How to make your listing description stand out?

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

How to make your listing description stand out?

Listing description.jpg

 

 

Hello everyone,

 

I hope you are all good. 

 

Your listing description is personal to you. It is a chance to show your listing off at its best and bring out the character of your home.

 

In addition, your listing description also needs to be informative and provide a range of details for potential guests to make sure your home is a right fit for them.

 

How do you create a listing description that sets your home apart from others in your area and attracts the right guests to your home?

 

It would be great to hear your ideas on this.

 

Lizzie


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42 Replies 42
Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lizzie

I have a video loop that I had professionally put together. It was entirely shot with a 'drone' and features a fish eye camera lense run down the main street of Mt barker barely a metre above the car roofs....... skimming over the waters dodging ducks and birds in the local wetlands, a pass up a row of vines in one of the vineyards just before sunset. I even got permission to have it do a run inside one of the shopping malls and of course it flits around the garden and inside the listing. It is all shot in ultra high definition and it make the area and the listing look fantastic. I know it sounds twee but I back it with some piano.....absolutely no Jazz Lizzie, just a straight bit of one of my own compositions of which there is one sour note which I am sure you will detect. This loop runs on the cottage TV when guests arrive and it also features the house rules that we want observed.

 

I can't put it up on You Tube because it identifies the property, nor can I put in into my listing description for the same reason. It is purely a welcome thing to guests, so, here is that audio and a few snaps I have put together to go with it!

 

 https://youtu.be/M_D_GT_2cuo

 

I wish I could show you the loop Lizzie, it would blow you away but I think I would be breaking a few rules

 

Cheers......Rob

David126
Level 10
Como, CO

I know a couple of people with high end drones and had an advertising shoot for a Truck using the Depot next door, now that Drone was impressive! Being at 10,000ft the air is thinner so the small ones do not work that well.

 

A video option would be nice, prospective guests seem to prefer pictures to words.

David
Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@David126

I would love to share this video with you David! You are a professional host, and I am sure you would be amazed at the quality of this. 

I sort of cheated in that I know the guy with the drone well!

The drone itself is worth $72,000 AU !!

He uses it to do mapping technology for farmers! He scans a 1,000 acre cerial growing field in a matter of minutes and the drone's software picks up where the wet spots and the dry spots are, where more fertiliser is required and provides the mapping information on an SD card the farmer puts into the computer on his tractor and the equipement then automatically compensates for the shortcomings in the arrible terrian! This drone is an amazing piece of technology and as soon as I saw it's capabilities I was hooked and had to use them.

The funny thing was David, I wanted to do a pass down one of the interior shopping malls, flash down the 'International food' isle with 100s of cheeses and delicacies from around the world.....20 different prosciutto's alone!!. Now when you rock up to 'Centre management' with a $50 jobbie from K Mart they tell you to bugger off! But when you turn up with a $100,000 state of the art drone, they roll out the red carpet for you, they even try to drag in more shoppers to make the whole thing look more effective!!

It was a great experience and there is no doubt about it, drones are the way of the future!

As an old turd, it's nice to get in on the ground floor!

 

Cheers.....Rob 

Seems here that ever Realtor/Estate Agent needs one now, a friend is getting into Home Inspection adnis looking to use one for Roof Inspections.

 

Perhaps a way for Hosts to keep an eye on on Guest activities? Would not need to be disclosed!

David

Focus on the guest. What does the guest base his rating on?

 

  1. Main photo
  2. Title
  3. The photo of the host's profile
  4. Price
  5. The number of reviews, unless you have just landed on AIRBNB.

 

Let the images speak. The photos communicate more than your words: the photos must be beautiful. The description of the house is often not read at all, unfortunate event, so that the guest expectations will be different, making you lose your good mood, but certainly the photos will be watched.

 

Main photo. It depends on what you consider to be the "wow factor": it is the cornerstone of the perfect ad.

 

Internal / external photos. Clean and tidy house. No film  set from “The Texas chainsaw massacre”. At least a couple of photos for each room photographed from multiple angles at handle height. Highlight the details, the household appliances: the washing machine, the decorated doors etc. Label your photos.

 

The title. The title should intrigue, be fresh and informal, it should not sound sappy or schizophrenic: no "Secret love nest neighboringly far", but "Bright house in the heart of Rome", fast indexing in the main search engines.

 

The profile photo. Be recognizable. Possibly in full close-up. Nobody books the house of Charles Manson or Hannibal the cannibal.

 

Description. Be synthetic. Show the host with who is talking, who will share the spaces, who will take care of him. Write two lines that talk about you. Be, in short, real, true.

 

Such information shall be appropiately:

 

° where your house is located;

° if the house has security systems (carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguishers, etc.);

° check-in and check-out times;

° prices per night, possibly competitive, but without selling off: do not rely on AIRBNB. It takes some time to figure out which is the perfect price to attract better guests and at the same time be competitive;

° the reservation;

° the calendar.

 

At this point, informally describe your accommodation and its rules of use.

 

Do not wave too many exaggerated and hyperbolic praises on  your home: you run the risk of being taken for a salesman who wants to sell at all costs. Never treat guests as customers: you do not sell a product, you offer a unique and imperfect experience, in a unique and different place that has been prepared by someone real - even if managed by a portal - that offers a more intense, unconventional human contact that the guest will never experience in a hundred-room hotel . What makes AIRBNB so special? The fact that the guests live in a place as native townies rather than as tourists.

 

Try to establish immediately an authentic relationship with the guest, forgetting for a while the economic aspect. If you are at the beginning of your adventure with AIRBNB do not hesitate to say it: it’s a good way to be nice and honest: "Hi, I'm Emily, I’m very new to AIRBNB and I'd love to host you at my house, I'm sure you’ll be fine".

 

Be honest. Notify guests of defects, malfunctions: if the oven does not work, write it down. The simple truth is the only kindness.

 

Highlight the strength points of your home: for example, the proximity to the subway, the confectionery shop around the corner where you can buy a tray of assorted pastries. They represent the solid base of a fragile building of uncertain fate: your first ad, written without arrogance and false modesty, filled with timid words of wisdom. Impossible to enclose them in a formula.

 

The field under the title is perhaps the most important of all: it will decide your destiny. Fate is coming. But no fear, for you’ll be confident, calm and ready to welcome it.

So, @Emily0, I'm curious, with your talk about the importance of a profile photo, why is yours a greyed- out sillouette?

I know you are wondering, Sarah, so I’ll save you the trouble. I am neither a host nor a guest. I've always felt like a host, even if I've never been, because the real host was my father (with a profile photo), although I took care of everything (ad, check-in etc.).

 

Probably, if my father were still alive, today I would use other maneuverable portals: AIRBNB penalizes cancellations and requires high standards in terms of response, reviews, scores.

 

Today my point of view has changed. The new map with the new directions of the route worries me a lot. I don’t know if I would be able to rediscover the sense of orientation.

Today I ask a house sharing platform not to be treated like a stupid child, but to be able to get up when I want and to walk in the same direction of the train. Or in the opposite one.

 

But above all, I desperately need a new and more welcoming place that leads me easily to my destination, without unpleasant obstacles, intrusive requests and unexpected detours.

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Thanks @Emily352, for your great overview in your post a couple above. It is great to hear what you think hosts should consider and convey through their description and importantly show that you are a real person. 🙂 

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

Welcome back @Lizzie! Be back this evening and will add some thoughts on the subject. Laters.

Kelly149
Level 10
Austin, TX

@Lizzie this is an interesting topic since the listing is so important. However, I’ve noticed that in the new Plus listings the text has been reduced to a mere few sentences. 

Anyone who ever looks at my listing will realize that I’m a fan of words. 

Welcome back. 

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Thanks @Kelly149. It's nice to be back. 🙂

 

It's a good oberservation regarding Plus. I'm a fan of words too, I suppose it is about striking a good balance between have too much for a guest to read with having too little that the guest is left wanting more and perhaps filling in the gaps themselves. 

 

What do you try to convey through your description?


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

@Lizzie well, my listing tries to convey quite a lot, but the message is only as good as how much the guest reads. 

Frankly, if a guest read thru it and thought 'this lady is too wordy and too invested in this space' and booked elsewhere then that likely would be a good result for me. (bc I'd rather have less good guests than more bad guests) The problem is when guests don't have the ability to read in such a way that they can discern if they are a good fit for the space or not, go ahead and IB anyway and then we're stuck with mismatched expectations.

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Lizzie  Welcome back, hope you had a great honeymoon. 

I hope you've had time to read all the comments on the new "Home Highlights", which virtually no hosts want stuck at the top of their listing descriptions. Its hard enough to get guests to read the information without having this be the first thing they read. Why can't Airbnb leave well enough alone- Hosts should be able to present their listings they way they see fit and based on what works for them. 

Bruna-and-Siana0
Level 10
Santa Clara, CA

Welcome back @Lizzie

 

I agree with most of comments here: "a picture is worth thousand words". As a guest, the most important things of a listing are (in order): pictures, location, overall score, price, reviews, summary, and host profile.

 

Most of guest don't read the listing description, they just focus on the key things. In our listing we tried to write "minimal" information, use bullet points and focus on highlighting things than our guests  might appreciate the most. However, most of guests don't read anything. Some read the summary and house rules, others don't read a single word. As @Sarah977 said, the 'Home highlights" and the new calendar on the bottom don't help.

Listings are too crowded now.  In my opinion, AirBnB should decluter the listing template to make it  more clear. Pictures, summary, price, map , house rules and reviews are the key info. The rest (the space, interaction with guest, getting around, the neighborhood, etc) can be "hidden" under a Read more button or tap. This will ensure that guest at least read the key information. With the current design, no one does it.