Looking for ways to promote my vacation condo

Not just listed, but actively promoted. A host on the CC made a list of all the properties that came up in the first 50 sown in search in London. One was a 2.92 rated listing that was essentially a closet-sized room with no hot water.

Seems like it would hurt booking rate. Does Airbnb use a count of unique views in their search ranking algorithm or something?

The crazy thing is that if @gigman7 is attempting to drive hits to his listing then he obviously knows nothing about the importance of a listing’s conversion rate. :rofl:

Airbnb has said quite blatantly in their blog that conversion rate is a factor in the placing of listings in search results. However, it is also basic common sense.

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Is “conversion rate” the same as what Airbnb calls “booking rate”, i.e. percent of views that turn into bookings?

The logic is that Airbnb want people to book. Not my place, not your place, they don’t mind at all, they just want people to book. So it’s a numbers game.

If a listing has had 20 views and 10 of those people have booked, that’s going to be shown higher in search results than a similiar place that’s been viewed 200 times and booked only 10.

This has been written about in the Airbnb blog but there are still some hosts who believe that getting a lot of hits, even from people who aren’t likely to book (like members of a hosts’ forum :slight_smile: ), is a good thing. It isn’t. Airbnb don’t care about the lookers, they want the bookers.

I really appreciate all of the feedback. I haven’t read all of them yet, so many. But I do see that most are talking about the same thing so I will address that first.

Evolve isn’t like most other property managers. I am more involved. That’s the way I wanted it. So is my housekeeper. I teach school so I can’t be available during the day when most people may call to book. I pay them a very small percentage. Most of the low ratings you see on their properties are because of owners/housekeepers. I have hired what I think is going to be a good. But, with individuals having poor ratings with the same PM, that’s why I need to get my own ratings up.

Yes. It also shows you within your progress on the laptop your percentages of searches, clicks, click-throughs. If you garner enough interest, it pushes your listing up and helps with bookings. But as @jaquo states, conversion rate matters as well. A lot.

Must be real IPs and not bots. Air knows how to track click bots.

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I read reviews on a few of their listings, and it’s obvious that they are remote and somebody else does cleaning and maintenance. But, if the owners aren’t keeping their end of the bargain, it looks bad for Evolve, which makes me wonder why they would continue to support the listings.

Also, as you’ve seen, a lot of experienced Airbnb hosts who also use Airbnb as guests won’t even book with hosts that have bunches of listings, and for the same reasons they see in Evolve’s listings.

You really should have this setup (at least on Airbnb) so that you are the listing admin and the primary host and Evolve is the cohost.

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But the problem for you @gigman7 is that they have set the listing up under their profile rather than yours so they will get the reviews and rating not you and sadly you will be affected by their poor ratings and reviews for their other listings. Why would you want to use a management company that doesn’t let you set up your listing under your own profile and add them as a co-host?

This means if you decide not to work with them you will lose any ratings and reviews built up under their profile. I would never work with a management company that forced me to list under their profile.

If it is true that poor ratings elsewhere are due to bad property owners, why are they continuing to support these hosts?

People do not call to book on Airbnb many use Instant Book or send a request to book which you have up to 24 hours to respond to. So it’s easy to manage your listing as a host when you work full time (many of us do).

Quite honestly I spend on average 5 minutes a day managing my listing (sometimes a little more on check in and check out days).

By the way why do you think Evolve are different than other management companies and that you are ‘more involved’. In what ways are you involved in managing your listing that you wouldn’t be with other companies.

And are you able to access your listing as a co-host so you can check bookings, messaging etc?

In your situation if you feel you don’t have the capacity to manage guest inquiries between yourself and your housekeeper, I would find a local superhost who can act as a co-host and set up your own listing and add your co-host.

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No, they’re not. Most other property managers tend to do a decent job, Evolve clearly aren’t.

If the changeovers and cleaning are down to the property owners then I can’t see what they’re doing to earn their cut.

As a prospective guest, one look at the low ratings would send me elsewhere. STR is a competitive sector and if the PM you’ve chosen don’t do their job properly then the only person that suffers is you, the property owner.

If you’re intent on staying with them, there’s not a lot folks here can do to help you.

JF

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This sounds very interesting. How would I go about doing this?

They have no clue what they are talking about.

.What lists?
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I don’t have the availability to do this.

That’s why I’m here. Thanks!

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I am more of the host than Evolve. They do the booking and prebooking contact. After that, it is up to me and my housekeeper to take care of them. I think a lot of these people with low ratings go with them since they are the least expensive and think they don’t have to do anything. When I was researching hosts, I told every one of them that I wanted to be involved. Some of them didn’t seem to like that idea so I moved on to the next one. I talked to 20 or more potential companies.

No, it doesn’t have a tree year round. My mother has a condo in Pigeon Forge with her listing having a tree picture for the last 4 years and hers stays booked. There are 3 Christmas shops in Pigeon Forge that stay open year round and they stay busy all year.

They don’t charge much because they really don’t do that much. They are more of a booking agent than a property manager. I guess. They created the ad and take calls for people wanting to book. The rest is up to me and my housekeeper.

No, No, and um, No…

  1. Join your local tourism bureau

  2. Get a designer to design a logo for you, or design your own using online tools

  3. Speak to suppliers of signage and business cards