Critique my listing, help increase the visibility - Chatham, Cape Cod, MA

Duo35
Level 2
Chatham, MA

Critique my listing, help increase the visibility - Chatham, Cape Cod, MA

 

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My listing: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/53942553

 

I am a new host, and I purchased this property in January and started launching Airbnb in May. It was a pretty interesting journey for me. I love interior design, tasting good food, fine art, traveling, and talking with the likewise people during my trip. I also do web design and project management. I think Airbnb could combine all those exciting things, from my personality to professionality. that is how my journey started.

 

The previous owner used this property as a short-term rental but not via Airbnb. They are a very organized couple, put labels on everything, and were very neat. The house has a pretty dated design but lots of characters.

 

Until now, I noticed lots of my guests are from 50' and 60' who love the design of the house, and they enjoy spending time with their young adults and grandchildren, which is a perfect fit for them, but my question is how should I renovate the house in the future and to attract more audiences? I am a vintage / mid-century person, but I thought renovating could not have a good ROI.

 

Another question was, I am a web person, and I am always interested in terms of how to optimize my listing and make it high visibility and SEO friendly. If you can point me my mistakes, things to improve, and suggestions, I would appreciate it. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to review and provide feedback .

 

Thanks,

Dora 

 

 

13 Replies 13
Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Duo35 

Please understand the URL to your listing is just:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/53942553

 

There is something weird on the pricing:

Three (!) special offer discounts appear in one booking:

 

Emiel1_0-1656625192033.png

 

 

Did you apply multiple promotions ?

 

As a "web person" you probably want to:

- first add a coverphoto to your homepage before linking it on external sites.

https://www.airbnb.com/users/750288/listings

- promote the listing on Social media (use "share" button on the listing for options )

Thanks for the feedback; I just fixed the parameters. 🙂 

Patti-And-Marty0
Level 10
East Fremantle, Australia

Hi @Duo35 

 

In your description under Other Things to Note it says linens are provided with an extra fee. Unless that is the standard in your area that is a real turn off. Who travels with linens?

 

Also the maximum number of people is confusing.

**Restrict to maximum 8 people**
**additional people for an added fee $50/day, No more than ten people in total**

Your photos are good and it looks appealing for the family type guest that your are getting. If it's working, why not just go with it? Non family groups would be a higher risk for parties.

Duo35
Level 2
Chatham, MA

hi @Patti-And-Marty0 
thanks for the feedback! From the data insights, 2/3 travelers to my area are from 300 miles away. Which is more like summer beach place. During covid almost all host do not provide linen, and now about half of them provide. I wanted to provide the options to my guests in case they have the needs but also have options if you want to save the fee(the local cleaning team do charge quite a lot for making beds and linens)

 Regarding the group size, I agree with you. I meant to ask any group bigger than 8, they have to check with me before booking,  that was confusing , I will update.

thanks again for the feedback.

Dora

 

Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

@Duo35  You've got a beautiful setting!  You can embrace granny chic interior design, but read up on it on the web.  There are a lot of missteps in the interior.  Someone thought they were kinda sorta matching the stair runner to the wallpaper but it's a fail.  Take down the sign that says "Coffee" hanging over what is very obviously a coffee maker.  In the living room, there's a Louis Quinze style chair near a flat-pack TV stand and a creepy nautical guy - those three elements kind of ruin the room, which has lovely details, like the floor, the credenza, and the fireplace.  In general, reduce the nautical themey-ness of the place.  Like the life buoy that says "Cape Cod."  Pretty sure people will know they're on Cape Cod once they get to Chatham.  There are seagulls, boats, lighthouses - the only thing I would keep is the whale over the coffee center.  Reduce the photos and bring the dartboard, foosball table, and beach gear up.  You've got a great place that families will love.

Thanks @Ann72  for your feedback. I feel the same way of over decorating. Most of stuff in living room are from previous owner which I would gradually update them. I create the coffee corner and remodel the kitchen (not major updates). I am a bit afraid of new elements I want to replace might not  fit the original style, causes the mix-unmatched!

Gillian166
Level 10
Hay Valley, Australia

your hero image is random, looks almost like a generic stock photo, so that's got to change.

your photos are ok, not professional. most of them aren't straight to start with. 

 I can't offer design tips as you are way too American and niche  for me to understand the quirks. I'd hate to say i didn't like something only to discover it's super popular for the region. eg, i don't see a cohesive design style (the rugs, the adorable quilts,  farmhouse, the nautical decor, faux marble benchtops with black tapware), perhaps this is the vibe? 

Looks like a great property though! Start an instagram, research the # for the region and see if you can attract attention from the local tourism board.

Thanks, Great idea to check the local tourism board. We do have a Facebook group so that I can do some homework.
You sound very professional. Would you think I should hire a photographer to reshoot my photos? How many folks hire professionals to shoot the photos? I did them on my own. Thanks!

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Duo35 

 

Great place with lots and lots to offer. I am sure it will do well.

 

Yes, the decor is dated, but I'm torn between writing a whole long list of updates that could be done (without spending a fortune) to attract a wider market and telling you not to bother if the 50-60-something market likes it as it is and that is a big enough market to keep you booked.

 

I'm still tempted to send a list of suggestions though as I'm quite passionate about interiors and this house has so much potential...

 

Other than that, I agree with @Gillian166 and @Ann72 's suggestions. Change the lead photo as it really doesn't say much about the place. Reduce the number of photos. Some are pretty decent and others less so. You don't need to spell out the wall decor bits in the captions. The photo of the flowers blooming barely has any flowers blooming, so maybe take some better photos of the garden when more is in flower. I agree that there is too much nautical themed kitsch and signs and would get rid of most of that, but quite like the display on the garage door. If there is space, perhaps you could collect all that stuff and go wild with the garage, i.e. make a feature of it, rather than have these bits and pieces dotted around the house.

 

Agree also about the side of the living room with the TV. Get rid of the sailor figure or move it elsewhere (somewhere in the garden if it's weather proof?) and move the chair to a bedroom or a reading corner. Is there another place in the room that you could put the TV? You have a nice big fireplace and I would try to make that more of a feature/focus point in the room. It's a bit lost right now...

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

PS @Duo35 

 

If you go to Pinterest and search for 'Cape Cod interior', loads of results will come up with ideas on how to style and tweak your listing. I think paint could be your best friend. If it was me, I'd be painting a lot of that dark wood and orangey pine to freshen the place up. When I think of Cape Cod, I think bright, light and airy. Then again, I know the 60-something market tends to like dark wood furniture (or at least think they do).

 

I think there is also great benefit in 'shopping your own home', or in this case, 'your own listing'. The house is full of pictures and home accessories. They are just not arranged very artfully. You may find that simply moving things from one room to another, grouping things that work well together etc. can do wonders without costing a penny/dime.

WOW! that is a lot of suggestions and in detail. Thanks @Huma0 for your time in putting them together. really really appreciated it! 🙂

 

My first step would be re-grouping the home decors that work well together from room to room. I've started to research on Pinterest. I did admit that many of them were collected by the previous owners, and I am afraid that changing the arrangement could damage the design more (not confident enough). But I will give a try.


Again, I am delighted to meet many pros with design eyes here. Thank you so much! 🙂

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Duo35 

 

You've done a good job with the coffee station, so I definitely think you have the ability to improve the arrangement of items in the house. It maybe just seems overwhelming as there are a lot of rooms and quite a lot of stuff.

 

You could just gather all of the bits and bobs and put them in one room and have a good look at them. You may instantly notice things that work well together and can start grouping things. Or, you might just stare at it all for a while and then run away!

 

If you think the latter is more likely to happen, try to break down the task into more manageable segments, e.g. start with a particular category. 

 

One thing I noticed is that there are quite a few pictures and other things displayed on the walls, but a lot of it is scattered around, sometimes in a seemingly random fashion which looks 'bitty' and not very effective. Also, I don't know if a tall person hung some of these pictures but a lot of them look too high (my dad was tall and always use to do this). Pictures should, in general be hung at eye level for an 'average' height person.

 

That is, unless, you are creating a gallery wall or grouping. I think that, unless you have large, statement pieces of art, or just need something for a small area, pictures (and other decorative objects) often look better grouped. Look for similarities and a theme (coastal would be an obvious one in this case) and see how they look grouped together.

 

You can lay them out on the floor and move them around until you find an arrangement that you like. If you are still not confident about putting them on the wall at that stage, use brown paper or similar and cut pieces the same size as the pictures, then use making tape (or something else that doesn't cause damage) to stick the paper to the wall. Once you are happy with the position of everything, you can start hanging the actual frames.

 

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If the artwork itself has colours that work together, the frames do not need to be matching. An eclectic selection can work very well as long as there is enough variety. Or, if you think that looks too busy or messy, you could always paint the frames the same colour. This takes next to no time to do. I quite like painting frames the same colour as the walls (if the walls have colour on them). That can look very chic. 

 

I don't know what has been used to hang the pictures, but if you are not planning on filling and repainting walls, you might want to think about hanging your groups of pictures in areas where there were already some frames hanging so that you can cover up any holes.

 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Duo35 

 

PS, when creating a gallery wall or grouping pictures, don't leave big gaps between them, especially with the smaller ones, as this just looks 'bitty' again. You want it to look intentional, not random.

 

As you can see from the above examples, the gaps are much smaller than the frames. Personally, I prefer the third example, where the paintings are displayed closer to each other.