How Your Property Can Provide Extra Income
Airbnb provides a great way to start a business, host travelers at your home or property and make some money. It's an alternative to hotels, offering a more homely environment for travelers to stay during their vacation, often with home comforts such as a kitchen and laundry room. The benefits of offering a vacation property rental like this include extra income, the ability to run your own business and the joy of hosting.
But if you’re new to Airbnb, how exactly do you get started? Strap in while we provide instructions on how to list your property on Airbnb.
Listing Your Property: A Step-by-Step Guide
Follow these easy steps to get your Airbnb off the ground and start accepting guests. It doesn’t cost anything to upload your property to Airbnb, but once you get bookings, you’ll need to pay a percentage fee for each booking to Airbnb.
1. Make an Account
If you already have an account that you use as an Airbnb guest, you won’t have to make a new one. If you don’t have an account, navigate to this sign-up page to make an account.
If you have an existing guest account, click the "Airbnb Your Home" button in the top right corner of the page.
2. Navigate to Airbnb Setup
On the page linked in step 1, click "Airbnb Setup" in the pink box in the top right corner. Then click "Get Started" to make your Airbnb listing.
3. Tell Airbnb About Your Place
Airbnb will then take you through a step-by-step "Tell us about your place" navigation, where you’ll answer questions and provide information about the property you’ll be listing on Airbnb. You can even get guidance from a "Superhost."
During this part of the process, you’ll select the type of property you’ll be listing, whether it’s an entire place or a room, the location, basic details such as the number of bedrooms, photos, a title and a description.
You’ll also select options for your calendar (how often people will be able to book your home) as well as pricing.
4. Complete Identity Verification
Once you publish a listing, it won’t become live until you verify your identity. Once your identity has been verified, your listing will become active and guests will be able to book your property. Remember, it can take up to 72 hours for a listing to appear in the Airbnb search results.
5. Advertise Your Airbnb
Once your listing is live, you can start advertising your property to your friends and family and across social media.
Top Tips for Airbnb Listing Success
Here’s how to start receiving guests as soon as possible and get 5-star reviews.
Include Search Terms
Like SEO, you can make your Airbnb listing more likely to appear in searches by considering what features or words guests are more likely to search for, such as "swimming pool" or "great views."
Include these keywords in your description and even your title. Consider what visitors to your area look for from vacation rental properties. If you’re in Los Angeles, for example, and your place has views of the Hollywood sign, include this detail in your listing.
Ask for Reviews
When you have a positive experience with a guest, ask them (politely, of course!) if they wouldn’t mind leaving a positive review, and you can offer to leave one for them in return. Having lots of positive reviews makes prospective guests much more likely to trust that your listing is good and, therefore, book it.
Be Flexible
Flexibility isn’t always possible, but when it is, it’s something you should offer. Whether that’s allowing people to book instantly without you having to accept the booking or allowing bookings for one night only, flexibility can make it more likely for guests to stay at your property.
Keep Your Calendar Up to Date
There’s nothing worse for guests than finding an Airbnb property they fall in love with only to discover the calendar hasn’t been updated, so they can’t check if it’s available for their date of choice months in advance.
By keeping your calendar up to date, you not only increase availability for guests, but also avoid the awkward scenario of somebody booking and you having to cancel since you’re busy. As soon as a date becomes available or unavailable, update it on your Airbnb calendar.
Get Ready to Welcome Your Guests
There you have it! In just a few easy steps and a matter of hours, you can have your Airbnb listing up and running and start receiving guests. Remember to take guest feedback into account to make your experience better for future guests and ask for positive reviews to attract more visitors.