Whatever you can do to get more people to click through, as long as you’re being completely truthful, is a positive thing. Ask yourself what information makes people come visit your listing. Don’t think about what information you want to tell people or how you can best describe your property. Think about what will get people to click through.

Utilizing smart locks, keypad locks, or lockboxes to enable remote check-ins and check-outs can save time for both you and your guests. Using messaging and calendar automation tools like SmartBNB to cut down as much as 90 percent of guest inquiries. Refer to Chapter 9 for a detailed discussion on Airbnb automation. Purchasing items to simplify

Hosts can see prospective guests’ profiles and require that guests show a government-issued photo ID. A government-issued photo ID can include a passport or a driver’s license. Guests also can offer other verifications, such as a personal email address, a work email address, a phone number, a Facebook account, and a photo. You can reach out to

If mostly booked for next two weeks, then stay the course until your listing is mostly booked four weeks out — aim for 80 percent plus occupancy. If not booked out, drop pricing by another 10 percent every week until you’re booked four weeks out. If more than four weeks are booked within the first week, then raise prices by 10 percent every week

It conditions guests to see the positives. Almost no guests will leave negative comments in a guest book during their stay so your guest book essentially will be filled with the positive messages left from your previous guests. Even for guests who ultimately don’t sign the guest book, many will read it, more likely to see their stay in a similar

You’re ultimately always going either upward or downward. Your listing is never truly stagnant with Airbnb unless your listing is getting 0 bookings. Unless your listing is dormant, you’re either improving or declining, so you want to make sure your listing keeps improving rather than declining.

Hosts often secure these lockboxes around a metal pole or screw them to a surface. They often have a four-digit combination or have a 10-digit keypad. Figure 12-3 shows examples of both popular pole-mounted and surface-mounted lockboxes.

Airbnb’s search algorithm is ultimately what determines how many people actually see your listing. When you first launch your listing, Airbnb will send lots of traffic to it to give it a shot. If your listing isn’t optimized and you don’t turn that traffic into bookings, you’ll notice that the amount of traffic your listing receives will slow down

Have your friends and family wish list your listing. This function allows users to add different properties that they want to visit to a wish list. As an Airbnb user, you mark it as being on your wish list and that signifies that you want to stay there.