Its come to light that airbnb and vrbo use pretty aggressive SEO algorithms to put some listings higher than others. Do we have any personal knowledge, or articles, or data to try and figure out how to optimize our listings? Should we put '4 bedroom/2 bath' in the title or does airbnb penalize that because we already have it on our listing? Should we write bullet points about best features on our description, or does airbnb prefer us to write flowery prose that just talks about how much fun it'll be to stay there? What about captions? What about photos even? I know that airbnb has a color-sorting algorithm for photos, preferring certain colors and images to others.
What have you guys seen, or do you have any articles you've found from insiders with actual knowledge of the industry's tactics?
Boise, ID · Member since 2018 · 57 posts · 39 votes
4y
I'm no expert as we just closed on our first STR last week (we should actually be going live tonight!), but from what I've researched here are some things that are supposed to help:
1) Good reviews
2) Good scoring on your response rates to inquiries
3) Be an active host! Update your pricing regularly, update your listing regularly. When Airbnb sees activity it interprets that as a host being active and the algorithm then gives more confidence to the accuracy of your listing.
Investor / Mentor / Contractor · Arcadia, CA Buying Out of State · Member since 2015 · 654 posts · 622 votes
4y
I'll be interested to hear advice here also. I don't have the answers unfortunately. It appears the best SEO is having closest to 5 star reviews. But how to push with SEO? Not sure (yet).
Boise, ID · Member since 2018 · 57 posts · 39 votes
4y
I'm no expert as we just closed on our first STR last week (we should actually be going live tonight!), but from what I've researched here are some things that are supposed to help:
1) Good reviews
2) Good scoring on your response rates to inquiries
3) Be an active host! Update your pricing regularly, update your listing regularly. When Airbnb sees activity it interprets that as a host being active and the algorithm then gives more confidence to the accuracy of your listing.
Its come to light that airbnb and vrbo use pretty aggressive SEO algorithms to put some listings higher than others. Do we have any personal knowledge, or articles, or data to try and figure out how to optimize our listings? Should we put '4 bedroom/2 bath' in the title or does airbnb penalize that because we already have it on our listing? Should we write bullet points about best features on our description, or does airbnb prefer us to write flowery prose that just talks about how much fun it'll be to stay there? What about captions? What about photos even? I know that airbnb has a color-sorting algorithm for photos, preferring certain colors and images to others.
What have you guys seen, or do you have any articles you've found from insiders with actual knowledge of the industry's tactics?
Watch a few videos about the topic and you should have a better understanding of how to work SEO for your STR's.
Investor · Greenville, SC · Member since 2020 · 210 posts · 302 votes
4y
The OP asks a great question - it’s really the million dollar question that is impossible to respond with certain answers. There is obviously no official Airbnb source for how to hack their SEO ranking algorithms, so the best we can do is perform the scientific method to try to figure out what’s up. And by the way the answer seems to be quite different today than in April thanks to the May app update.
My opinions based on your questions:
-Get people to stay on your listing and click through all your photos. This means engaging description and great photos that aren’t redundant. You need to make the user to want to click or scroll to see the next photo, even if they ultimately don’t book.
-Don’t use photoshopped graphics on your photo that obfuscate the photo content.
-Photo #1 is more important than ever.
-Listing titles are coming back to the search map per Chesky’s announcement last week. Make them engaging and cause someone to want to emotionally click to learn more about your offering. Do not provide sterile objective content in your title.
-While not official, it does SEEM that one of the biggest changes to the May update was using text analysis to affect ranking. This means all photos should be captioned with property type and amenity terminology. Captions should be the opposite of what a professional journalist would teach you about good caption writing. The user experience design makes captions almost useless for the end user, so you’re only writing them for the algorithm and “listing completeness” which is a ranking metric.
Take all of that with a grain of salt because it’s just my opinion based on experience and research.
Investor · Leominster Ma · Member since 2019 · 305 posts · 162 votes
4y
This is what I am constantly trying to figure out. Airbnb just changed their entire site set up and algorithm so i am still working on that. This site started as a more affordable alternative to hotels. Many good things were mentioned on how tog et better rank such as reviews and such. Another factor is affordability, if you are considered a good deal I believe you get a push. My strategy is to offer a good price on mine and make it an amazing experience so I can get to super host quickly and get pushed up the rankings. I am a few stays away on Airbnb and VRBO so keep your fingers for me crossed!