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Do this today to rank higher on Airbnb Transcript
(00:10):
Howdy everybody. Thanks for joining me on another episode of Vacation Rentals with John. I’m your host, John, and today it’s going to be a quick tip. Do this today to rank higher on Airbnb. So the search algorithm is always changing, and my job is to stay on top of all the updates and give you the lowdown on how to beat it. What I’m saying is it’s not science. Some of my tips are from my own personal experience because they happen to work well for me, and I cannot point to any literature from Airbnb that says, yes, this method works. I just don’t have that for you. But today I do have something for you that can help your ranking move up so you can get more eyes on your property and hopefully secure more bookings and fill that calendar of yours. So the first thing, change the last two photos in your listing every day.
(00:55)
The second thing, change your pricing often even by a dollar or two, or use third party dynamic pricing tools if their model works for your business. Now the logic here is that Airbnb’s algorithm, which is a system utilizing AI and other means, they will detect this activity and re-index your listing because of the update, hopefully pushing you higher in the rankings. Dead listings, which I consider listings, when the owner either doesn’t log in much, doesn’t update much, or doesn’t reply much, they always get shuffled to the back of the bus. So I actually had a property drop from 3000 views to 200 views in a matter of weeks, and I call them and ask, Hey, what’s up? What’s up with this? Why are my views going down so much? This is irregular. They didn’t give me any clear answers, not very helpful, but I did these things, just these two things that I listed above and boom was back up in the views.
(01:47)
Now, not quite to 3000 views as before, but to at least 1,500 views, which I’m happy with. So one, let’s recap. Change the last two photos in your listing every day, or just move around your photos in an order that works for you. Two, change your pricing often even by a couple dollars or use third party dynamic pricing tools if their model works for you. Try it out, see if it works. Let me know if anything changed. If you discover anything new, let’s talk. Now. Of course, the biggest thing changing your ranking is affordability and price at this moment, because that is overall your book ability according to the platform, and they’re trying to grow and to grow revenue. That means they need to grow bookings at all costs. And yes, that will be at the expense of us wanting a higher nightly rate because the platform simply doesn’t care.
(02:34)
They just want as many of their listings to get booked as often as possible. They know there’s going to be some winners, there’s going to be some losers, but they’re more concerned about corporate growth, earnings growth, but for us, we need to worry about our growth. So these small things will at least signal to their algorithm that we’re making a change to listing. Look at it again, it’s kind of like saying, Hey, I just did my hair. Look at me, look at me. It’s similar to that. It’s like making a change and screaming, look at me. We’re doing that to the algorithm. We’re making a couple changes in the listing and saying, Hey, you look at me over here, and hopefully we get the attention of that algorithm and that algorithm can show us a little love in, and then they can give us a little bit more ranking, and as we move up in the rankings, more people will see us. That’s the logic here. So if you like this content, please help me make more of it. All you need to do is leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps me get the show in front of more listeners, and if you haven’t joined a Facebook group yet, I’m inviting you to join. A link will be in the show notes. Until next time, friends, take care.
Vacation Rentals With John is one of the fastest growing short term rental podcasts. The show has been growing in popularity because of its no BS, to the point lessons on how to grow and operate a vacation rental. Join the facebook group. To listen to any of the past episodes, check out this page.