes me as where Airbnb is one third the size, apparently strikes me as very odd because anyone, because Uber's buyer and seller, driver and passenger are in the same market. So any local competitor could come in and corner that market. And they have. I can't remember last time I used Uber. Well, I can't. It was in Panama because there's, there's still. They use the US dollar there and Uber's there and I have Uber credits, so I use IT in Panama, all the other cities I've been to, it's all local competitors. Yandex here, where I'm at Gojek in Bali. Whereas Airbnb, it's impossible to have a competitor because their buyer and the seller, they know where their seller is, the property owner, but the buyer could be anywhere in the world. So for a company to come in and be a competitor, it'd be just so much harder. The barrier is so, so much higher. So it's. It strikes me as odd. Anyways, I wanted to get that out here on the record, on your video here.

Nice. So let's go and look at something else that might be happening with Airbnb. We just briefly mentioned it. There's rumors and there's definitely movements going on. SKIFT have talked about this recently. This was being recorded in June 2019. There was a recent article in May about Airbnb messaging hosts in different countries, and they are asking if they want to flip from a 3% commission model to a 14%, 1, 4% commission model and getting rid of guest fees. So this is something that has been spoken about. The Facebook groups are talking about it. We don't know what it means moving forward, whether it's going to be the whole of the world, whether they roll it out to all, or if this is just in test mode. But what opinion do you have on it? If they do get rid of guest fees and they flip to a 14% straight commission model, how do you think this will impact many Airbnb owners? And what. And what do you think that that would entail for the rest of the model?

Okay, to go back to the Uber example before, and then I'll flip it to Airbnb at the end. Prior to Uber, it was taxis and public transit and you would take a taxi. At least for me, taxi was an expensive alternative. I would take that in only a few situations. Most of the time. Opting for public transit. Nowadays I don't take taxis still, but I never take public transit. I always take Uber because what they've done is they've made it so. The process so comfortable. And when I'm saying Uber, I'm saying any of these Uber, like apps worldwide, they made the process so easy that it just doesn't matter so much the price. And in fact, in some countries, it's cheaper to take a regular taxi than to take an Uber. So with Airbnb, they're at a point now, I don't know if they're. They're at a point now where they.

Can.

Flip it and a lot of people like they're gonna change it. I'm not gonna go anywhere. I'm not gonna start using hotels. A lot of people are loyal to Airbnb and also they're gonna flip it on for everyone, at least in a market. So it's not like your competition is getting this as well. And so like 6%, the host already has 3. The 6% on the guest is gonna go to the host. So that's nine. So that's an additional 5% fee, I suppose. So I think it will all even out in the end. Also just note Airbnb's tested a lot of different pricing strategies, including charging you more if you do strict cancellation policy. Most of them, I think all of them have not been implemented. So it's not unlikely that this also will not be implemented.

Yeah, I guess it's just one. One to watch. You just mention it in any of the Facebook groups for Airbnb hosts and it's met with a lot of controversy, let's just put it that way. But it's definitely, like I say, one to watch. So let's. We've talked about what could be happening with Airbnb. Let's move on to what the people watching can do with their Airbnb listing to get more visibility and more bookings. So let's move on to mistakes. So you have seen and you know a lot of Airbnb hosts, you witnesses on a day to day basis with your reports that you do for optimize my Airbnb. But what would you say is the one big mistake that you see Airbnb hosts make on a. On a daily basis?

I could go with so many routes with this, but I'll say because I just released a video on it. The mistake is paying attention to your Airbnb listing views. I get emails weekly, almost every other day or even every day from hosts, concerned hosts about their views. And this is true. This is because Airbnb highlights views on your on your dashboard. But at the end of the day views, I'm not sure how accurate they are and they just don't give you enough information. They don't. If you okay, I get a thousand more views. What does that do? Well, you'll probably get a few bookings out of it, but it's more important your conversion rates. So I urge the folks, your hosts, ignore the views. Really? In all cases, ignore the views. Focus on occupancy. What is the occupancy number? 50%, 60% of your calendar. This is Directly measured and then you can adjust your price based on that. And I have an Airbnb quick tip, a video series I do every week on my YouTube and I hope you'll put a link somewhere to get more views because I want to reduce these emails that I get because it's wasting their time and it's wasting my time at the end of the day.

Okay, so let's move on to simple tactics and tips that people can do. What is Airbnb host is watching right now? They want to get more visibility. If you want to get more bookings, what are some simple things that they could be looking at their list in they might be looking at it whilst watching this video. What can they be doing right now to get more visibility, more potential bookings? Give us like maybe your top one, maybe one to three. What would you recommend?

Yeah, it's all about setting expectations. Any question you get from a guest that's consistent, make that question go away somehow. If they keep asking you, hey, you have a full kitchen, you have utensils and whatnot. Well, add a photo of a kitchen maybe with a drawer, drawers pulled out. What I do on mine and what I recommend everyone do is add a floor plan. This eliminates all this will set all expectations. They know exactly what they're getting. And that way also you don't have to do 10 pictures of an individual room, the 10 angles so they get the photo. And you don't want to do that either because they're missing out. Then on the, you know, 60th photo, people don't scroll past the 20th photo really unless they really, really like listings. You can also do this. Won't give you more visibility, but it will increase your conversion rate. Create a walking map. If you're in a walking area or if you're not, create a driving map or even a public transit map, biking map, some sort of a map. I'm actually going to create a video on how to do this. It's rather easy. This is what I include on some of my listings where it makes sense. And also specifically for how to get more visibility, I have a blog post how to re optimize your listing. It's bullet points like 12 things. You don't have to do all 12, just do a few of them, whichever ones you think will have the most impact and then see how it goes and then maybe do some more later.

I like that. And we will definitely include the links to the blog, to the YouTube, to the Instagram. And regarding floor plan, I will 100% put up a picture right now of the lady that you recommended that we get in touch with. We reached out and she did a phenomenal job of the Sahaja. Got the villa and the floor layout is fantastic. It's up on the listings. And what I did on the back of that is I posted up in this very group that is watching this right now. The example put her contact details in and I know that she's had at least 10 people contact. Five people have booked working. So, yeah, phenomenal. I think that having a floor plan is something that so many people miss out. And you can not only use that floor plan on Airbnb, you can put it on your website, you can put it on booking.com, you can put it on Experience, you can put it on your social media, you can put it anywhere and it will just help give your guests an idea of what's around. I mean, the expensive option is if you've got Matterport cameras, you know, you can have a VR virtual reality walkthrough. Well, that's a video. You can't have them on listing sites. They are expensive. A floor plan, you know, $100 and you can. Got it. And it's there and it's. It's the difference between having a floor plan that you can generate on a computer is that these are hand drawn. And again, Airbnb is all about that Instagrammable effect. It's the scroll stopper. If you can have that, it makes your listing stand out from the rest. So we'll get that up and we'll get that in. We'll get all the tactics, the tips, the links, everything that you need.

But, Danielle, just about the floor plan to convince a little more of your audience. Who's going to watch this car? I don't know. I forget how I found Carmen, but she's so good at what she does that now she lives in Guatemala. She's now quit her job and she does this full time in just maybe six months. I've been working with her. I noticed it right away. I said, oh. So I picked her up and now she has her own Instagram. She gets. Yeah, she gets so many referrals. She's busy. Takes her a month to get these things out because she's so busy. But it's highly worth it. I even put one of them on my cover photo to see how it tests. Just recently did that.

Yeah, I think. Thank you for that recommendation. I think that she is phenomenal. She's going to probably have to start outsourcing too, because she's going to have so much work coming because she's very, very talented. And her Instagram again, we'll put her Instagram link in. You can follow. She's a very talented lady. And again, it's all about making your listing stand out. It's about the pattern disrupt and that is emojis and that. Phenomenal. All right, really appreciate your time. If anybody wants to the quickest and easiest way to reach out to you after this. What is the best method to get into your inbox?

Go to www.optimizemybnb.com and in the lower right corner you're gonna see a blue dot. That's a chat feature. And you can chat me. If I'm not online, it will send me a notification and I'll get back to you via email. But if I am online, which is most of the time though, consider the time difference. I can get back to you right away.

Optimize. For those of you watching, Danny is obviously American. This is Optimize with a Z. It's not an S. That's what we spell it in the UK way of spelling it though.

You can type it in that way and you'll still. I bought that URL too.

There you go. Nice forward thinking. Hi Danny. Really appre your time. Really appreciate this video. And yeah, everybody please reach out, say thank you for this video. After you watch this, please go check him out. And like I say, Danny can work with you on further ways if you want to reach out for a more one on one basis. But loads of free advice on his YouTube channel for those of you who want to consume that first. All right, thank you. Thanks for watching as always. Comments below, let me know what you want to see next. But this is being the boostly academy. Thank you for watching.

Send all the way to the very end. Quick tip. Yeah, go for it. This is only valid for those folks who are using message automation. Send this message out four hours after checkout. Sorry, five hours after checkout. Send this message. Say hi, guest name. Thanks so much for leaving the place in great shape. You can expect a five star review from me tomorrow when Airbnb allows safe travel, something like that. This single message for me, I think accounts for a great number of five star reviews and an increase in the percent of reviews. This simple message, put it in and it works.

Nice. I like that. All right, brilliant. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it.