How to Optimize your Airbnb listing with an Superhost and ex-Airbnb employee

Have been looking forward to this video for a number of reasons. 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 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.

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. 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. They don't want the guest to wait on you either, and it decreases your time. 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.

I think a really cool way to do 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. Then it goes straight to the webpage. 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, 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 going to click on it. Once they click on it, you have an optimized listing, your conversion rate is going to be high.

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 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. Just break down what you believe to be a really good Airbnb title. How do you bridge a title? How do you make your stand out? Because so many people just put the name of the business, they'll just put the name of the bnb. How would you do that?

Any amenity that you have, you can list that in the title. That's going to bring you better than 90% of titles 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. 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.

Look at what everybody else is offering in your like, 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. Where do you see Airbnb going with this hotel? Sort of going over to this sort of world to takeover, booking.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. But 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. 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 a hotel.

Yeah, yeah, I totally can see why. They 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 but 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, 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 potentially scrapping guest fees, it's just shaping up nicely for them to integrate more hotels, you know, multiple rooms on one property into their API. There's rumors and there's definitely movements going on 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. 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 do you think that would entail for the rest of the model?

A lot of people are loyal to Airbnb from. And also they're going to flip it on for everyone, at least in a market. So it's not like your competition is getting this as well. And so the 6%, the host already has three. The 6% on the guest is going to 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.

If 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. What would you say is the one big mistake that you see Airbnb hosts make on a daily basis?

The mistake is paying attention to your Airbnb listing views. And this is true. This is because Airbnb highlights views 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. 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.

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 listing? What can they be doing right now to get more visibility, more potential bookings? Give us maybe your top one, maybe 1, 2, 3. What would you recommend?

It's all about setting expectations. Any question you get from a guest that's consistent, make that question go away somehow. 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, 10 angles, so they get the photo. And you don't want to do that either because they're missing out. Then on the 60th photo, people don't scroll past the 20th photo.

Really 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 XBD, 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.

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. Which whichever ones you think will have the most impact and then see how it goes and then maybe do some more later. Quick tip. Yeah, go for it. Any 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.

Hi Danny. Really appreciate your time. Really appreciate this video. And if anybody wants to the quick, 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.

All right, thank you. Thanks for watching as always. Comments below let me know what you want to see next. Thank you for watching.