In this episode of Vacation Rental Machine, Jon Bell and Julian Sage talk about writing a catchy and attractive listing description and title so you can increase your chances of getting booked by your target guests.
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Julian Sage: 00:00 In this episode, we’re talking about what you should be putting in your listing description and titles, so stay tuned.
Julian Sage: 00:05 Vacation rental machine helps hosts just like you learn how to start, grow and scale your short term rental business. The show’s all about creating systems that help you automate your business, give any more time and money freedom. If you’re ready to start living the vacation rental life that subscribed to this podcast today, come and join us on our Facebook group, the host nation, where we’ll be talking about starting automating and scaling a short term rental business. Now onto the show.
Julian Sage: 00:31 Hey, what is going on host nation and welcome to another episode of vacation rental machine. I have the special honor today of speaking with Jon Bell. I’m in Florida though. John is still in the DC area. Where, where are you right now, Jon, actually?
Jon Bell: 00:42 I’m actually one of my newest build-outs. It’s one of my retro builds. So this one’s going to look a lot different than what I normally do, but it’s still pretty cool.
Julian Sage: 00:50 So you’re on another build. How many properties is this right now? This is I think this is technically 29. I got 30 and 31 that are also be online by next week. And that’s awesome Jon. Yeah, right now I’m actually in Florida for my mom’s wedding. So in the last episode I was actually in the Jon definitely want to go check out that up. So that one was pretty unique.
Julian Sage: 01:11 But right now, I’m at my mom’s home just enjoying the Florida weather and trying to make sure that my mom’s wedding gets, you know, everything goes through, but it doesn’t matter where we are. We’re all about providing you this awesome valuable content. So now we’ve moved on to after you have created your profile, you are going to want to start working on the copy of your listing so it can be overwhelming. Once you get your listing up and running, you’ve created your profile. Maybe you’ve used the link down below to actually register and create your profile. But if you have created your profile, it can be a little bit overwhelming cause now you’re stepping into a new platform. If Airbnb is your first one, you have to learn about everything that you need to fill out and we’re going to be covering that in the next few episodes.
Speaker 1: 01:52 So the first thing that comes to mind after you’ve already taken your photos, we’ve already covered that plenty of times in the previous episodes. Definitely want to go check out the episodes where we did cover what the optimal photos that you do want to be taking because there is a difference from traditional real estate photos and vacation rental, short term rental photos that you would be listing on Airbnb. So that was a really good in that episode. If you haven’t seen that, definitely want to go check that one out. I’ll include that in the description and somewhere up here, but now that you have your photos, you want to start working on your title and your description. So Jon, when people are scrolling through Airbnb and they are looking, first thing that comes to mind is a probably looking at your photos. The second thing is going to be your titles.
Jon Bell: 02:32 What have you found to be the most successful or attracting people to click on your link? You know, it’s a, it’s a combination of a certain things. We are limited in characters space for each one of these titles and descriptions. So we want to make sure that we put our best foot forward. I always suggest putting up all the bullet points that you have for your listing. Whether that means you got a high walk score, whether that means is by a location or you got maybe two to three bedrooms. Those are things that are, you know, eye catchers. They let somebody know like, Hey, this has exactly what I’m looking for. Do you want to make sure that that character space is used optimally? At the same time I started using emojis in my title just to grab some people’s attention. That seems to still work.
Jon Bell: 03:21 So I would also say include those things and the title just to kind of separate yours from everybody else. Now that I told you guys this, I’m going to have to figure out a way to separate mine from what you guys are going to be doing. Stay awake for two differently by person to person. Modern’s also interpreted different. So be careful with those words. Don’t use them loosely even though you might feel like the space that you have matches that category.
Julian Sage: 03:46 So Jon, what are some good examples of titles and what are some bad examples of titles?
Jon Bell: 03:50 You know, I like to put up like when I know I got a strong walk score, I’m going to put that first, I’m going to say, Hey, walk score 99 close to whatever attraction it’s close to close to the airport. And then if I’m trying to grab my business customers, I’m going to say fast wi-fi or you know, workspace that lets somebody know, just Hey, this is exactly what it is.
Jon Bell: 04:15 I also, in my descriptions, I’m very bulleted. I like to just see exactly, Hey, what, what it is I don’t like to read. You know, like that, those long descriptions of how you’re trying to kind of sell me that this place is, you know, super charming and, and you know, you can go do this and you can go do that. I just want to see bullets. Like this is what it is. Bang, bang, bang. Right? It’s not like a real estate listing where you say, Hey, you know, spacious bathroom with you know, double shower heads or stuff like that. Like I can see all of that from the photos. So just tell me what the place is like and then tell me what the surrounding areas like.
Julian Sage: 04:52 I think you brought up a really good point John, in that a lot of people when they are thinking of their listing, they’re thinking of it almost like a traditional, like if you were to search into Google but Airbnb and these different channels, they aren’t like Google when you are typing something, it’s not going to search the same way.
Speaker 1: 05:08 So what Jon was saying is you do want to throw in things like those emojis. While we still can do that, I’m sure that that will eventually change. So as of this video, you still can use emojis. Well, like what Jon was saying was that you’re not trying to use those filler words that would be in traditional real estate where in traditional real estate where they’re trying to like sell you this, this beautiful experience and all of this well John recommends is that you are bulleting everything out and making it easy for someone so that when they do see your photo, they have a really attractive photo that will attract the type of guests that you are looking for. A title that will pop up, including some of those emojis, including what is the reason why they are going to click on your title. And then when they get to this, the description they’re seeing exactly very quickly, this is what’s included, this is what’s included, this is what’s included instead of writing a long paragraph.
Julian Sage: 05:59 So those are the three big things that I think about when you are creating your profile initially is your photos, your title and your description. But is there anything else that we should be putting in our descriptions to be able to attract and increase the chances of someone booking with us?
Jon Bell: 06:13 Yeah. One mindset is that this is the first thing that a somebody sees. So if you do yourself a favor and include all the stuff that they would ask you initial questions on, you can then shortcut a lot of the questions that you would get from the inquiries. Again, I like to get instant books versus somebody asking me a question that I’ve already labeled like how far is it away from transit or how far away is it from the airport? We bullet those items. Then we can tell the guests, Hey, this is what it is right now like I’ve answered your question already.
Julian Sage: 06:46 So Jon, with over 30 properties, you’ve probably get a lot of inquiries about your different listings and they probably had a lot of different questions. How are you able to cut back on how frequently people are messaging you prior to booking?
Jon Bell: 06:58 I just include that information upfront. So again, like if they’re asking about Metro, if they’re asking about vicinity to wherever, if I know it’s close to a convention center, I’m going to put all that stuff right in front of them prior to them even messaging me. I want them to just see it and know it. And when I do ask, I’m pretty much going to copy and paste what I’ve put on the listing because it is raw already right there. Some people still ask a question. I feel like that’s just a test just to see, Hey, is there somebody that’s going to be responsive?
Speaker 1: 07:30 And we’ll talk about responsiveness in another episode. But sometimes that is very key. So you just want to make sure that the information is already at their fingertips so they don’t have to go dig and find whatever it is and or you just have to expose the address so they can map themselves from point a to point B.
Julian Sage: 07:48 Right. It really sounds like what you are trying to do is you’re not trying to create some very unique, very creative type of experience. You are literally just listening to what your customers are asking for. If you’re, if your clients are saying, Hey, where is the closest Metro or how long does it take to get to D C maybe those are signs that you should be putting these things in your description or in your title so that when people are going through they automatically have the answer and instead of you having to go back and create an automated message or without you having to manually go and type in a response, they can already have that and that will allow them to be more inclined to book with you.
Julian Sage: 08:22 Because if somebody else has that in their description, like you know, five minutes to Metro, then maybe they’ll be more inclined to book with them because that’s the answer that they were looking for. If that’s what I’m understanding, Jon.
Jon Bell: 08:32 You got it.
Julian Sage: 08:34 Awesome. So it’s all about answering your guest questions and attracting them through your listing. So you’re trying to stand out and standing out has to come from your photos to your title and then the description. And if they’re not sold by that, then maybe that place wasn’t the type of place that was trying to fulfill their need. That wasn’t your ideal client. So it’s really all falls back to step one, which is your branding. You know, what is your branding? What is your target customer? Because if you don’t know who you’re trying to attract and you’re not going to attract anybody.
Jon Bell: 09:01 Just keep in mind that we are professionals, right? So we’re selling the photos, the description, we want to make sure that they represent our property very well. So let’s make sure photos are on point, right? Make sure the description is answering all the questions and letting them know everything that they need to know before booking. That way you don’t have to be messaging in the middle of the night just trying to win a booking, right? You just want them to book. I love waking up saying, Hey, three people booked overnight. It’s the best feeling ever.
Julian Sage: 09:34 And with all that being said, host nation, keep on hosting. Hope you hosts found value in this episode. If you did, please go on over to iTunes and leave us a review. That would greatly support the show. If you’d like to connect with Jon the community, and I then go on over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to you hosts in the next step episode keep on hosting.
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