How to Re-Optimize Your Listing

by Daniel V. Rusteen

Excerpt from new book Optimize YOUR Airbnb by Daniel V. Rusteen. This book is designed to bring out the individual hosts’ creativity so they can improve their listing over time. Not only is it a book to transform both your offline and online guest experience with loads of actionable advice, but it teaches the reader “how to fish”. That is, it is a book of strategies for the Airbnb host that is a stepping stone for continual improvement for years to come. The author, Daniel V. Rusteen, worked at Airbnb from 2013–16 and is a Superhost, super guest (with over 250+ days on Airbnb), and owner of Belo: Airbnb Property Management. He runs OptimizeMyAirbnb.com.

Key Points

- If your occupancy is adequate, skip this chapter until you need it.
- If your bookings suddenly stop after a certain date, you need a
price adjustment.
- A sparsely booking upcoming calendar is a great indication of a
needed re-optimization.

First of all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you have sufficient calendar
occupancy, then just let it roll.

Second, ignore your rank. Unlike Google, Airbnb is moving towards more personalized search results based on the guests prior behavior. This means, the position you see your listing in does not correlate to how other guests will see it. The only thing that matters to you is your occupancy level (See Chapter 9: Let’s Talk About Revenue Management).

Third, ignore listing views. Again, it’s about occupancy only. With that said, Airbnb probably does take into consideration conversion rate, but their data is so rudimentary (and I’m unconvinced on the accuracy as sometimes mobile and desktop show differences) at this point, I’m forced to ignore it.

One more time: Focus on occupancy. It is extremely measurable. If you do not have occupancy goals, you should stop now and read the chapter referenced above. Generally, during high season, you want to have about 50% of days booked within the next month and 100% within the next 7–10 days. If your occupancy is fine, then you do not and should not do a thing to your listing as it relates to a mini optimization.

You still want to be updating new settings that Airbnb adds. Sign up for the newsletter on my website to have me update you as to when this happens (plus other neat stuff I find while scouring the Internet for Airbnb stuff).

You still want to be removing information for your listing as it becomes irrelevant and adding information as it becomes relevant. If your calendar has a high occupancy rate and then suddenly there are no more bookings after one day, then you may just need a price adjustment.

Maybe you are moving into low season? On average, you will want to vary your price by 40% throughout the year. I use PriceLabs and have reviewed them with a how to guide (See Chapter 25: PriceLabs, Smart Pricing Tool).

Please be aware this means you have to be actively monitoring your listings occupancy. On the other hand, if your listing has a booking here and there with many unbooked days in between, then you very well may need a re-optimization. It happens to the best of us. The good news is that it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes and should only happen two to three times per year at most.

How to Re-Optimize Your Airbnb Listing

In no particular order and not to be done all at once (typically, you only need to do 4 or 5 of the below items):

1. Change your title.
2. Readjust your Airbnb pricing hack. See Chapter 8: Pricing Hack For More Views — This will need to happen 2 times per year. Once for high season and once for low season. Remember, you want your displayed price without dates to be about 10% lower than your actual price. If you go into busy season without changing your base price, it could be 50% lower than your actual price.
3. Revise your listing description. If you have not read your listing in 6+ months, I bet you will be able to write it with significantly fewer words while being more informative. Additionally, things may not be relevant that you added many months ago.
4. Change your cover photo.
5. Update the order of your photos.
6. Revisit and edit your photo captions.
7. Add a new review photo. Screenshot your best review and add it to your photos around the 5th photo.
8. Go through the entire listing settings. To ensure Airbnb hadn’t added something that needs to be filled in. They do this often and you want to show the Airbnb system that you are an engaged host by filling in these new requirements as they become available. Sign up for my newsletter on the homepage of my website for me to update you as to when this happens (plus other Airbnb goodies from my hours of online research).
9. Make your space event ready. See Chapter 16: Make Your Airbnb Event Ready.
10. Appear in more search results. See Chapter 6: 17 Unconventional Ways To Increase Your Search Rank.